Symbolic act, real consequences: Passing Canada’s Magnitsky Law to combat human rights violations and corruption

2020 ◽  
Vol 75 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-178
Author(s):  
Meredith Lilly ◽  
Delaram Arabi
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Driving Force ◽  
Economic Sanctions ◽  
The United States ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Canadian Government ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
Legislative Changes

Both the volume of economic sanctions and the reasons for their imposition have increased tremendously around the globe. In this context, several countries, including the United States and Canada, have introduced Magnitsky acts to enable their governments to act unilaterally to impose sanctions against foreign actors for gross violations of human rights and significant acts of corruption. This paper evaluates the legislative changes made to Canada’s sanction regime in 2016–2017 and explores how the new authorities have been applied following implementation (2017–2019). We find that, despite granting the Canadian government new authorities to undertake autonomous sanctions, the country has continued to cooperate with other states as it had done prior to the changes. We conclude that lawmakers never intended for Canada to use the new autonomous capabilities to “go it alone.” Instead, the symbolism represented by Canada taking a strong stance against human rights abuses globally was the driving force behind the Magnitsky Law’s passage.

scholarly journals United States’s Intevention against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 58-67
Author(s):  
Indri Susilo ◽  
Rizqi Apriani Putri ◽  
Nur Azizah
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Humanitarian Aid ◽  
The United States ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
Military Aid ◽  
Library Research ◽  
The Us

ABSTRACTCombating terrorism is one of the foreign policy of the United States (US). The Islamic State of Iraq and The Levant (ISIL) or The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is one of the movement deemed terrorists and has disturbed world peace. Ultimately the US decided to intervene to deal with the frequent acts of terror by ISIS which resulted in gross human rights violations.This article aims to find out how the US intervention to combat human rights abuses and acts of terror that have been done by ISIS.The method in this article was to do library research in the form of books, articles, journals and various media relevant in this article.It has been found that the form of settlement efforts to reduce human rights violations, the US made preventive and repressive efforts. In preventive efforts, the US created an international coalition to gain support to counter terror committed by ISIS. Then the repressive effort is humanitarian intervention in the form of military aid and humanitarian aid. The US donates $ 1.2 billion annually and 350 million dollars as a form of military and humanitarian aid to combat ISIS. Keywords: Humanitarian Interventions, Human Rights Violations, International Coalition, United States Intervention

scholarly journals United States’s Intevention against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 58-67
Author(s):  
Indri Susilo ◽  
Rizqi Apriani Putri ◽  
Nur Azizah
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Humanitarian Aid ◽  
The United States ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
Military Aid ◽  
Library Research ◽  
The Us

ABSTRACTCombating terrorism is one of the foreign policy of the United States (US). The Islamic State of Iraq and The Levant (ISIL) or The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is one of the movement deemed terrorists and has disturbed world peace. Ultimately the US decided to intervene to deal with the frequent acts of terror by ISIS which resulted in gross human rights violations.This article aims to find out how the US intervention to combat human rights abuses and acts of terror that have been done by ISIS.The method in this article was to do library research in the form of books, articles, journals and various media relevant in this article.It has been found that the form of settlement efforts to reduce human rights violations, the US made preventive and repressive efforts. In preventive efforts, the US created an international coalition to gain support to counter terror committed by ISIS. Then the repressive effort is humanitarian intervention in the form of military aid and humanitarian aid. The US donates $ 1.2 billion annually and 350 million dollars as a form of military and humanitarian aid to combat ISIS. Keywords: Humanitarian Interventions, Human Rights Violations, International Coalition, United States Intervention

Human Rights Violations in Ethiopia: The Case for Permanent Adjustment of Immigration Status for Ethiopians in the United States

1982 ◽  
Vol 12 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 16-21
Author(s):  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
The United States ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Immigration Status ◽  
Foreign Countries ◽  
The World

Ethiopia is one of the oldest countries in the world. Except for a brief five year period of Italian occupation (1936-41), Ethiopia, in the span of its thousands of years of existence, was never conquered and administered by a foreign power. Therefore, the tradition of permanent emigration or seeking asylum in foreign countries is an alien concept to the Ethiopian people.Ancient and medieval Ethiopia is depicted as having existed in isolation from contemporaneous states and empires. This attribution of isolationism, compactly expressed by Edward Gibbon’s oft quoted statement that “the Ethiopians slept nearly a thousand years, forgetful of the world by whom they were forgotten,” is not at all borne by historical facts.

The Movement

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aryeh Neier
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Driving Force ◽  
The United States ◽  
Feminist Movement ◽  
Human Rights Movement ◽  
Protection Of Human Rights ◽  
National Boundaries

This chapter explains that the driving force behind the protection of human rights worldwide, today and for roughly the past thirty-five years, has been the nongovernmental human rights movement. Intermittently during the last two-and-a-half centuries, citizens' movements did play important roles in efforts to promote human rights, as during the development of the antislavery movement in England in the eighteenth century and the rise of the feminist movement in the United States in the nineteenth century. The contemporary human rights movement responds to victories and defeats by shifting focus from time to time, but it shows signs that it will remain an enduring force in world affairs. Efforts by those outside governments have been particularly important in extending the protection of rights beyond national boundaries, and it is in the present era that they have been most significant.

Scottsboro—and Collapse

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerald Horne
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Working Class ◽  
The United States ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Black America ◽  
The World

This chapter focuses on the Scottsboro campaign. Buoyed by massive global support, the Scottsboro campaign took black America and then the nation by storm. Patterson asserted accurately in early 1934 that Scottsboro “has raised the question of international working class solidarity to its highest level.” Thus, he said beamingly, “Every Negro worker and toiling slave on the land breathes freer because of the activities of the ILD,” while the “southern landlord lynchers have learned to curse its name and to dread the presence of its organizations.” The main point, he stressed, was “a new understanding of the term—international working class solidarity.” Moreover, as a result of this case, “The world began to act on the [mal]treatment of [the] Negro.” This was particularly true in the aftermath of 1945, when the United States found it necessary to more effectively charge Moscow with human-rights violations—in part to counter Moscow's charges about Washington's deficiencies in this crucial realm.

Reviving Human Rights Litigation After Kiobel

2013 ◽  
Vol 107 (4) ◽  
pp. 858-863 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vivian Grosswald Curran ◽  
David Sloss
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
The United States ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
Foreign Countries ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Death Knell ◽  
Alien Tort Statute

In Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., the Supreme Court held that “the presumption against extraterritoriality applies to claims under the [Alien Tort Statute (ATS)], and that nothing in the statute rebuts that presumption.” The Court preserved the possibility that claims arising from conduct outside the United States might be actionable under the ATS “where the claims touch and concern the territory of the United States ... with sufficient force to displace the presumption against extraterritorial application.” However, the Court’s decision apparently sounds the death knell for “foreign-cubed” human rights claims under the ATS—that is, cases in which foreign defendants committed human rights abuses against foreign plaintiffs in foreign countries.

scholarly journals U.S. Race Relations and Foreign Policy

2021 ◽  
pp. 77
Author(s):  
Susan Page
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
United Nations ◽  
International Law ◽  
Race Relations ◽  
The United States ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
Call To Action ◽  
The United Nations

It is easy for Americans to think that the world’s most egregious human rights abuses happen in other countries. In reality, our history is plagued by injustices, and our present reality is still stained by racism and inequality. While the Michigan Journal of International Law usually publishes only pieces with a global focus, we felt it prudent in these critically important times not to shy away from the problems facing our own country. We must understand our own history before we can strive to form a better union, whether the union be the United States or the United Nations. Ambassador Susan Page is an American diplomat who has faced human rights crises both at home and abroad. We found her following call to action inspiring. We hope you do too.

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