Despite the doom and gloom that appears to be all around us these days, are we entering a ‘new era’ for the enforcement of human rights? For Le Figaro, columnist Jean-Sebastien Stehli writes that a book by Russian-French investigative reporter Elena Servettaz called, Why Europe Needs a Magnitsky Law, may trigger major changes, making it impossible for human rights violators to travel freely or spend their ill-gotten gains.
For Le Figaro, Jean-Sebastien Stehli writes in part:
It’s been almost four years to the day since 37-year-old lawyer Sergei Magnitsky died in a Moscow prison, beaten to death by his captors. His crime? Uncovering the largest tax fraud ever committed in Russia. It gets better! The fraud was the work of government officials allied with a mafia-style gang (although the distinction between the two is sometimes difficult to discern). Magnitsky, a lawyer for American businessman William Browder, noticed the disappearance of $230 million from the Russian state. When he sought to take the case to court, he was arrested by officials connected to the embezzlement.
It was a year ago that the United States Congress passed the Magnitsky Act, prohibiting entry into the United States by anyone with a role in Magnitsky’s death. The black list is not complete. As new perpetrators are revealed, their names are added to the list of shame.
This book and the advocacy of [Magnitsky’s former employer] William Browder mark the beginning of a new era of human rights. First came the “duty to intervene” championed by Doctors Without Borders in the wake of the 1968 Biafran War [present-day Nigeria]. This new stage is more attuned to globalization and development of the mafia state: the rights of those guilty of violent abuses of human rights, whoever and wherever they are, will have their dirty money seized and travel in democratic countries restricted, particularly in the United States and Europe, where they most enjoy spending their money. Let’s hope that the same energy being devoted to fighting tax havens will also be devoted to the fight against anyone flouting the rights of every citizen.
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