December 9th and 10th are International Anti-Corruption Day and Human Rights Day respectively, so ahead of an expected barrage of human rights and corruptions sanctions, we took a look at which countries took action.

Commonly referred to as Magnitsky (GLOMAG) sanctions in the media (named after murdered Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky), they have become increasingly popular means by which human rights violators and corrupt officials can be publicly identified and punished. In most human rights-focused sanctions programs, corruption is also targeted. The above chart identifies which major human rights sanctions programs also address corruption. Australia’s program was only adopted in early December and no designations have been announced to date.

Uneven Application Across Designating Jurisdictions

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The US far outpaces its peers in terms of human rights designations, with over three times as many designations as the next largest program in the UK. Meanwhile, the EU’s program, which is now one year old, has the lowest number of designations at only 19 designees, primarily targeting China and Russia (five and six designees, respectively). 

The EU has placed a serious and ongoing emphasis on human rights, but it is unclear why the bloc has imposed 20 times fewer human rights and corruption sanctions than the US.

Where are Human Rights Sanctions Focused?

• Russia was the target of the US’ first human rights sanctions regime in 2012. Russia-based designees include those originally listed for their involvement in Sergei Magnitsky’s death, the President of the Chechen Republic Ramzan Kadyrov and his associates, who are responsible for kidnappings, murder and torture, among others named for corruption. 

• Saudi Arabia-related listings are tied to the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Across the US and UK, there is considerable overlap. Notably, the EU has not announced designations targeting Saudi Arabia. 

• Most China designations are in response to forced labor and concentration camps in Xinjiang, with the most prominent actions taking place in March 2021 and July 2021.

• Surprisingly, Bulgaria places second behind Russia with 67 designees, all stemming from a single US action announced in June 2021. This action relates to three politicians and businessmen and their network of companies which were involved in the payment of bribes to facilitate Russian influence in Bulgaria.

• The single designation located in the US pertains to a Liberian politician who was listed in December 2020 for bribing Liberian officials on behalf of a mining company and has an address at this US home.

Individual Designations Outweigh Entity Designations

The majority of human rights-related designations pertain to individuals. The entities include government bodies like law enforcement agencies as well as state-owned enterprises and private companies. However, the distribution is heavily skewed by US data, which has designated far more entities proportional to individuals relative to its peer countries. Notably, Canada has not designated any entities under the JVCFOR program, while the EU and UK combined have only designated 10 entities.

Customs and Border Patrols Actions

Although not sanctions, the US Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) issues Withhold Release Orders (WROs), which allow CBP to seize goods for a multitude of reasons. The human rights component of WROs is relatively new and dates back to the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015. This act empowers the CBP to increase enforcement in several critical areas, including regarding imports of goods made with slave or forced labor. 

For example, since the enactment of the 2015 law, CBP has issued 17 WROs against China, all of which are related to forced labor. 11 of these 17 WROs are related to forced labor in Xinjiang. Prior to the new law, the last WRO pertaining to China was issued in 1995.

Looking Forward

While most of the world and the United Nations does nothing on human rights sanctions, they are still likely to expand due to the US. The Biden administration prioritized human rights and corruption sanctions, with the administration issuing a memo in June 2021 stating that fighting international corruption is a core national security matter. Further, the US has expanded GLOMAG sanctions by 40% (over 90 new designations) since Biden entered office, reinforcing that this trend will continue.

Cooperation on sanctions between the US, EU, UK, and Canada is becoming the norm and this multilateral approach will enhance the impact of human rights sanctions. On December 2nd, the US, EU, Canada, and UK all issued sanctions against Belarus related to political repression and the ongoing migrant crisis, with the US and Canada naming the same set of designees. 

While the recent Belarus designations were made under country-based programs rather than Magnitsky-style programs, the move signals close coordination on human rights sanctions. This joint action was preceded by a previous round of coordinated sanctions against Belarus in June 2021 and designations targeting China in May 2021.

Finally, human rights sanctions regimes are growing in prevalence elsewhere. On 2 December, Australia passed its thematic sanctions bill enabling the government to create human rights- and corruption-focused sanctions lists in line with Canberra’s international partners. Expect to hear about a spate of new listings as Australia starts making designations on individuals and entities already listed under existing programs.

Methodology

This is analysis is based on all entries into human rights sanctions lists in the EU, Canada, UK, and US and is current as of 1 December 2021. In the case of US data, designations under the Magnitsky Act (2012) are included alongside designations under Global Magnitsky (2016) because designations under the 2012 sanctions act fall within the scope of Global Magnitsky. 

Location data is based on information available in the list source and is enriched based on Castellum.AI’s proprietary enrichment process. Castellum.AI’s location data shows the physical location of a designee as provided by the list source and may constitute a residence or registration address. For example, a designated company with an address in the UK may be registered at that address but subject to sanctions for activities outside of the UK’s jurisdiction. For reasons both geographic and political, all entries related to Hong Kong and Macau have been consolidated into China. Notably, Canada’s Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Regulations (JVCFOR) program does not include location data for designees and is excluded from all location-based analysis.

Note: The US government and others have issued sanctions and export control restrictions related to Xinjiang, for example OFAC sanctioned the Xinjiang Public Security Bureau and Commerce’s BIS has put restrictions on the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps. Accurately counting exactly how many forced-labor actions were taken, however, is not possible because US government agencies do not always provide the reason for designation.  In the cases of these two entities, we know it is related to forced labor, but there are other designees with Xinjiang locations unrelated to forced labor, for example (Abdul Haq - terrorism) and Chol Su Kang (North Korea proliferation).

Castellum.AI obtains global sanctions information from primary sources, and then proceeds to standardize, clean and enrich the data, extracting key information like IDs and addresses from text blobs. Castellum.AI enriches as many as fifteen separate items per entry. This analysis is based on the enriched primary source data that populates our database. The database consists of over 900 watchlists, covering over 200 countries and six different categories (sanctions, export control, law enforcement most wanted, contract debarment, politically exposed persons, regulatory enforcement, and elevated risk). Castellum.AI checks for watchlist updates every five minutes directly from issuing authorities.

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