Human Rights First Deplores Use of Global Magnitsky Sanctions to Support Impunity for Political Allies
Washington, D.C. – Human Rights First regrets that the Trump administration’s first use of Global Magnitsky sanctions, which targeted the Brazilian Supreme Court justice Alexandre de Moraes for alleged arbitrary detention, served primarily to highlight the administration’s pursuit of impunity for close political allies.
The sanctions against de Moraes appear based at least partly on the contested view that Brazilians being investigated or prosecuted for actions related to the January 2023 attack on Brazil’s governing institutions are, in fact, being arbitrarily detained for protected speech.
While Brazilian authorities must ensure respect for human rights while investigating alleged crimes, official U.S. concern about the importance of due process and press freedom would be more credible if it were evident in other contexts – or accompanied by action to address far graver abuses against reporters than those being alleged here. Civil society advocates have for years urged the use of Global Magnitsky sanctions, for example, to address the growing crisis of journalists being targeted and killed for their work, especially in Latin America and the Middle East.
“The Biden and first-term Trump administrations used the Global Magnitsky sanctions program to promote accountability for grand corruption in the Congo; for large-scale extrajudicial killings by security forces in Bangladesh; and for sending human rights activists in Russia to prison for decades-long sentences, among many other grave abuses,” said Adam Keith, Senior Director for Accountability at Human Rights First. “Until this week, the current administration had done literally nothing with Global Magnitsky – and this first action appears aimed more at defeating accountability than pursuing it.
“Missing from yesterday’s announcement was any hint of support for accountability for the 2023 attack on Brazil’s democratic institutions – no surprise, since President Trump has made clear he is willing to pursue a trade war and other extreme measures to shield ex-President Jair Bolsonaro from scrutiny in that regard.
“More generally, the administration is mainstreaming into U.S. foreign policy the notion that any accountability effort affecting any of President Trump’s political allies must be unfounded and must be stopped. U.S. officials have still offered no substantive explanation, for example, of why they lifted Global Magnitsky sanctions on an allegedly corrupt minister of Hungary’s closely-allied administration.
“Tellingly, in its pursuit of de Moraes, the State Department broke the law earlier this month when it announced by name that it would deny the judge entry into the United States. The State Department is forbidden from publicly ‘naming names’ under the provision of law it used, raising the question of whether people familiar with U.S. law and its constraints were actually involved in that or other uses of the federal government’s powers.”
Human Rights First calls on Congress to conduct oversight over the basis for the administration’s actions and inaction under the Global Magnitsky program. More generally, it should press the administration to reverse course and pursue a credible anti-corruption and pro-human rights agenda, not use U.S. leverage to demand impunity in countries trying to reckon with serious abuses of power.
