tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/magnitsky-act-50450/articlesMagnitsky Act – The Conversation2022-05-03T20:49:42Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1822142022-05-03T20:49:42Z2022-05-03T20:49:42ZNo, Biden can’t just sell off seized Russian yachts and central bank assets to help aid Ukraine – international law and the US Constitution forbid it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461032/original/file-20220503-19379-xgcgk0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=302%2C87%2C6205%2C4244&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Biden wants to find a way to seize oligarch-owned yachts.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/RussiaUkraineWar-SanctionsExplainer/2b8b144590104677b1f74bd58e0552fb/photo?Query=us%20Russian%20yacht&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=21&currentItemNo=0">AP Photo/Francisco Ubilla</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Biden administration <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/04/joe-biden-wants-to-sell-russian-yachts-ukraine-aid">wants to sell off the yachts, homes and other luxury assets</a> it has seized from Russian oligarchs and use those proceeds to support reparations for Ukraine. </p>
<p>As part of <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/04/28/fact-sheet-white-house-calls-on-congress-to-provide-additional-support-for-ukraine/">his proposal for the latest aid package</a> to Ukraine, President Joe Biden <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2022/04/28/remarks-by-president-biden-on-the-request-to-congress-for-additional-funding-to-support-ukraine">is asking lawmakers</a> for the authority to formally confiscate the assets of sanctioned oligarchs to pay to “remedy the harm Russia caused … and help build Ukraine.” The House has already passed a bill <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/27/us/politics/biden-russia-sanctions.html">urging Biden to sell the assets</a>, but it didn’t specifically give him the authority to do so. </p>
<p>Others have encouraged the administration <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/15/opinion/russia-war-currency-reserves.html">to sell off the tens of billions of dollars</a> in Russian central bank assets it has frozen. It’s not clear <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/04/28/fact-sheet-white-house-calls-on-congress-to-provide-additional-support-for-ukraine/">from the White House statement</a> whether Biden plans to go after state-owned assets too.</p>
<p>That he has gone to Congress to get permission indicates that his lawyers believe, <a href="https://www.lawfareblog.com/giving-russian-assets-ukraine-freezing-not-seizing">as do I</a>, that <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/chapter-35">current law permits only</a> freezing, and not selling, foreign property in the course of an international crisis. </p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=HyGhJIoAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">I’ve studied and practiced international law</a> for several decades and advised the departments of State and Defense on issues like this one. The idea of forcing Russia to pay reparations for the harm to Ukraine has obvious appeal. But the U.S. needs to comply with constitutional and international law when it does so. </p>
<h2>Freezing vs. confiscating</h2>
<p>You might ask what the difference is <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/cross-border-cases/judicial-cooperation/types-judicial-cooperation/confiscation-and-freezing-assets_en">between seizing or freezing property</a> – forbidding anyone to dispose of or use an asset or take income from it – and confiscating it.</p>
<p>Freezing destroys the economic benefits of ownership. But the owner at least retains the hope that, when the conflict is over and the freeze order ends, the property – or its equivalent in money – will return. Confiscation means selling off the property and giving the proceeds, along with any cash seized, to a designated beneficiary – in this case, people acting on behalf of Ukraine. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/chapter-35">International Economic Emergency Powers Act of 1977</a> permits only freezing, and not selling, foreign property in the course of an international crisis. Congress adopted this law to replace the <a href="https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title50/chapter53&edition=prelim">Trading With the Enemy Act of 1917</a>, which gave the president much broader power to take action against U.S. adversaries in and out of war. </p>
<p>Since then, the U.S. has frequently used the power to seize assets belonging to foreign individuals or nations as an economic sanction to punish what it considers bad behavior. For example, after Iran stormed and seized the American embassy in Tehran, the U.S. government <a href="https://sgp.fas.org/crs/mideast/RS20871.pdf">seized billions of dollars</a> in Iranian assets in the U.S, including cash and property. The U.S. has also frozen assets of Venezuela and the Taliban over ties to terrorism and Russian individuals considered responsible for human rights violations, thanks to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-us-doesnt-need-to-wait-for-an-invasion-to-impose-sanctions-on-russia-it-could-invoke-the-magnitsky-act-now-176202">Magnitsky Act</a>. </p>
<p>In all these cases, the United States held on to the foreign property rather than sell it off. In some cases, it used the seized property as a bargaining chip toward a future settlement. In 2016, the Obama administration famously returned US$400 million to Iran that the U.S. had <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/inside-the-37-year-standoff-over-irans-frozen-u-s-dollars-1482956855">seized after the embassy siege</a> in 1979 – delivering stacks of Swiss francs stuffed inside a Boeing 737. In other cases, the assets remain under government control, administered by an office of the U.S. Treasury, in hope that eventually some compromise can be reached.</p>
<p>The Patriot Act, adopted in the wake of 9/11, <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-107publ56/pdf/PLAW-107publ56.pdf">created a limited exception</a> to the confiscation ban in instances in which the United States is at war. The U.S. never has used this authority. And despite the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/04/29/1095458518/russia-ukraine-us-military-aid">increasingly heated rhetoric</a>, <a href="https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/financial-sanctions/sanctions-programs-and-country-information/ukraine-russia-related-sanctions">stepped-up sanctions</a> and <a href="https://www.state.gov/u-s-security-cooperation-with-ukraine">growing aid for Ukraine</a>, the U.S. is not at war with Russia. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A large crowd of Iranian protesters press against the gates of the American embassy in Tehran in 1979" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461088/original/file-20220503-12-hrf49y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461088/original/file-20220503-12-hrf49y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461088/original/file-20220503-12-hrf49y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461088/original/file-20220503-12-hrf49y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461088/original/file-20220503-12-hrf49y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461088/original/file-20220503-12-hrf49y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461088/original/file-20220503-12-hrf49y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The US frozen billions worth of Iranian assets after the siege of the American embassy in Tehran.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/NBAAt751970sTimeline/740b324279c943ca843cc907fc714a78/photo?Query=iran%20us%20embassy&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=1132&currentItemNo=19">AP Photo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Redressing gross violations</h2>
<p>A fundamental principle of justice says those who cause harm while breaking the law should pay.</p>
<p>In international law, we call this “reparations.” As the <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/basic-principles-and-guidelines-right-remedy-and-reparation">United Nations puts it</a>, “Adequate, effective and prompt reparation is intended to promote justice by redressing gross violations of international human rights law or serious violations of international humanitarian law.” </p>
<p>In recent history, victors have often forced reparations on the losers of war – as was the case <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/reparations">following both World War I and World War II</a> – especially when they are deemed responsible for massive death and ruin.</p>
<p>Russia has wrought terrible destruction in Ukraine. Several cities, including Mariupol, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2022/ukraine-before-after-destruction-photos/">are all but destroyed</a>, and evidence of war crimes in <a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-europe-war-crimes-7791e247ce7087dddf64a2bbdcc5b888">places like Bucha is mounting</a>. </p>
<p>So it makes sense that so many scholars, lawmakers and others would argue that the regime of Vladimir Putin and those who benefit from his rule should help pay for it. </p>
<p>Some, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/15/opinion/russia-war-currency-reserves.html">such as Harvard legal scholar Laurence Tribe, argue</a> U.S. law <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/ukraine/2022-04-19/how-ukraine-can-build-back-better">already allows</a> the president to use any seized or frozen asset as reparations. But, as <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/50aae1a2-088a-47f9-b936-30fa02cf03de">other experts have pointed out</a>, doing so has serious problems. The legal issues noted above are one major hurdle and open this up to being challenged in court. </p>
<p>Another is political. Confiscating assets <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/03/30/rebuilding-ukraine-make-putin-pay-00021649">takes away important bargaining chips</a> in any future negotiations, as they have been with Iran and other countries. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/03/30/rebuilding-ukraine-make-putin-pay-00021649">Specialists</a> in <a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/81165/why-proposals-for-u-s-to-liquidate-and-use-russian-central-bank-assets-are-legally-unavailable/">sanctions law</a> – <a href="https://www.lawfareblog.com/giving-russian-assets-ukraine-freezing-not-seizing">including me</a> – agree with Biden that Congress needs to pass a new law.</p>
<h2>Punishing Russia while preserving the rule of law</h2>
<p>The question then becomes what that legislation should look like to avoid running afoul of international law and the U.S. Constitution. There still seem to be several limitations on what Congress can do.</p>
<p>For example, the Constitution’s <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/due_process">Fifth Amendment guarantees due process</a> before the government can confiscate a private citizen’s property. But does this apply to property in the U.S. that belongs to a foreign citizen? The answer seems to be yes, at least according to two <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/315/203">Supreme</a> <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/282/481">Court</a> cases.</p>
<p>Selling off Russian state property such as central bank assets, creates other problems. International law provides a certain degree of immunity from confiscation to foreign nations and their assets overseas. Outside of wartime, confiscation of state property, including U.S. deposits of Russia’s central bank, <a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/81165/wh%20%20%20y-proposals-for-u-s-to-liquidate-and-use-russian-central-bank-assets-are-legally-unavailable/">runs up against these challenges</a>. </p>
<p>A case currently before the International Court of Justice will decide <a href="https://www.icj-cij.org/en/case/164">whether the United States violated this rule</a> when it used funds from frozen Iranian central bank deposits to compensate people who had won a default judgment from Iran for supporting terrorists. </p>
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<p>So, yes, I believe that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is outrageous and demands a response. But that doesn’t mean the U.S. and other countries should ride roughshod over international law and the U.S. Constitution to do so. Congress should be able to craft a law that allows some assets to be confiscated without violating due process or international law.</p>
<p>I predict that disregarding these issues will likely produce embarrassing judicial setbacks that will make it harder to help Ukraine down the road.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/182214/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Stephan worked in the past as an expert witness in support of Naftogaz, the Ukrainian national oil and gas company, in its efforts to use international investment law to obtain compensation for the seizure by Russia of its assets in Crimea. </span></em></p>The US has frozen tens of billions of dollars worth of assets belonging to Russians and their government. A legal scholar explains why confiscating them is a bit trickier.Paul B. Stephan, John C. Jeffries Jr. Distinguished Professor of Law and David H. Ibbeken '71 Research Professor of Law, University of VirginiaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1762022022-02-18T13:06:04Z2022-02-18T13:06:04ZThe US doesn’t need to wait for an invasion to impose sanctions on Russia – it could invoke the Magnitsky Act now<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/447110/original/file-20220217-13070-3194y2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3143%2C2042&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Sergei Magnitsky's legacy lives on through sanctions in his name.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/picture-taken-on-december-7-shows-snow-clad-grave-of-news-photo/157872419?adppopup=true">Andrey Smirnov/AFP via Getty Images)</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As Russian military forces have deployed at the Ukraine border, U.S. politicians <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/u-s-senate-weighs-sanctions-on-russia-for-aggression-against-ukraine">have been weighing new sanctions</a> to deter an invasion.</p>
<p>In the face of growing tensions, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has been working to craft a new package of economic measures, with chair Bob Menendez anticipating proposing “<a href="https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/america-prepares-the-mother-of-all-sanctions-against-russia/21807487">the mother of all sanctions</a>.” Though the package has <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2022/02/16/russia-ukraine-congress-sanctions/6800192001/?gnt-cfr=1">yet to be agreed on</a>, the goal is to signal the U.S.’s commitment to protecting Ukraine’s sovereignty and to add further costs to any Russian invasion.</p>
<p>Whatever happens, the U.S. Senate has switched into crisis response mode over Ukraine. As a result, other longer-running issues with Russia have received less attention. With President Vladimir Putin essentially demanding that the world focus on Ukraine, the first anniversary of the arrest of <a href="https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/eu-calls-for-navalny-s-release-on-1st-anniversary-of-arrest/2476549">Russian opposition leader and anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny</a> passed with relatively little press attention. As U.S. senators seek a deterrent for future Russian action in Ukraine, a trial is in process, away from public view, that aims to <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/navany-wife-trial-illegal/31702986.html">lengthen Navalny’s prison sentence to 10 years</a>. It also distracts from another upcoming anniversary, that of <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-politics-navalny-wrap-idUSKCN2AU27Y">U.S. and EU sanctions on the men who used Novichok poison</a> to try to murder Navalny in August 2020.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://isearch.asu.edu/profile/3172586">scholar of Russian and East European politics</a>, I’ve observed how authoritarian leaders use distraction to keep adversaries off balance. It was a <a href="https://theconversation.com/from-macedonia-to-america-civics-lessons-from-the-former-yugoslavia-143322">tactic used in the Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia</a> against citizen activists and deployed to lethal effect by <a href="https://euromaidanpress.com/2014/08/27/kremlin-propaganda-copies-slobodan-milosevics-methods-in-the-war-against-ukraine/">Slobodan Milosevic to maintain power in Serbia</a>. President Putin has deployed such tactics repeatedly in the past and, I believe, it is what he is doing now: The more he can ratchet up what the U.S. and its allies threaten in retaliation to an invasion of Ukraine, the more concessions he can claim to have won, simply by standing down. He wins credit for averting the crisis he engineered.</p>
<p>There is, I believe, an effective way for Congress to regain control of the narrative and force attention back on Putin’s vulnerability. By reframing the sanctions debate around the Putin regime’s <a href="https://spcommreports.ohchr.org/TMResultsBase/DownLoadPublicCommunicationFile?gId=25830">treatment of Russian citizens</a>, it can highlight a steadfast commitment to human rights as a central plank to its policy of keeping peace and stability in Eastern Europe. And it already has a mechanism to do this: the Magnitsky Act.</p>
<h2>Sanctions with ‘scalpel-like precision’</h2>
<p>This legislation honors <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jul/06/who-was-sergei-magnitsky-and-how-did-uk-sanctions-come-about">Sergei Magnitsky</a>, who died in police custody in Moscow in November 2009. A tax expert, Magnitsky had uncovered an elaborate tax refund fraud scheme involving Russian government officials who, using company documents and seals taken in a raid on investment fund Hermitage Capital Management, set up shell companies to steal US$230 million in public funds. For that, supporters say, he was arrested, detained almost a year without trial, and subjected to abuse and neglect that killed him.</p>
<p>Magnitsky’s death shocked Russian <a href="https://www.russian-untouchables.com/eng/">civil society activists</a>, along with Hermitage CEO Bill Browder and his lawyer Jamie Firestone, who lobbied the U.S. government to act. It resulted in the 2012 <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-112publ208/html/PLAW-112publ208.htm">U.S. Magnitsky Act</a>, which allows the U.S. to freeze the assets and ban the entry of alleged human rights offenders.</p>
<p>The Kremlin’s response was swift. Within two weeks, Russian legislators passed the <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/01/18/russian-lawmaker-says-moscow-may-lift-ban-us-adoptions/96710392/">Dima Yakovlev Law</a>. Named for a 21-month-old Russian adoptee who died of heatstroke in a parked car, the law denied visas to a number of U.S. officials it accused of human rights violations. It also terminated all pending and future U.S. adoptions from Russia, <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2012/12/dima-yakovlev-bill-no-one-s-best-interests/">impacting hundreds of children and families</a>. The following year, a Russian court found Browder and the dead Magnitsky guilty of the fraud they had uncovered. </p>
<p>These heavy-handed measures signaled how seriously the Kremlin took the threat of sanctions against its officials and their wealth. One problem for corrupt government officials everywhere is that they need to be able to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/05/opinion/navalny-putin.html">safely stash overseas what they steal from their people</a>, and the provisions of the Magnitsky Act take away that option.</p>
<p>In 2016, the U.S. Congress passed the <a href="https://www.state.gov/global-magnitsky-act/">Global Magnitsky Act</a>, which extended authorization to the president to impose sanctions on foreign officials of any country found responsible of gross violations of human rights or significant corruption. President Donald Trump invoked the act in December 2017, harnessing what one commentator described as its “<a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/50846/trump-administration-notches-human-rights-win-no-really/">scalpel-like precision</a>” against individual perpetrators. <a href="https://laws.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/J-2.3/FullText.html">Canada</a> and <a href="https://www.dfat.gov.au/news/news/autonomous-sanctions-amendment-magnitsky-style-and-other-thematic-sanctions-act-2021#:%7E:text=The%20Autonomous%20Sanctions%20Amendment%20(Magnitsky,commenced%20on%208%20December%202021.&text=The%20Act%20ensures%20that%20autonomous,either%20country%2Dspecific%20or%20thematic.">Australia</a> have passed similar legislation. The U.K. and EU have also adopted new laws inspired by the Magnitsky movement, targeting human rights violators worldwide.</p>
<h2>The best way to affect Putin’s decision-making?</h2>
<p>Although designed to hold regimes accountable for abuses against their own citizens, Magnitsky sanctions may be useful in the current international crisis.</p>
<p>The Australian government has said it will <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/government-considers-magnitsky-sanctions-to-step-up-action-on-russia-20220125-p59r20.html">look at implementing existing Magnitsky sanctions</a> as a response to the threatened invasion. During a January 2022 visit to Ukraine, U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker, who co-sponsored the Global Magnitsky Act, suggested that it could <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/crucial-time-u-s-senators-travel-ukraine-warn-against-russian-n1287608">apply to violations of international law</a>, including the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/14/ukraine-massive-cyber-attack-government-websites-suspected-russian-hackers">cyberattacks already perpetrated against Ukraine</a>. Bill Browder himself has argued it could be <a href="https://time.com/6143645/how-to-stop-putin-invastion-ukraine/">the best way to stop Putin</a>.</p>
<p>And <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/alexei-navalny-says-the-us-is-falling-into-putins-trap-on-ukraine-2022-1?r=US&IR=T">Alexei Navalny, interviewed in prison</a>, has encouraged U.S. senators to use the tools already at their disposal. Rather than issue soundbites about what they will do should Putin invade, he suggests they simply act now. “The source of his wealth is power and corruption,” Navalny said. “And the basis of his power is lies, propaganda and falsified election results. You want to influence Putin, then influence his personal wealth. It’s right under your backside.”</p>
<p>Navalny sees that in U.S. lawmakers’ efforts to come up with new sanctions as weapons of war or negotiation, they are doing President Putin’s work for him. What Navalny and others are advocating is not to put Magnitsky sanctions on the negotiating table but to start imposing them. Researchers from the Free Russia Forum, which serves as a platform for opposition figures, have already identified <a href="https://www.spisok-putina.org/en/about-the-project/">Putin’s key allies and enablers</a>, and the Pandora Papers detail the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/10/14/1046008243/the-pandora-papers-expose-the-secret-financial-dealings-of-the-global-elite">substantial offshore assets in their names</a>.</p>
<p>Targeting these individuals would follow through on former proposals made by senators themselves. When he became Senate Foreign Relations Committee chair in January 2021, Sen. Menendez urged the Biden administration to <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/international/536561-menendez-calls-for-sanction-on-russia-after-navalny-protests">apply Magnitsky sanctions against Putin’s inner circle</a>. His letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken noted the state violence directed at Navalny, as well as the “corrosive corruption” of the Putin regime.</p>
<p>Even through the fog of war Putin has conjured, Menendez and his colleagues have the opportunity to remind citizens in Russia, America and beyond of what is at stake. By immediately invoking the Magnitsky Act’s financial sanctions against corrupt actors and human rights abusers, the U.S. can demonstrate its commitment to the rule of law. It would send a clear signal that, whatever threats Putin manufactures, the international community will continue to hold him accountable for the crimes of his regime, at home as well as abroad.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Keith Brown is the Director of Arizona State University's Melikian Center for Russian, Eurasian and East European Studies, that receives support from the US Department of State to train US graduate students in less-commonly taught languages of Russia, East Europe and Central Asia.
In 2020-21, the Melikian Center collaborated with the Phoenix Committee on Foreign Relations and the Santa Fe Council for Foreign Relations to host an online speaker series entitled "The Russia Disruption." Our invited speakers included Jamie Firestone, Managing Partner of FD Advisory, and co-founder of the Global Magnitsky Justice Campaign, who contributed to this report.</span></em></p>Named after a tax expert who died in police custody after uncovering fraud by Russian officials, Magnitsky sanctions target individuals accused of human rights violations.Keith Brown, Professor of Politics and Global Studies, Arizona State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1032652018-09-16T21:44:34Z2018-09-16T21:44:34ZCanada’s growing challenges with economic sanctions<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/236475/original/file-20180914-177962-1m97i34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Canadian troops arrive to a UN base in Gao, Mali, on in June 2018, amid an insurgency by jihadist and ethnic rebel groups. Canada has yet to impose sanctions on the African country because it lacks names to target for asset freezes and other measures.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Sanctions are often readily called for, and assumed to be simply applied, when a country is deemed to have violated international law or behaved egregiously.</p>
<p>But in Canada, there’s a whole government machinery behind the scenes when it decides to impose sanctions on an offending country or against individuals.</p>
<p>In testimony in 2016 to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs that was reviewing Canadian sanctions legislation, <a href="https://www.ourcommons.ca/DocumentViewer/en/42-1/FAAE/meeting-26/evidence">RCMP Superintendent Steve Nordstrum</a> was asked about the priority given to investigating individuals who flout or ignore sanctions — known as “sanctions busters” — given the few number of prosecutions. </p>
<p>Nordstrum was direct: The priority of the RCMP is to prevent the loss of life and investigate terrorist acts that could lead to the loss of life. And while his response was entirely logical and appropriate, it still raised eyebrows. </p>
<p>That’s because it highlighted the mismatched expectations regarding the perceived “ease” of applying sanctions versus the many challenges of understanding what exactly sanctions are, how they are used, enforced, verified and, ultimately, the political ends they seek. </p>
<p>A lot of hopes, therefore, are pinned on the Canadian government’s announcement in its 2018 budget to allocate <a href="https://www.budget.gc.ca/2018/docs/plan/chap-04-en.html#A-Strong-Sanctions-Regime">$22.2 million</a> over the next five years to develop its sanctions policy, coordinate with international partners and provide guidance to Canadians with respect to sanctions obligations.</p>
<p>Where to start?</p>
<h1>What to sanction</h1>
<p>Canada is an enthusiastic supporter of economic sanctions. Sanctions are a tool of foreign policy used by countries like Canada to signal the need for a change in behaviour or policy with measures that stop short of force, such as <a href="http://www.international.gc.ca/sanctions/countries-pays/korea-coree.aspx?lang=eng">banning the sale of weapons to countries like North Korea.</a> </p>
<p>Canada currently applies sanctions to respond to international crises, violations of peace and security, gross violations of human rights or acts of significant corruption around the world. </p>
<p>With sanctions in place against 19 countries and al Qaida, the government has adopted new legislation (including the <a href="http://laws.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/J-2.3/">Sergei Magnitsky Law</a>) to complement the many other related pieces of <a href="http://www.international.gc.ca/sanctions/legislation-lois.aspx?lang=eng">Canadian legislation</a> to enable even more sanctions.</p>
<p>Canadian sanctions run the gamut from what are considered blunt sanctions targeting an entire state (such as an arms export ban <a href="http://www.international.gc.ca/sanctions/countries-pays/libya-libye.aspx?lang=eng">to and import from Libya</a>) to highly targeted sanctions against select individuals (<a href="http://www.international.gc.ca/sanctions/countries-pays/venezuela.aspx?lang=eng">such as against Venezuelans</a>) and travel bans aimed, for example, at limiting the movement of al Qaida and associates. </p>
<p>Canada applies sanctions in compliance with international law when required by the United Nations Security Council, or when another international organization or association of which Canada is a member (such as the Organization of American States) calls on those members to take economic measures against a foreign state.</p>
<p>Additionally, Canada may apply discretionary sanctions unilaterally or with like-minded states; for example, in concert with the European Union. </p>
<h2>From charcoal to diamonds</h2>
<p>What is sanctioned can range widely from luxury goods to participation in diplomatic events and even bans on the import of diamonds, fish and charcoal. </p>
<p>The sanctions are in response to everything from unconstitutional changes in government (especially coups), violent conflict, human rights abuses and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. </p>
<p>There are also perennial “go-to” sanctions and targets of sanctions — for example, arms embargoes against African states. Increasingly, however, asset freezes are the most popular form of sanctions by Canada. Only one of the countries on Canada’s sanctions list — Lebanon —lacks an asset freeze or financial restrictions. </p>
<p>The sanctions list is not static, and there are more sanctions in progress, including a travel ban and asset freeze <a href="https://www.un.org/sc/suborg/en/sanctions/2374">against individuals in Mali</a> (required by the UN Security Council since 2017 but still lacking names to sanction ) and an arms embargo, asset freeze and technical assistance freeze <a href="http://www.international.gc.ca/sanctions/countries-pays/myanmar.aspx?lang=eng">against Myanmar</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/236525/original/file-20180916-177938-ruvrk9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/236525/original/file-20180916-177938-ruvrk9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236525/original/file-20180916-177938-ruvrk9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236525/original/file-20180916-177938-ruvrk9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236525/original/file-20180916-177938-ruvrk9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236525/original/file-20180916-177938-ruvrk9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236525/original/file-20180916-177938-ruvrk9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rohingya refugees play at a refugee camp in Bangladesh in August 2018. Investigators working for the U.N.’s top human rights body say Myanmar military leaders should be prosecuted for genocide against Rohingya Muslims.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While seven additional names were added to the Myanmar sanctions in June 2018, more are certainly culpable of crimes against humanity of the <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2018/08/1017802">Rohingya people</a>.</p>
<h2>Melding sanctions to foreign policy</h2>
<p>Engaging in an overarching review of all of Canada’s sanctions and government legislation, therefore, is a bit like trying to change a tire while the car is still moving.</p>
<p>Sanctions challenges are myriad and not just about who to sanction and to what end. Questions about the role of sanctions in terms of Canada’s other foreign policy goals are also raised. Mali is a case in point.</p>
<p>With troops on the ground engaged in <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/services/defence/caf/operations/military-operations/current-operations/op-presence.html">Operation Presence</a>, Canada has yet to apply sanctions against Mali because it lacks names to target. Are Canadian soldiers expected to help identify the names of individuals for the UN’s travel ban and asset freeze? </p>
<p>Conversely, if names are announced by the UN, could that compromise the work of Canadian Armed Forces in unintended ways? And what if an arms embargo is added to sanctions against Mali? Would the UN face a similar dilemma as NATO did with Libya in 2011, when some countries called for a blanket arms embargo to be lifted in order for <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-libya/france-defends-arms-airlift-to-libyan-rebels-idUSTRE7270JP20110629">“friendly” rebels to have access to arms</a>, but not the Libyan government?</p>
<p>What’s more, the government hasn’t had the luxury of considering new ways to sanction other than adopting additional legislation to sanction more targets. Perhaps “assets” should include what are increasingly becoming more valuable, like cryptocurrencies, data or even access to social media. </p>
<h2>Real estate concerns</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/aug/27/facebook-removes-accounts-myanmar-military-un-report-genocide-rohingya">Facebook</a>, for example, has frozen the accounts of key military leaders in Myanmar. Should Canada support or distance itself from this move and could it do so in a uniquely Canadian context? </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/unliked-how-facebook-is-playing-a-part-in-the-rohingya-genocide-89523">Unliked: How Facebook is playing a part in the Rohingya genocide</a>
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</em>
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<p>Then there’s the matter of real estate in Canada. Should the sale/transfer of property also be matched against sanctions lists (which the new consolidated UN and <a href="http://www.international.gc.ca/sanctions/consolidated-recapitulative.aspx?lang=eng">Canadian Autonomous Sanctions List</a> makes easier)? This would likely require that real estate agents be specially trained to spot sanctions-busting, and it raises questions about whether it’s fair to ask agents to take that on.</p>
<p>Technically, everyone in Canada, and Canadians abroad, are required to provide the RCMP with information pertaining to property that could belong to anyone on a sanctions list, it’s not clear if they’re aware of this responsibility. Is it something best left to banks or the media?</p>
<p>We must also evaluate what’s the true cost and burden on Canadian banks and businesses that are largely in the front lines in terms of ensuring that sanctions are not circumvented either intentionally or unintentionally. And what is the cost if Canada chooses not to sanction in concert with other countries?</p>
<h2>Tariffs as sanctions?</h2>
<p>Further still, given the acrimonious relations with the U.S. these days, the federal government should assess at what point trade sanctions — tariffs tied to a trade agreement — or indeed, extreme difficulties negotiating a trade deal, become economic sanctions by dint of their costs and wider political goals.</p>
<p>Finally, what are the consequences when Canada becomes the target of sanctions, as has been the case recently by <a href="http://www.rcinet.ca/en/2018/08/09/canada-still-seeking-clarity-on-saudi-arabian-sanctions/">Saudi Arabia</a>, and in the past by <a href="https://theconversation.com/when-canada-did-and-didnt-stand-up-for-human-rights-101410">Indonesia</a> and threatened sanctions by the <a href="https://piie.com/summary-economic-sanctions-episodes-1914-2006">Arab League</a>. </p>
<p>Sanctions help countries speak simultaneously to both domestic and international audiences, which may account for their popularity, but their record of effectiveness in terms of bringing about <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/08/02/do-sanctions-work-the-evidence-isnt-compelling/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.ddd244c09e7c">foreign policy changes is poor</a>. </p>
<p>Additional sanctions against Canada, however, are likely given the changing world order, the rise of nationalism around the world and the grassroots popularity of sanctions. Maybe the question should be: Is $22.2 million enough to develop a meaningful sanctions policy for Canada?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/103265/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrea Charron has a SSHRC Insight Development Grant to investigate Canada's Use of sanctions.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cristina Aliu does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The federal government has set aside $22.2 million to develop and co-ordinate sanctions while educating Canadians about their obligations. Where to start is the first question.Andrea Charron, Associate Professor and Director of the Centre for Defence and Security Studies, University of ManitobaCristina Aliu, Research Assistant, University of ManitobaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1005132018-08-06T10:39:09Z2018-08-06T10:39:09ZVladimir Putin’s lying game<p>At the now infamous Helsinki press conference held after the summit meeting between Presidents Trump and Putin, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/18/world/europe/trump-intelligence-russian-election-meddling-.html">Trump indicated he was impressed</a> with Putin’s denial of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election.</p>
<p>“I have great confidence in my intelligence people,” Trump said, “but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial.” </p>
<p>That answer must have pleased Vladimir Putin. </p>
<p>Strength and power have been key to Putin’s political brand ever since August 1999, when he was <a href="http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/europe/9908/16/russia.putin.03/">appointed as Russia’s prime minister</a> by President Boris Yeltsin. </p>
<p>Putin led the country to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/17/world/europe/17chechnya.html">victory in the second Chechen War</a>, and as the virtual incumbent <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2000/01/01/world/yeltsin-resigns-overview-yeltsin-resigns-naming-putin-acting-president-run-march.html">following Yeltsin’s resignation</a>, he rode that wave of patriotism to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2000/03/27/world/election-russia-overview-putin-wins-russia-vote-first-round-but-his-majority.html">victory in the presidential election</a> of March 2000, with 53 percent of the national vote. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/230633/original/file-20180803-41357-1y1kdkj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/230633/original/file-20180803-41357-1y1kdkj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=708&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230633/original/file-20180803-41357-1y1kdkj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=708&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230633/original/file-20180803-41357-1y1kdkj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=708&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230633/original/file-20180803-41357-1y1kdkj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=890&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230633/original/file-20180803-41357-1y1kdkj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=890&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230633/original/file-20180803-41357-1y1kdkj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=890&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Putin, with Moscow Mayor Anatoly Sobchak, in 1994.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP/Dmitry Lovetsky</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Eighteen years later, following a brief hiatus from 2008 to 2012 during which he served as <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/dmitry-medvedev-asks-putin-to-run-for-president-of-russia/2011/09/24/gIQAXGwpsK_story.html?utm_term=.f569045ee7fb">prime minister,</a> Putin remains president, <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/vladimir-putin-wins-russian-presidential-election-with-more-than-75-percent/a-43026436">winning 77 percent of the vote in May 2018</a>. </p>
<p>Putin makes strongman politics look effortless, and President Trump could not be clearer in his <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/16/politics/donald-trump-vladimir-putin-summit/index.html">expressions of admiration and trust</a> for his more experienced counterpart. From over two decades <a href="https://live-school-of-politics-and-global-studies.ws.asu.edu/content/keith-brown">studying communist and post-communist politics</a>, I believe there is value in looking past Putin’s confident self-projection and examining the machinery behind it. </p>
<p>As a former <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/vladimir-putin-resurrects-the-kgb-moscow-security/">KGB officer and head of FSB</a>, Russia’s national security agency, President Putin has professional roots in deception, disinformation and violence beyond the imagination and experience of most Americans outside the intelligence community. His 18-year record in public life provides high-profile cases where he has been equally “strong and powerful” in undermining truth – and <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2017/05/02/dozens-russian-deaths-cast-suspicion-vladimir-putin/100480734/">targeting those who expose him</a>. </p>
<h2>Truth, lies and consequences</h2>
<p>Here is a short catalog of Putin’s most glaring lies, as well as his actions against those who challenged him.</p>
<p><strong>1.</strong> In 1999, <a href="https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2012/11/22/finally-we-know-about-moscow-bombings/">bombs exploded in a number of apartment buildings</a> in Russia, killing 293 civilians. </p>
<p>The bombings were attributed to Chechen terrorism, driving up patriotic <a href="https://www.the-american-interest.com/2016/05/19/how-putin-became-president/">support for Russia’s military in invading Chechnya</a>. When one bomb was detected and defused in the city of Ryazan before it went off, new Prime Minister <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/blog/september-1999-russian-apartment-bombings-timeline">Putin praised the people of Ryazan</a> for their vigilance. </p>
<p>His subsequent strong leadership during the Chechen War was key to his election as <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Vladimir-Putin">president in March 2000</a>. </p>
<p>Yet forensics, eyewitness accounts and whistleblower revelations all indicated that Russia’s security service, the FSB, <a href="https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2012/11/22/finally-we-know-about-moscow-bombings/">planted the Ryazan bomb</a>. </p>
<p>The commission established to investigate the FSB’s role in all the bombings discontinued its work in 2003 when <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-killings-timeline-deaths-politics/26874764.html">two key members died violent deaths</a>. Deputy Sergei Yushenkov was gunned down, and investigative journalist Yuri Shchekochikhin died in a hospital from an “unknown allergen” that shut down all his vital organs. FSB whistleblower <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-19647226">Alexander Litvinenko</a>, who directly accused Vladimir Putin of involvement in the apartment bombings, was <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-35370819">poisoned in London</a> in 2006.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/230634/original/file-20180803-41363-we960r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/230634/original/file-20180803-41363-we960r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230634/original/file-20180803-41363-we960r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230634/original/file-20180803-41363-we960r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230634/original/file-20180803-41363-we960r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230634/original/file-20180803-41363-we960r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230634/original/file-20180803-41363-we960r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A British inquiry found that the Russian secret service killing of Putin critic Alexander Litvinenko was ‘probably approved … by President Putin.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP/Cathal McNaughton</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><strong>2.</strong> In 2004, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Beslan-school-attack">Chechen terrorists took hostage</a> hundreds of schoolchildren and their teachers in a school in Beslan in North Ossetia. </p>
<p>Russian authorities refused to negotiate and instead deployed military forces to storm the school. More than <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2013/09/09/world/europe/beslan-school-siege-fast-facts/index.html">330 people died and another 550 were wounded</a>. Among the dead were 184 children. </p>
<p>Putin was adamant that the use of force was justified and necessary in the face of terrorism, and used Beslan to increase centralized Kremlin power. He <a href="https://legalresearch.blogs.bris.ac.uk/2017/05/hostages-and-human-rights-at-the-european-court-of-human-rights-the-tagayeva-and-others-v-russia-case/">rejected a European Court of Human Rights judgment</a> that Russian authorities used excessive force against their own citizens. </p>
<p>Journalist, human rights activist and Putin critic <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2004/sep/06/russia.chechnya">Ana Politkovskaya was poisoned</a> when traveling to Beslan to cover the siege. She survived, and continued to <a href="http://euromaidanpress.com/2017/10/07/six-powerful-quotes-from-anna-politkovskaya-about-vladimir-putin/">research and publish on Putin’s assault on democracy</a> until she was <a href="https://cpj.org/data/people/anna-politkovskaya/">shot and killed</a> outside her Moscow apartment in 2006.</p>
<p><strong>3.</strong> In 2005, the American-born British CEO of Moscow-based investment fund Hermitage Capital, Bill Browder, was denied re-entry to Russia, and declared <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/16/world/europe/putin-bill-browder-magnitsky-investor.html">a threat to national security</a>. </p>
<p>Browder’s tax attorney Sergei Magnitsky then <a href="https://www.occrp.org/en/daily/6342-u-s-traces-us-7-5-million-from-russian-fraud-scheme-uncovered-by-magnitsky">uncovered a US$230 million tax fraud</a> scheme against Hermitage Capital. Magnitsky’s work revealed high-level government collusion in the criminal looting of public assets. </p>
<p>After taking the allegations public, <a href="http://nhc.no/filestore/Dokumenter/Magnitskydocuments.pdf">Magnitsky was arrested</a> in Moscow on fabricated charges and detained for 11 months prior to trial. He was repeatedly abused in jail, including denial of treatment for chronic health conditions. Eventually he was <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/sergei-magnitsky-hermitage-capital-death-report-2011-11">beaten to death</a>. </p>
<p>The Russian state’s punishment did not stop then. Magnitsky was <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-magnitsky/russia-convicts-lawyer-magnitsky-in-posthumous-trial-idUSBRE96A09V20130711">posthumously tried and convicted</a> for tax evasion. </p>
<p>Browder has subsequently pursued justice for Magnitsky, advocating for the worldwide adoption of the <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/09/13/us-global-magnitsky-act">Magnitsky Act</a>. The act was passed by the U.S. Congress in 2012 to sanction individual Russians involved in human rights abuses.</p>
<p>Putin held a <a href="http://en.special.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/17173">December 2012 press conference</a>
following the Magnitsky act’s passage and the Russian Duma’s subsequent retaliatory ban on American adoptions of Russian orphans. Putin said, “Magnitksy … was not tortured — he died of a heart attack.” </p>
<p><strong>4.</strong> On July 17, 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was shot down over Ukraine, killing all 298 people aboard. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Putin denied the U.N. finding that the Russian military had shot down a civilian plane, killing all 298 people on board.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP/Vadim Ghirda</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>In May 2018, a U.N.-backed <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqdW3_0pPr4">Joint Investigation Team</a> <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09/28/mh17-investigation-prosecutors-to-reveal-where-missile-that-down/">concluded</a> that the Russian 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade, based in Kursk, had fired a missile and brought down the plane. </p>
<p>In direct contradiction of the forensic evidence, <a href="https://www.apnews.com/450ba5218bf24c6a9d5052cc346cbc4a">Putin flatly denied</a> any Russian involvement in shooting down MH17.</p>
<p>That denial comports with Putin’s long-time denial that Russian forces invaded Ukraine in 2014 – one of 10 false Russian claims about Ukraine <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20140310054604/https:/www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2014/03/222988.htm">identified and debunked by the U.S. State Department</a>. That report is no longer available on the U.S. government website.</p>
<p><strong>5.</strong> In February 2015, Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov was assassinated in Moscow. Just before his death, Nemtsov had taped <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2015/mar/01/boris-nemtsov-interview-death-vladimir-putin-video">a television interview</a> in which he discussed his investigations into Russian war crimes in Ukraine, and called President Putin “our expert in lying. He is a pathological liar.”</p>
<p>After Nemtsov’s death, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2015/02/28/fear-envelops-russia-after-killing-of-putin-critic-boris-nemtsov.html">President Putin assured Nemtsov’s mother</a>, “We will do everything to ensure that the perpetrators of this vile and cynical crime and those who stand behind them are properly punished.” </p>
<p>Nemtsov’s relatives and allies insist on Putin’s complicity and have called the investigation and prosecution of five killers a <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-nemtsov/allies-of-slain-putin-critic-nemtsov-allege-cover-up-after-guilty-verdict-idUSKBN19K1UI">cover-up</a>. Video evidence and the journalistic investigation into the details of Nemtsov’s murder, likewise, see the highly organized hit involving multiple <a href="https://www.hudson.org/research/13970-who-killed-boris-nemtsov">gunmen and vehicles</a> as the work of a professional intelligence organization like the FSB.</p>
<h2>Connecting the dots</h2>
<p>The risks for individual Russians challenging Putin’s lies are clear. One journalist has listed <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2017/05/02/dozens-russian-deaths-cast-suspicion-vladimir-putin/100480734/">34 suspicious deaths since 2014</a>.</p>
<p>Those killed have nonetheless left an evidentiary trail for a host of contemporary writers like <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kk9igTqTx9s">Masha Gessen</a>, <a href="https://www.the-american-interest.com/2016/05/19/how-putin-became-president/">David Satter</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/dec/15/peter-pomerantsev-paperback-writer-russia-nothing-is-true-everything-is-possible">Peter Pomerantsev</a>. Those writers, and others, detail how Putin has built enormous wealth and power by deploying violence and deception to control the political narrative and disable or eliminate meaningful opposition. </p>
<p>President Trump <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/12/18/donald-trump-glad-to-be-endorsed-by-russias-top-journalist-murderer/?utm_term=.498217fc3b7d">respects that strength</a> and at times, seems even to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/02/politics/michael-hayden-donald-trump-vladimir-putin-cnntv/index.html">envy it.</a> How, then, does he interpret this array of evidence of serial lying and complicity in multiple critics’ violent deaths?</p>
<p>He might conclude that all of these independently produced, empirically-grounded investigations are somehow part of a grand deep-state conspiracy to defame or discredit a man of integrity who can and should be taken at his word. </p>
<p>That conclusion, though, would dishonor the ordinary and extraordinary Russians who have stood up to the deception and violence of President Putin’s regime, risking or losing their lives as a result. It’s the responsibility of the American president to acknowledge this. By virtue of the office he holds, President Trump has the ability to stop being played by Putin, and speak truth to power.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/100513/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Keith Brown receives funding from Department of State, Title VIII Grant for Training and Education on Russia and Eastern Europe</span></em></p>Donald Trump admires Russian President Vladimir Putin. But Putin’s track record over his career reveals a serial liar, and presents damning evidence of complicity in multiple critics’ violent deaths.Keith Brown, Professor of Politics and Global Studies, Arizona State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/918092018-02-28T11:39:46Z2018-02-28T11:39:46ZInternational adoptions have dropped 72 percent since 2005 – here’s why<p>When <a href="https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/News/Intercountry-Adoption-News/ethiopia-adoption-notice--ethiopia-passes-legislation-banning-in.html">Ethiopia stopped allowing its children to be adopted by foreign parents in January</a>, it became the latest country to <a href="https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/Intercountry-Adoption/Intercountry-Adoption-Country-Information.html">eliminate or sharply curtail the practice</a>. In recent decades <a href="http://www.pbs.org/pov/firstpersonplural/history/4/">South Korea</a>, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2012/08/19/158924764/for-romanias-orphans-adoption-is-still-a-rarity">Romania</a>, <a href="http://www.icwa.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/EKF-18.pdf">Guatemala</a>, China, <a href="https://eurasianet.org/s/kazakhstan-reiterates-american-adoption-ban">Kazakhstan</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2012/12/11/magnitsky-retaliation-man-baby/">Russia</a> – all former leaders in foreign adoption – have also banned or cut back on international custody transfers. </p>
<p>In 2005, almost 46,000 children were adopted across borders, roughly half of them headed to a new life <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/13/us/overseas-adoptions-decline.html">in the United States</a>. By 2015 international adoptions had <a href="http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/adoptionstatsintl.html">dropped 72 percent</a>, to 12,000 in total. Just 5,500 of these children ended up in the U.S., with the remainder landing in <a href="http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/adoptionstatsintl.html">Italy and Spain</a>.</p>
<p>Today, most children adopted internationally come from China, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Ukraine. But even China, which has been the <a href="http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/adoptionstatsintl.html">top sending country since the late 1990s, has decreased its foreign adoptions by 86 percent</a>.</p>
<p>Why are international adoptions imploding? Our recent book, <a href="https://www.vanderbilt.edu/university-press/book/9780826521729">“Saving International Adoption: An Argument from Economics and Personal Experience</a>,” explores the rationale – both real and invented – that countries use to explain curtailing foreign adoptions. Here’s what we found.</p>
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<h2>It’s in the child’s ‘best interest’</h2>
<p>When countries with high rates of international adoptions suddenly put an end to the practice, officials usually <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/adopting-reason/201603/are-adopted-children-risk-abuse">cite examples of abuse</a>. The policy change, they say, is in “the best interest of the child.” </p>
<p>In 2012, when the Russian parliament voted to ban adoptions by Americans, for example, lawmakers named the new law after <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/world/europe/04adopt.html">2-year-old Dima Yakovlev</a>, who died in 2008 after being <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2012/12/11/magnitsky-retaliation-man-baby/">locked in a hot car by his adoptive father</a>.</p>
<p>Ethiopian lawmakers likewise recently invoked the 2012 case of a neglected Ethiopian 13-year-old girl who <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/01/10/577144605/ethiopian-lawmakers-vote-to-ban-foreign-adoptions">died of hypothermia and malnutrition in the U.S.</a> to justify their new ban on international adoptions.</p>
<p>Such events, though high profile, are rare. Of 60,000 adoptees from Russia to the U.S., <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/adopting-reason/201603/are-adopted-children-risk-abuse">only 19 have died</a> from abuse or neglect in the last 20 years, according to The Christian Science Monitor. That’s an abuse rate of about 0.03 percent. In Russia, the rate of child abuse is <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2007/sep/09/news/adfg-ruskids9">about 25 times higher</a>. </p>
<p>Such statistics call into question whether “the best interest of the child” is really why countries cancel international adoptions.</p>
<h2>Politics and humiliation</h2>
<p>Our analysis suggests that politics may more strongly influence many countries’ adoption policies.</p>
<p>Russia ended U.S. adoptions two weeks after the 2012 U.S. Magnitsky Act, which imposed sanctions on some allegedly corrupt Russian officials. Asked about the new ban, <a href="http://www.world.time.com/2012/12/20/why-has-Moscow-passed-a-law-to-ban-u-s-adoption-of-Russian-orphans/">Putin essentially linked</a> the two events, saying, “The country will not be humiliated.”</p>
<p>Political pressures can also be external. As it sought to join the European Union in the early 2000s, Romania – which in <a href="http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/calgary/Calgary+woman+search+Romanian+mother+nears+conclusion/9428021/story.html">1990 and 1991 sent more than 10,000 adopted children abroad</a> – halted all international adoptions. The EU’s rapporteur for Romanian accession to the union, <a href="https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-01091667/document">Baroness Emma Nicholson, was famously opposed to the practice</a>. </p>
<p>We also found that embarrassment can spur countries to halt international adoptions. After bad publicity during the 1988 Seoul Olympics, South Korea – which had been allowing adoptions to the U.S. since the 1950s – temporarily banned overseas adoption. The remark of sports commentator Bryant Gumbel that the country’s <a href="http://www.pbs.org/pov/firstpersonplural/history/4/">“greatest commodity” for export was its children</a> likely helped trigger this policy change.</p>
<p>And after Guatemala imposed a moratorium on foreign adoptions – which dropped from 4,100 in 2008 to 58 in 2010 – a former <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWrdz-Aqw-U">member of the country’s National Adoption Council</a> expressed pride. “Our image as being the number one exporter of children has changed,” he said. “Guatemala has dignity” again, he added. </p>
<p>Adoption scandals can also lead countries to rethink international adoptions. <a href="http://prospect.org/article/call-it-trafficking">Every major sending country</a> has seen <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/china/archive/2013/07/kidnapped-and-sold-inside-the-dark-world-of-child-trafficking-in-china/278107/">accusations of “child trafficking”</a> because some birth parents were paid to give up their children. There have been rare cases, too, where <a href="http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.693.3159&rep=rep1&type=pdf">a child was kidnapped and put up for adoption</a>. </p>
<p>Although infrequent, such incidents bring bad press, and with it pressure from international child welfare organizations like <a href="http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/unicef-blamed-for-decline-in-international-adoptions">UNICEF and and Save the Children to improve – or shut down – foreign adoptions</a>.</p>
<h2>Who’s in charge here</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.hcch.net/en/instruments/conventions/specialised-sections/intercountry-adoption">Hague Convention on International Adoption</a> was supposed to resolve such problems <a href="http://digitalcommons.law.uga.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1359&context=gjicl">by making adoption safer and more straightforward</a>. This 1993 global agreement, which <a href="https://www.hcch.net/en/instruments/conventions/specialised-sections/intercountry-adoption">103 countries signed by 2016</a>, creates uniform regulations for adoptions worldwide. </p>
<p>But rather than encourage foreign adoptions, many experts <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/16/world/international-adoption-main-story-decline/index.html">argue</a> that the convention has contributed to their decline. </p>
<p>Poor countries <a href="http://www.law.harvard.edu/faculty/bartholet/PepperdineBkHagueTrack9-5-13.pdf">often struggle to meet The Hague’s high international standards</a>, which include creating a central adoption authority, accrediting local agencies and tightening approval procedures. </p>
<p>Even after Vietnam ratified the international adoption convention in 2008, the U.S. refused adoptions from the country because the State Department found it fell short of Hague rules. Vietnamese adoptions of special needs children to America <a href="https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/Intercountry-Adoption/Intercountry-Adoption-Country-Information/VietNam.html">reopened in 2016</a>. </p>
<p>Rigorous international regulations have also <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/new-fees-for-foreign-adoptions-anger-agencies-who-offer-them/2018/02/16/801b0298-134a-11e8-a68c-e9374188170e_story.html?utm_term=.20e99ac5649a">made adoptions more expensive by imposing fees</a> on agencies, adoptive parents, orphanages and countries. We believe that <a href="https://www.adoptivefamilies.com/resources/adoption-news/adoption-cost-and-timing-2013-2014/">rising costs</a> – which may have increased <a href="https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2016/02/weodata/index.aspx">up to 18 percent</a> in some countries – will lead to a decrease in the number of international adoptions.</p>
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<h2>The high costs of no adoptions</h2>
<p>Critics will likely welcome the current decline in international adoptions, citing concerns that foreign adoptions <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2012/05/29/world/africa/africa-child-adoption/index.html">remove children from their “birth culture”</a>, <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/088610999200700104">exploit poor birth mothers</a> and <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/10926755.2015.1088107?needAccess=true">enable illicit child trafficking</a>. </p>
<p>But our book finds powerful – if uncomfortable – arguments in favor of foreign adoptions. When the child of a desperately poor family is taken in by parents from a wealthy country, <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/10926755.2016.1219198?needAccess=true">the material benefits to that child</a> are significant. </p>
<p>Children raised in rich countries are far more likely to receive a good education, for example. While the literacy rate in <a href="https://en.unesco.org/countries/ethiopia">Ethiopia is 50 percent for males and 23 percent for females</a>, 100 percent of people in most <a href="http://datatopics.worldbank.org/education/indicators">high-income countries, such as Canada and Norway, can read</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.vanderbilt.edu/university-press/book/9780826521729">Our research</a> shows that adoption can even save lives. We examined mortality figures for children under the age of 5 in Ethiopia and Guatemala and found that adoptions to the U.S. likely prevented the deaths of more than 600 children between 2005 and 2011. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/adopting-reason/201605/is-transracial-adoption-harmful-kids">Studies also show</a> that the emotional costs borne by children of color being raised by white parents – which often occurs with international adoptions – are less dire than critics believe. Such adoptees do about as well on <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/adoption-beyond-borders-9780190247799?cc=us&lang=en&">a wide range of indicators of self-esteem and ethnic identity formation</a> as their non-adopted siblings.</p>
<p>Foreign adoptions can’t solve global poverty. But ending them merely punishes thousands of vulnerable kids and their potential parents worldwide. And that’s in nobody’s best interest.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/91809/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In 2005, almost 46,000 children were adopted across borders. Ten years later, just 12,000 were. The foreign adoption system is imploding, potentially putting children’s lives in danger.Mark Montgomery, Professor of Economics, Grinnell CollegeIrene Powell, Professor of Economics, Grinnell CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.