Canadian parliamentary committee recommends human rights sanctions

A parliamentary committee in Canada has recommended that the Canadian government follow the US, UK, and several other countries in imposing sanctions on people involved in gross human rights violations (see previous blog) as an amendment to the Special Economic Measures Act. This report is part of the current review of that Act and the Freeing Assets of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act (see previous blog). One example is the “Magnitsky” sanctions named after Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, whose death in Russian custody in 2009 prompted the US to introduce the first sanctions of this kind. The US Congress recently approved expanding the scope of those measures to have effect worldwide. A link to the Canadian House of Commons Report is here.