Foreign Policy In Focus

Vladimir Putin's pledge to improve the Russian child welfare system parallels his intention to fill the void left by not renewing Nunn-Lugar.

On Friday, Dec. 27, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a bill prohibiting future adoptions of Russian children by American citizens. At the New York Times, David Herszenhorn and Erik Eckholm explained that it

… was drafted in response to the Magnitsky Act, a law signed by President Obama this month that will bar Russian citizens accused of violating human rights from traveling to the United States and from owning real estate or other assets there. The Obama administration had opposed the Magnitsky legislation, fearing diplomatic retaliation, but members of Congress were eager to press Russia over human rights abuses and tied the bill to another measure granting Russia new status as a full trading partner.

Nor are Russian concerns devoid of legitimacy. In the Washington Post, Olga Khazan reports:

Several high-profile cases of abuse also haven’t helped. Russian policymakers named the bill after a high-profile Russian adoptee, Dima Yakovlev, a toddler who was adopted by a Virginia couple and died after being left in a hot car for nine hours. And after a 7-year-old Russian boy was returned alone to Moscow in 2010 by his Tennessean adoptive mother, the outrage was so great that a Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson temporarily announced a suspension of all U.S. adoptions.

Putin, in turn (the Times again) said that instead he would sign

… a resolution also adopted Wednesday that calls for improvements in Russia’s child welfare system. “I intend to sign the law,” Mr. Putin said Thursday, “as well as a presidential decree changing the procedure of helping orphaned children, children left without parental care, and especially children who are in a disadvantageous situation due to their health problems.”

Whether or not he'll follow up is another matter. Meanwhile, the Dima Yakovlev Bill could have been avoided if the United States hadn't passed the Magnitsky Act, which amounted to poking a stick at the Russian bear. Russia also kicked the United States Agency for International Development out of the country.

The Russian government had made no secret of its unhappiness with some programs financed by the Agency … like Golos, the country’s only independent election-monitoring group, which helped expose fraud in disputed parliamentary voting last December.

Meanwhile, Russia's termination of Nunn-Lugar may also be a result of U.S. insistence on deploying missile defense systems in Eastern Europe. It claims, however, that it has enough money of its own to continue to perform the services Nunn-Lugar had been funding. But, as with caring for underserved children, it remains to be seen if Russia will follow through.

Blame Russia, for, in both instances, cutting off its nose to spite its face. But, in fact, it had been seeking to save that face when confronted by the United States with the Magnitsky Act, perceived interference by the Agency for International Development, and missile defense.

Russian officials seek to create the Dima Yakovlev List in retaliation to the Magnitsky list.

On Friday, December 21, the Russian State Duma passed the anti-Magnitsky Act that if signed by President Vladimir Putin will take effect January 1, 2013. The anti-Magnitsky bill forbids dual US-Russian citizens from participating in foreign NGOs and will ban US adoption of Russian orphans, in addition to banning specific US citizens from entering Russia. Russian officials wish to create the Dima Yakovlev List in retaliation to the Magnitsky list to punish US officials implicated in human rights violations against Russians, including adopted children. The list is named after a Russian boy adopted by a US family who died after his family left him in a locked car.

The Russian bill was proposed in opposition to the US Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act passed December 6 to replace the Russia and Moldova Jackson-Vanik Repeal. The Magnitsky Act imposes asset freezes and visa bans on Russian officials suspected to be responsible for the death of Sergei Magnitsky, who accused the Russian IRS of tax fraud and later died in jail. However, the opposition fears that the Act will go beyond punishing only those officials implicated in Magnitsky’s death.

Critics of the Act say the list should not be open to additional names. Furthermore, they think the criteria for adding names to the list are too ambiguous and should require a more stringent legal process prior to addition. Moscow’s Levada Center says only 14 percent of Russians opposed the law while 39 percent supported it and 48 percent were undecided. Andrei Sidorov, Assistant Dean of the World Politics Faculty of the Moscow State University, calls the law patronizing and criticizes it for targeting economic relations with human rights rhetoric. Sidorov says, “The Magnitsky law reflects the interests of a lobby that seeks to prevent its competitor from coming onto the U.S. market.” Stephen Cohen, an NYU professor and expert on Russia, also warns that US corporations and Russian oligarchs will use the law to liquidate property and stifle the economic power that their Russian rivals have in the United States.

Masha Lipman, editor of the Moscow Carnegie Center's Pro et Contra journal suggests that although Russians dislike US interference “they hate their own officials more” and therefore welcome the accountability provided by the Magnitsky Act. Dmitry Lovetsky of AP illustrates a demonstrator holding a poster saying “Add Putin to the Magnitsky List” at a St. Petersburg rally last weekend.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, speaking at the International Parliamentary Forum this December, stressed that the Magnitsky Act was not passed diplomatically and will promote conflict in US-Russian relations. Oleg Ivanov of the Global Times fears that the current Magnitsky situation will incite negative repercussions for cooperation on terrorism, arms control, and non-proliferation, and will strengthen Russian-Chinese alliance on issues of sovereignty and non-interference. In order to address the concerns of critics of the Magnitsky Act and strengthen US-Russian relations, the US should offer specific criteria for adding names to the Magnitsky List and guarantee due process prior to the addition of names. 

Julia A. Heath is an independent foreign policy analyst and educator.

The United States chose an inopportune time to lift restrictions on Russia and normalize trade relations.

Cross-posted from the United to End Genocide Blog. 

The situation in Syria is grave. Fears of the use of chemical weapons by Syrian President Assad reached new heights last week. The United Nations (UN) is pulling more than 1,000 staffers from Syria due to intensified fighting near the capital. Additionally, a 48-hour Internet blackout has made communications with critical staff impossible.

For nearly two years, Russia has intentionally blocked action to save innocent lives in Syria, even as it remains the main weapons supplier to the Syrian regime. Diplomatically, they have vetoed three UN resolutions for a peace settlement and militarily, they’ve supplied the Assad regime with attack helicopters, advanced defensive missile systems and munitions.

This past summer, a Syrian government plane returned home from Russia with 200 tons of “bank notes,” providing Syria with valuable currency as the United States and others imposed trade sanctions, weakening the Syrian economy. By supplying the murderous Assad regime with currency, weapons and blocking UN resolutions aimed at ending bloodshed in Syria, Russia has become an important lifeline for the brutal Assad government.

As the civilian death toll continues to climb in Syria, President Obama is about to lift Russian trade restrictions that have been in place for 40 years. The Senate voted last week to lift the Cold War-era ban that would normalize trade relations with Russia, to which President Obama responded, “I look forward to receiving and signing this legislation.” Ironically, this will formally make Russia a “most favored nation” of the United States.

Russia’s role in the slaughter of 40,000 people is not what is driving this policy shift. Guess what is? Lawmakers hope that the legislation will boost U.S. exports by giving U.S. businesses increased market access. U.S. exports to Russia could double in 5 years. “Our manufacturing sector needs every boost it can get,” said Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry.

Human rights champions in the House and Senate noted that the bill included another Act – the Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act – that targets Russian human rights abusers. The law blacklists Russians connected to the death of Magnitsky, whose crime was working for American law firm in Moscow when he discovered a $230 million tax fraud being carried out by Russian police. He died in police custody. The law will also authorize the blacklisting of those responsible for other gross human rights violations, prohibiting entrance to the United States and use of its banking system.

Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.), one of champions for the Magnitsky bill, said “Today, we open a new chapter in U.S. leadership for human rights.”

Maybe so, but what about the human rights of the innocent people of Syria who are being slaughtered by their government? Rewarding Russia with economic perks and declaring it “most favored” while the Russian government provides the murderous Syrian regime with arms and diplomatic cover is wrong.

The United States has appealed for Russia to reverse course on its support of Assad and has condemned Russian intransience with words. But, money talks. By dolling out economic perks and trade deals to Russia – even as people die in Syria – the U.S. is sending precisely the wrong message at the worst possible time.

Tell President Obama that Russia should not be awarded perks while it aids and abets mass murder in Syria. Ask him to stand with the Syrian people by keeping trade restrictions on Russia in place.

Tom Andrews is the President of United to End Genocide.

On June 29^th, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee unanimously passed the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act. The bill had already passed the House. The Act, which was introduced by Sen. Ben Cardin and Rep. James McGovern, will impose visa bans and asset freezes on Russian human rights offenders. Sergei Ryabkov, the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister, threatened to ban U.S. officials from visiting Russia if the act became law.

The bill is named for Sergei Magnitsky, who died in a Moscow prison in 2009. Magnitsky was a middle-aged attorney and accountant who worked for the largest Western private equity fund in Russia, representing the foreign investor Bill Browder. Browder had invested in Russian stocks since the late 1990s, “the era of the great thefts of state assets masquerading as privatizations.” But by 2005, Browder had learned of widespread corruption, denounced it, and become an activist against it. Browder was soon exiled from Russia, so he sold his holdings to get himself to the West and made a $230-million tax payment to the Russian treasury. Magnitsky discovered that Russian tax officials had subsequently conspired to embezzle the payment. When he made these allegations publicly, Magnitsky was imprisoned and beaten. His death was widely condemned.

The Magnitsky Act will deny entry to the 60 or so officials that Bowder says were responsible for Magnitsky’s persecution. The bill aims to reduce such corruption and its spread across international borders.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is meanwhile working to improve U.S. trade relations with Russia, promoting the repeal of the outdated 1974 Jackson-Vanik Amendment, a Cold War-era provision restricting trade relations with Soviet states deemed to have violated human rights. But on June 29^th, Clinton met in St. Petersburg with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who warned Clinton that passing the Magnitsky Act would result in damage to U.S.-Russian relations. President Obama had a similarly chilly meeting with President Vladimir Putin at the G-20 summit in Mexico.

For its part, the Obama administration has lobbied against the bill because it already tracks and denies visas to the Russians involved in Magnitsky’s death. The administration also pressured the Senate to include a provision for a secret annex in its version of the bill, which would render the bill useless because the names of human rights violators would not be made public. The New Yorker adds that the United States needs Russia’s support for progress on Syria’s civil war, Iran’s nuclear program, and U.S. supply lines to Afghanistan.

But widespread approval in Washington may make the administration’s attempts to bury the bill futile. Major proponents include Senators John McCain, Joe Lieberman, Roger Wicker, John Thune, and John Kerry, alongside Freedom House President David Kramer. If the bill does not become law soon, proponents say the United States will be unable to employ it for Russia’s upcoming WTO accession. 

Steven Pifer, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, argues that the Magnitsky bill should not be linked to the Jackson-Vanik Amendment because the Russians “will not see the Magnitsky bill as an expression of outrage over how the Russian legal system was shabbily and corruptly manipulated to kill one of its fellow citizens. They will instead see the bill as reflecting what they believe to be a deep-seated anti-Russia sentiment on the Hill.” On the other hand, Lilia Shevtsova, a senior associate of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Moscow, writes that “Putin’s Kremlin has used the West – eager for engagement and a policy ‘reset’ with Russia – to legitimize its authoritarian rule and to provide opportunities for its venal cronies’ integration into Western society.” She says this has discredited liberal democracy in Russia.

Pifer and Shevtsova are both correct. One the one hand, the bill would enable the United States to uphold its commitments to international human rights and the spread of democracy. On the other hand, as Pifer says, the United States cannot afford to lose Russia as a trading partner. Additionally, the two countries are currently dealing with several issues that could exacerbate one another, including missile defense, the future of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, Iran’s alleged nuclear ambitions, and U.S. supply lines to Afghanistan.

The Magnitsky Act will, unfortunately, fuel these already tense situations and throw Obama’s “reset” policies off course. As Putin said in July, “The replacement of the Jackson-Vanik amendment by an anti-Russian law and a course towards creating a missile defense system cannot but upset the existing strategic parity and be a source of concern for us.”