The European Union facilitates the imposition of sanctions for human rights violations in the world

Representatives of European Union (EU) member states agreed on Wednesday to simplify the procedure in order to make it much easier to impose sanctions on human rights violations in countries such as Russia, China and Saudi Arabia, diplomats said.

EU foreign ministers will adopt a formal agreement on 7 December.

In the future, the EU will be able to directly impose sanctions on specific individuals for human rights violations.

Until now, the imposition of personal sanctions has only been possible within the framework of national sanctions or specific sanction mechanisms, such as in response to cyber-attacks, chemical-weapon attacks or the conflict in Ukraine.

This has made the EU’s response difficult or almost impossible, for example, following the assassination of journalist Jamal Hashogi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

The new sanctions mechanism is modeled on the US Magnitsky list.

The law was passed by the US Congress in 2016 to impose sanctions on individuals following the death of Russian alarmist Sergei Magnitsky in a Moscow prison.

–