Welcome to the European Parliamentary Research Service podcasts.

In this podcast, we'll talk about the rise of global human rights sanctions and compare

how the US, Canada, the UK and the EU deal with human rights violations and abuses worldwide.

Stay with us.

Little could Russian whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky imagine that his death, while in detention in Russian prison,

would trigger such international outrage and inspire a whole new approach to counter human rights abuses around the world,

from geographical to thematic sanctions.

Adopted by the US in 2016, the Global Magnitsky Act was the first of a new generation of human rights

sanctions programs, which, in contrast to traditional sanctions, targeted at individual countries,

can be flexibly applied to perpetrators from all over the world, regardless of where they

come from.

Thermatic sanctions have several advantages over geographical ones.

They are more flexible and easy to adopt, and as the US experience shows, they put less of a strain

on bilateral relations with countries that are also important economic partners, such as China.

They also allow to fight transnational crime more effectively, as in the case of terrorism,

drug trafficking or cybercrime.

And because they don't target a specific country, but individuals from different countries involved in the same crime,

they can circumvent vetoes from UN Security Council members,

such as Russia and China,

who traditionally block any proposal to sanction human rights violations.

Allowing Western countries and other democratic powers to press ahead when UN measures are not possible.

So, following the example of the US, many other countries have adopted similar laws,

...