EU Agrees on the Criminal System for Human Rights Violators

The European Union will have a criminal system for human rights violators. Persons, organizations and countries that commit this can now all be dealt with. It doesn’t matter where they misbehave.

With the new sanctions system, the EU can freeze the assets of persons and organizations that violate human rights.

Europeans are no longer allowed to transfer money to them, and the former can also get a travel ban.

The EU foreign ministers adopted the new penal system on Monday. It has come to be known as the European Magnitsky Law.

But the EU does not want to use that name, which refers to similar US legislation in memory of a Russian lawyer and whistleblower who died in his Moscow cell.

That could give the impression that it is only targeting Russia.