115th CONGRESS Printed for the use of the 

1st Session Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe

Combating Kleptocracy With

the Global Magnitsky Act

DECEMBER 13, 2017

Briefing of the 

Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe

Washington: 2018


CSCESeal.EPS
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Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe 

234 Ford House Office Building 

Washington, DC 20515

202–225–1901

csce@mail.house.gov 

http://www.csce.gov 

@HelsinkiComm

Legislative Branch Commissioners

HOUSE 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, NEW JERSEY

Co-Chairman 

ALCEE L. HASTINGS, FLORIDA

ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, ALABAMA

MICHAEL C. BURGESS, TEXAS

STEVE COHEN, TENNESSEE

RICHARD HUDSON, NORTH CAROLINA

RANDY HULTGREN, ILLINOIS

SHEILA JACKSON LEE, TEXAS

GWEN MOORE, WISCONSIN

SENATE 

ROGER WICKER, MISSISSIPPI, 

Chairman 

BENJAMIN L. CARDIN. MARYLAND

JOHN BOOZMAN, ARKANSAS

CORY GARDNER, COLORADO

MARCO RUBIO, FLORIDA

JEANNE SHAHEEN, NEW HAMPSHIRE

THOM TILLIS, NORTH CAROLINA

TOM UDALL, NEW MEXICO

SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, RHODE ISLAND

Executive Branch Commissioners

DEPARTMENT OF STATE

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

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ABOUT THE ORGANIZATION FOR SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE 

The Helsinki process, formally titled the Conference on Security and Cooperation in 

Europe, traces its origin to the signing of the Helsinki Final Act in Finland on August 

1, 1975, by the leaders of 33 European countries, the United States and Canada. As of 

January 1, 1995, the Helsinki process was renamed the Organization for Security and 

Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). The membership of the OSCE has expanded to 56 participating States, reflecting the breakup of the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia. 

The OSCE Secretariat is in Vienna, Austria, where weekly meetings of the participating States’ permanent representatives are held. In addition, specialized seminars and 

meetings are convened in various locations. Periodic consultations are held among Senior 

Officials, Ministers and Heads of State or Government. 

Although the OSCE continues to engage in standard setting in the fields of military 

security, economic and environmental cooperation, and human rights and humanitarian 

concerns, the Organization is primarily focused on initiatives designed to prevent, manage 

and resolve conflict within and among the participating States. The Organization deploys 

numerous missions and field activities located in Southeastern and Eastern Europe, the 

Caucasus, and Central Asia. The website of the OSCE is: <www.osce.org>. 

ABOUT THE COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE 

The Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, also known as the Helsinki 

Commission, is a U.S. Government agency created in 1976 to monitor and encourage 

compliance by the participating States with their OSCE commitments, with a particular 

emphasis on human rights. 

The Commission consists of nine members from the United States Senate, nine members from the House of Representatives, and one member each from the Departments of 

State, Defense and Commerce. The positions of Chair and Co-Chair rotate between the 

Senate and House every two years, when a new Congress convenes. A professional staff 

assists the Commissioners in their work. 

In fulfilling its mandate, the Commission gathers and disseminates relevant information to the U.S. Congress and the public by convening hearings, issuing reports that 

reflect the views of Members of the Commission and/or its staff, and providing details 

about the activities of the Helsinki process and developments in OSCE participating 

States. 

The Commission also contributes to the formulation and execution of U.S. policy 

regarding the OSCE, including through Member and staff participation on U.S. Delegations to OSCE meetings. Members of the Commission have regular contact with 

parliamentarians, government officials, representatives of non-governmental organizations, and private individuals from participating States. The website of the Commission 

is: <www.csce.gov>. 

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Combating Kleptocracy With

the Global Magnitsky Act

DECEMBER 13, 2017

Page 

PARTICIPANTS

Paul Massaro, Policy Advisor, Commission for Security and Cooperation in Europe .............. 1

Alex Johnson, Senior Policy Advisor for Europe and Eurasia, Open Society Policy Center .... 3

Charles Davidson, Executive Director, Kleptocracy Initiative, Hudson Institute ..................... 5

Rob Berschinski, Senior Vice President, Human Rights First .................................................... 7

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Combating Kleptocracy With

the Global Magnitsky Act 

December 13, 2017

Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe

Washington, DC

The briefing was held at 3:08 p.m. in Room 188, Russell Senate Office Building, 

Washington, DC, Paul Massaro, Policy Advisor, Commission for Security and Cooperation 

in Europe, presiding. 

Panelists present: Paul Massaro, Policy Advisor, Commission for Security and 

Cooperation in Europe; Alex Johnson, Senior Policy Advisor for Europe and Eurasia, Open 

Society Policy Center; Charles Davidson, Executive Director, Kleptocracy Initiative, Hudson Institute; and Rob Berschinski, Senior Vice President, Human Rights First.

Mr. MASSARO. Good afternoon, and welcome to this Helsinki Commission briefing on 

‘‘Combating Kleptocracy with the Global Magnitsky Act.’’ My name is Paul Massaro, and 

I am the anticorruption policy advisor at the Helsinki Commission. 

This year the commission has been hosting a series of events on combating 

kleptocracy, one of the central threats facing the OSCE today. Starting with our event 

on asset recovery last June, we have looked at combating energy corruption, the nature 

of kleptocracy in Russia, the need for incorporation transparency at home, and Ukraine’s 

fight against corruption. Panelists at all events have agreed that this is a pressing issue, 

but there are some reasons for optimism. The Global Magnitsky Act is one of those reasons. 

The term ‘‘kleptocracy’’ describes states where corruption has supplanted the system 

of government. While we often associate kleptocracy with states like Russia, it is important to note that there are a number of states in the OSCE region that contain severe 

kleptocratic elements. It is also important to note that behind every act of grand corruption are individuals, often foreign government officials and their accomplices, who trade 

the well-being of their country for personal gain. 

But kleptocracy is not just a problem for states where corruption has taken hold. It 

is also a problem for states where the rule of law is respected, like the United States of 

America. Without the ability to stash ill-gotten assets in states where the rule of law is 

respected, there is little reason to steal them. If your money was identified as dirty, you 

could never spend it and it could simply be stolen by another thief. 

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Lucky for kleptocrats, there is a large corruption services industry in the West that 

is ready and willing to help hide that money for a small cut, corroding the rule of law 

and democracy from the inside while sustaining kleptocratic oppression. This oppression 

comes in the form of massive human rights abuses, and disproportionately targets those 

who attempt to expose corruption. 

In kleptocracies, loyalty is rewarded by access to wealth and power while whistleblowing is answered with trumped-up legal attacks, imprisonment, torture, and sometimes even death. This was the case for Sergei Magnitsky, who, after uncovering a massive fraud scheme perpetrated by the Russian state, met a tragic end in a Moscow prison. 

His story led to Congress passing and the president enacting the Magnitsky Rule of Law 

Accountability Act in 2012. 

This law established sanctions on those responsible for Magnitsky’s death, and for 

other gross human rights violations in Russia against whistleblowers and human rights 

activists. Last year, Congress passed an even more extensive version of this legislation, 

the Global Magnitsky Act—which we’ll discuss today—which authorizes the executive 

branch to prohibit the worst foreign human rights offenders and most corrupt officials 

operating anywhere in the world from entering the United States, and to block their U.S. 

assets. 

This law is a groundbreaking, modern tool in the counter-kleptocracy toolbox. While 

most discussions of combating kleptocracy in the United States revolve around domestic 

reform designed to make assets more difficult to hide, or foreign reform abroad in order 

to make assets harder to steal, rarely do we have the opportunity to discuss the challenges and opportunities of sanctioning those who are engaging in or facilitating gross 

acts of corruption. 

I am glad to have such a distinguished panel with me today to discuss this revolutionary piece of legislation in the fight against kleptocracy. Alex Johnson, to my right, is 

the current senior policy advisor for Europe and Eurasia at the Open Society Policy 

Center, which seeks to expand citizen engagement and ensure human rights while 

building transparent and accountable governments around the world. He is also a close 

friend and former colleague at the Helsinki Commission, where he served as our representative to the OSCE in Vienna. Alex is an expert on the OSCE region and served as 

special advisor for Russia and Ukraine at the Department of Defense between working 

for us and taking his current job. 

Charles Davidson, to my left, is the executive director of the Kleptocracy Initiative 

at the Hudson Institute, which has been in the vanguard on combating kleptocracy and 

produced extensive research and reporting on the issue. Charles was the first to the scene 

among those of us fighting kleptocracy and built much of the intellectual foundation 

toward the issue that we take for granted today. He has become something of a household 

name at the commission and is a frequent contributor to our work. This will be the third 

time that he is on a commission panel this year. [Laughs.] He previously participated in 

our panel on asset recovery and as a witness in our hearing on combating corruption with 

incorporation transparency. 

Finally, Rob Berschinski is the senior vice president for policy at Human Rights 

First, which pushes for the U.S. Government and business community to respect and 

defend human rights and the rule of law. Rob previously served as the Deputy Assistant 

Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor at the Department of State, 

and was responsible for overseeing human rights policy throughout the OSCE region. He 

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is intimately familiar with the Global Magnitsky Act, having coordinated the work of a 

coalition of human rights and anticorruption NGOs to develop a list of designees to be 

targeted under the act, which was provided to the administration in the form of a letter 

and accompanying package of materials. 

Thank you all so much for being with us here for this important discussion. I would 

like now to pass the floor to Alex Johnson, who will kick us off. Alex. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you, Paul. 

Our conversation today is particularly timely. On December 10th we recognized International Human Rights Day and, just before that, International Anti-Corruption Day. 

Both days are inseparable in my view, because government corruption fuels human rights 

abuses. Corruption and kleptocracy enable human rights abusers to generate challenges 

throughout the OSCE region. Additionally, the Commission on Security and Cooperation 

in Europe is a critical player in overcoming some of these challenges. 

So I want to thank the U.S. Helsinki Commission for its continued leadership in combating kleptocracy in the 57 participating States of the OSCE, in addition to the efforts 

of the political leadership, particularly in the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, and the 

expert contributions, of course, of staff, like Paul, to U.S. delegations at countless OSCE 

proceedings, where they’ve been truly impactful in really advancing principles around 

democratic governance and countering corruption. 

As Paul mentioned, I spent a number of years working on the commission staff, and 

it was the honor of my career. And I now lead advocacy for Europe and Eurasia at the 

Open Society Policy Center, where I am engaging quite frequently with many of the victims of corruption throughout the region. 

So the passage of the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act as a part 

of the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act embodies the refinement of smart sanctions against those who seek to do harm, while also reflecting a culmination of democratic 

governance commitments in the Helsinki process. Kleptocrats think their power and influence can buy them anonymity. Fortunately, the evolution of new tools for investigative 

journalism, including expansive data resources and the ubiquity of social media, have 

shed light on many more cases for investigation. International institutions, like the OSCE, 

must capitalize on this emerging era of unprecedented access to information to stop corrupt officials and human rights abusers in their tracks. 

I wanted to really just lead with a few recommendations that I think are relevant 

for this particular briefing here today. So, one, more cases for investigation. We’ll hear 

more from our distinguished colleagues on the panel, who will speak to some of the cases 

that were advanced by civil society and are currently under review by the Trump administration to name particular individuals under the Global Magnitsky Act. And as it stands, 

we hope that the Trump administration swiftly adjudicates these recommendations, and 

that there is an exploration of even more in subsequent tranches. 

Additionally, other recommendations, too: Engaging European allies and partners to 

adopt national Global Magnitsky measures. Many of you know the United Kingdom, 

Estonia, and most recently Canada have adopted measures with some Global Magnitsky 

components, largely focused on Russia, many of which focus on visa bans exclusively. 

Lithuania and other countries are exploring similar action. It’s really important that 

members of Congress, and U.S. experts, encourage their European interlocutors and partners to adopt measures up to the full scope of the Global Magnitsky Act, beyond the visa 

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bans, but also asset freezes and other requirements. And they should do that within their 

national parliaments. In addition, a similar action should be taken at a European level. 

The European Union should also pursue its own version of a Magnitsky Act, and potentially a Global Magnitsky Act. 

Another key point is global philanthropy and other resources are important in sustaining investigations into human rights abusers and corrupt officials. Some elected officials have been questioning the very notion of global philanthropy and foreign assistance 

in OSCE participating States. It’s really important to recognize that private philanthropy 

from across the political spectrum has found common ground in advancing democratic 

governance by supporting civil society actors and the independent media to expose corruption. It’s really important that this continues. 

Now turning to some of the institutional measures with the OSCE, it’s important that 

civil society has a stake and a place at the table in terms of OSCE proceedings. The 

OSCE’s human dimension implementation meeting benefits from robust, expert, and civil 

society access. The similar parallel of the economic and environmental forum process, as 

well as the economic and environmental dimension implementation meeting—which is 

new as of 2011—should benefit from the same level of access of outside experts, NGOs, 

and experts who can really combine this expertise on countering corruption. 

I would say my last core recommendation is establishing a thematic mission of the 

OSCE, focused on implementing anticorruption provisions of OSCE commitments. There’s 

been an erosion within the OSCE region with the closure of a number of field operations, 

which have long been the jewel in the crown, you could say, of OSCE activities, and 

focused on implementing commitments. And some of the mandates of the existing field 

operations have been scaled back. It’s really important to develop a thematic mission in 

order to overcome some of the politics associated with these field missions and allow an 

elite unit to operate above those politics and address corruption throughout all of the 

OSCE participating States. 

A few more remarks. Just to note a little bit on the history of the OSCE and to levelset our conversation here and leave some time for our colleagues, who have gathered—

the OSCE is really one of the few multilateral institutions that bridges human security 

interests in the Northern Hemisphere. As such, it’s a venue to evolve and advance international norms toward transparent democratic governance. As a regional entity, it can 

expand political will to address problems of corruption that are often regional in nature, 

such as the 2014 exposure of the Russian Laundromat scandal, where billions were 

exposed coming from Russia and funneled through Eastern Europe and various banks, 

and then onward to the rest of the world. So it’s very important that there are regional 

mechanisms that can address these regional problems. 

I just wanted to mention one particular commitment that’s important in recent 

memory that shapes a lot of the activity today in the OSCE. In 2012 at the Dublin Ministerial Council, foreign ministers from all participating states agreed to a declaration to 

strengthening good governance and combating corruption, money laundering, and 

financing of terrorism. 

So under that mandate, there was substantial activity and really an increase of 

cooperation outside of the OSCE institutions to develop a handbook on combating corruption that came out last year. It’s an important resource that brought in expertise from 

the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and also the Council of Europe Group of States Against CorrupVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:24 Sep 05, 2018 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 3194 Sfmt 3194 X:\_HS\WORK\28318.TXT NINA
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tion. This handbook on combating corruption is a good place to start at looking at how 

we identify potential individuals who should be individuals banned for visas or other asset 

freezes under provisions of the Global Magnitsky Act. 

With that, I will conclude and look forward to having a discussion regarding some 

of the other priorities in the region. But I would say that the Global Magnitsky Act is 

broadly applicable. There are even stories that have broken recently with regards to 

Moldova, to increasing challenges in Ukraine where there’s potential backsliding for the 

forces and institutions that are moving toward reform for corruption. Additionally, there 

are numerous challenges in central Asia, be it in Uzbekistan or Turkmenistan. And I’m 

happy to discuss various cases and other recommendations in that regard during our open 

discussion. 

Thank you so much. 

Mr. MASSARO. Absolutely, Alex. Thank you. I couldn’t agree more that human rights 

and anticorruption are inseparable. Thank you so much for your general recommendations 

of bringing more cases, having other national governments implement Global Magnitsky 

provisions, and also enabling foreign assistance for civil society and other countries, as 

well as your really in-depth OSCE knowledge. I think that that’s one incredible contribution that you can make to this panel is, having worked with the commission and been 

in Vienna, you know the nuts and bolts of the OSCE. A lot of what you just said is related 

to what we were just talking about last week at the Vienna ministerial. We talked to a 

lot of ambassadors and the Secretary General about thematic missions. We brought up 

the idea of anticorruption mission. And I think there’s a lot of support for something like 

that. So we’ll continue to push that, and I hope something like that goes forward. 

I’d like now to hand the floor to Charles Davidson, please. 

Mr. DAVIDSON. Well, thank you, and thank you, Paul, for your extremely kind 

introduction. It’s a pleasure to be here with Alex and Rob. 

Paul asked me to address the specifics of the Global Magnitsky Act before I made 

some other more general comments. This is sort of a fun one, in a way, because this is 

a bill that one can summarize the essential of in just a few words. It gives the U.S. 

Government—Paul will correct me, and others, if I make any mistakes—but it gives our 

government the power to exclude from our territory, in other words visa ban, and freeze, 

or potentially seize, the assets of any non-U.S. person whom we deem to be corrupt, who 

has been a government official. And then there’s some other qualifiers. 

But that’s pretty much it. It also gives us the power to go after not just the government official or senior associate of such an official, but also anyone who has materially 

assisted, sponsored, or provided financial material or technological support to the government official or senior associate who has committed this act that we deemed to be corrupt, 

or acts we deem to be corrupt. So we’re not just empowered to go after what one might 

think of as the prime targets of this bill, but also the enablers, as we call them, of this 

corruption. So it’s a very broad and powerful law. 

In the hands of Rambo, you could really go to town with this thing. If we have a 

president who really wanted to swing this bat, there’s a lot of assets that could be frozen, 

lots of apartments in New York and Miami, this, that, and the other. And it could be 

huge. So just its existence, of course, is a considerable deterrent. 

Now, we’re focusing on kleptocracy today. So let me then, for the rest of my remarks, 

focus exclusively on Global Magnitsky in the anti-kleptocracy context. When we’re talking 

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about kleptocracy, from the standpoint of my program at the Hudson Institute, we’re not 

so much interested in just kleptocracy and corruption, but really the growth of 

authoritarianism and the decline of freedom and democracy around the world. Then we’ve 

noted that all these authoritarian regimes, that are such a threat to freedom and democracy—well, they happen to be kleptocracies. So I’m thinking of Global Magnitsky as being 

a pro-freedom act also, not so much just an anti-kleptocracy act. And I like to think of 

it in those broad terms. And this issue of growing authoritarianism and declining freedom 

around the world is absolutely critical, as we know. So this is a very important and new 

tool in our arsenal for fighting back against the growth of authoritarianism. Sorry if I was 

a bit redundant there. 

Now, another thing Paul asked, then, to comment on is, well, we have special situations. We have countries with whom we have a positive relationship—in other words, 

countries that are not identified as rivals, but say a country we’re trying to fix that has 

kleptocratic elements—and in those cases, how do we think of the Global Magnitsky Act 

as a positive tool? I would in those cases—and I can’t mention any names, so this is going 

to be a bit euphemistic, but to this crowd we kind of know who one might be thinking 

of—I think one characterization we could use is thinking of it as political surgery. So 

Global Magnitsky, we’re going after one person or a small group of individuals, but it’s 

the way the law’s written. It’s going after an individual. So, if we are dealing with a 

regime that we think has serious corruption problems, we can make political judgments. 

I hate the term ‘‘decapitate’’ because that sounds kind of violent or something, but we can 

go after what we think are the possible political inflection points among the most corrupt 

elements, the leading corrupters in a given country. We can go after the enablers of those 

leading corrupters. You don’t need to put everybody in jail. The whole idea of criminology 

is you put one or two people in jail and the other people get the idea. I mean, here we’re 

not putting people in jail, but we’re visa banning and freezing assets. 

For that matter, be it countries we have a positive relationship with or not, what we 

see and what we know is that grand corrupt elements, kleptocrats, really like to enjoy 

the freedoms and the pleasures, and especially the rule of law and the asset protection, 

that Europe and the United States and our allies provide. So if we’re able to leverage, 

as Alex was referring to, Global Magnitsky so more of our allies adopt this, we can have 

a tool that can be really very powerful. And the more political coordination there is with 

other countries, the more powerful this can be at pushing back against kleptocracy. 

The last thing I’d like to mention is the whole notion of kleptocratic corruption being 

exported into the West, because this is something we’ve been emphasizing a lot recently. 

It’s an important notion, that when people come to the West for asset protection and other 

services and we welcome them, they bring with them their mores, their ways of doing 

things. It’s not just money. There’s a lot that comes with it. 

So let’s take in particular a country where we have a positive relationship with them. 

The kleptocratic pollution that’s coming in is bad for us. Global Magnitsky enables us to 

counter that. If we have specific cases, for that matter, of certain individuals whom we 

deem to be particularly negative within our shores, we can use Global Magnitsky as a 

tool of political surgery to not let them enjoy the fruits of freedom and the punch bowl 

that we have been perhaps too happy to provide. 

Thank you. 

Mr. MASSARO. Absolutely, Charles. Extremely eloquent, as always. I love your terminology: pro-freedom act, political surgery. You know, if that’s all you were contributing 

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to the discussion it would be enough, you know? [Laughter.] But thank you so much. I 

really appreciate it. 

So we’re turning right, to Rob Berschinski. The floor is yours. 

Mr. BERSCHINSKI. Thanks, Paul, for having me. 

As Alex mentioned, we are meeting at a particularly timely moment right now—not 

only for the reason he mentioned, but also because, while I can’t speak on behalf of the 

administration, signals are that the administration is going to release its first tranche of 

sanctions designations within the next week or so. I can say that, working with human 

rights defenders and activists around the world, there’s a lot of eager anticipation around 

the Trump administration’s first decisions under the law. 

Robustly implementing the Global Magnitsky law is seen as crucial by activists 

abroad. Notwithstanding recent rhetoric and policy from the administration that, at least 

in my view, has severely damaged America’s image as a leader on human rights and in 

efforts to fight corruption, I can assure you from my conversations that many men and 

women laboring under repressive and kleptocratic governments around the world still 

view the United States as a beacon. They view our government, empowered by Global 

Magnitsky, as an actor able to stand up for what is right, able to protect the vulnerable, 

and able to challenge those who otherwise act with impunity. So we will soon see whether 

these hopes are well founded. 

Robust implementation of the law is also important for activists within the United 

States. Proponents of the law at home see in Global Magnitsky a tool that the U.S. 

Government can use to shine a bright light on murderers, torturers, and rapists, as well 

as those that steal brazenly from their own citizens—and, as my colleagues mentioned, 

to deny these actors travel to the United States and the ability to use the proceeds of 

their ill-gotten gains via our financial system. Many of us also see the advocacy around 

the law as an avenue to accomplish some of these effects even without the U.S. Government, acting as NGOs even when the U.S. Government doesn’t necessarily take action on 

any specific case. 

Recognizing this important potential, shortly after the law was passed last year a 

number of leading, largely but not exclusively U.S.-based human rights and anticorruption 

NGOs came together in an effort to provide the executive and legislative branches of the 

U.S. Government with recommendations on individuals that we felt warranted additional 

investigation and a look by the U.S. Government for potential sanctions under the Global 

Magnitsky Act. We did this in accordance with the law’s Section 1263(c)(2), which directs 

the president to, quote, ‘‘consider credible information obtained by other countries and 

nongovernmental organizations that monitor violations of human rights.’’

I just want to pause to acknowledge the importance of this provision, which serves 

as a reminder that Congress views the role of nongovernmental watchdogs as integral to 

Global Magnitsky’s success. For this, to my hosts here at the commission—[laughter]—

I’d like to offer a note of thanks on behalf of many of my NGO counterparts and activists 

around the world. The law really is something of a model in terms of how NGOs, the legislative branch, and the executive branch can operate as one in order to achieve U.S. policy 

aims and advance human rights and fight against corruption around the world. 

I also want to briefly highlight the proactive outreach to civil society over the course 

of the year initiated by officials at the Departments of State, Justice, and Treasury, as 

well as members of the White House National Security Council staff. I see a few of my 

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former State Department colleagues lurking in the back and wanted to give them a shoutout. The administration has done what I think is an admirable job of consulting with civil 

society over the course of the year. 

Turning to the process that some of us in civil society undertook regarding making 

sanctions designations recommendations, I want to offer four or five thoughts. 

First is that one of Global Magnitsky’s greatest strengths—its global reach—is in 

some respects also what makes it complex to implement, at least in a maximally coherent 

way. Unfortunately, gross violations of human rights and acts of significant corruption 

abound across the world, as Charles was talking to. One stat I read just this morning 

is that the U.N. estimates that roughly 5 percent of global economic activity—so this is 

a figure that is in the trillions of dollars—is lost to either bribes or loss related to skimming off the top. In the context of Global Magnitsky, this raises the fundamental question 

of where do we begin. 

Accordingly, in choosing would-be targets, the U.S. Government would ideally have 

in place a process to think through criteria for designations that go beyond the fundamental, essential question of has the evidentiary threshold to designate someone been 

met. Additional key questions that the U.S. Government could ask itself include: First, 

whether a designation will have impact beyond the specific individual or individuals sanctioned, either by deterring others from similar conduct, or by sidelining a particular actor 

or group of actors—and I think this is a point that’s very relevant to today’s conversation; 

and, second, whether a particular designation or set of designations would reinforce the 

idea that the United States views accountability either on the human right side or the 

anticorruption side in a way that should be advanced globally, including with respect to 

even our partners and allies, or whether our government is only going to pursue these 

actions in the context of countries with which we have bilateral disagreements—again, 

particularly relevant in the OSCE context. 

So, with these questions in mind, those of us in the advocacy world decided early on 

that we wanted to provide the U.S. Government with a list of recommendations that not 

only involved would-be sanctions cases that we felt would have important ramifications, 

but that were also geographically dispersed, mixed between regional powers and smaller 

states, with little distinction between international friends, competitors, and enemies. As 

I mentioned, it remains to be seen whether the U.S. Government will adopt the same 

approach if and when it releases this first tranche of designations sometime in the near 

future. 

The second point I want to offer is that Global Magnitsky’s high evidentiary standard 

has implications for how civil society makes recommendations moving forward. Sanctions 

are, of course, an administrative tool rather than a judicial remedy. They’re ultimately 

about policy and behavior modification, not necessarily achieving justice—though they 

have a justice component to them. That said, before taking an action as significant as 

blocking someone’s assets, the U.S. Government must have confidence that its determination will be held up in a court of law if it’s challenged. This results—and I would say 

appropriately so—in a high evidentiary standard needing to be met before any particular 

designation is made. 

For those of us working on the outside to expose corrupt schemes, what this often 

means in practice is that only in rare circumstances are we actually going to be able to 

deliver all the information that the United States Government might need to make a designation—for instance, the quid pro quo of a corrupt act, rather than a description of cirVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:24 Sep 05, 2018 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00012 Fmt 3194 Sfmt 3194 X:\_HS\WORK\28318.TXT NINA
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cumstances that the government should then investigate. Except in rare cases, activists 

and investigative journalists may be able to point to a compelling pattern of behavior 

worthy of further investigation, but are not necessarily going to be able to produce the 

smoking gun. That’s where, with the tools at its disposal, the United States Government 

will need to pick up the case. Nor, I should add, are we compelled to do so under the 

law in whatever we make public. 

Third, and related to both of the above points, activists are still thinking through the 

relative pros and cons of using public naming and shaming as a tool under Global 

Magnitsky, as opposed to making quiet recommendations to the U.S. Government. Being 

public in recommendations has pretty obvious upsides. Doing so puts corrupt actors and 

human rights violators on notice that they’re being watched. It creates doubt in their 

minds as to whether they’ll be able to carry on their acts with complete impunity. It raises 

the potential that foreign governments might sideline certain actors viewed as pariahs. 

It certainly provides some element of satisfaction to victims, if not, again, actual justice. 

Lastly, those who argue for public recommendations note that the audience for such 

declarations is twofold. It’s not just the would-be designees or the governments of the 

countries of which they’re citizens or where they reside, but also the U.S. Government. 

What being public does is highlight to the U.S. Government that civil society knows that 

these cases are out there and wants the U.S. Government to investigate. While the law 

is clear that the U.S. Government doesn’t need to make any designations, even if the evidentiary standard is met, at that point public declarations from civil society can force the 

issue around political will around designations on behalf of the U.S. Government. 

There are, however, at least two important downsides to public naming and shaming 

that I think are worthy of serious consideration. The first of these is the reality that those 

publicly recommended for sanctions by NGOs may avail themselves of the opportunity to 

move or hide their assets prior to actual designations, and we shouldn’t discount that. 

Also relevant is the very real potential that figures that are often wealthy and quite 

powerful, and who have also at times been known to employ American enablers, will fight 

back. Human rights and anticorruption advocacy at the level of individual naming and 

shaming is a serious business, and the potential for harassment and attempted silencing 

of those engaging in this activity is quite real. 

The same goes for manipulation of recommendations. One difficulty in dealing with 

information and allegations brought forward by certain actors, particularly on the corruption side of the law, is that there can be a fine line between those with inside information 

by way of being a legitimate whistleblower and those that perhaps were engaged in some 

form of corrupt act, and that’s how they came by the information. I think we’ve already 

seen play out a little bit over the course of 2017 a little bit of initial discussion by actors 

that might be in the middle of corrupt acts within their countries trying to play out 

through the press finger-pointing against one another. 

This brings me to my last point. Thank you for bearing with me. 

Beyond its worldwide reach, a major innovation behind Global Magnitsky is that, as 

Charles alluded to with that great term ‘‘political surgery,’’ it’s a policy scalpel and not 

a mallet. By allowing the U.S. Government to target individuals, the law allows the potential for a nuanced policy that signals strong disapproval of certain actors and their actions 

without necessarily suggesting or initiating a complete breakdown in bilateral relations 

between the United States and a foreign government. 

10

An illustrative example of how this dynamic might work in practice is one I’ll draw 

on the human rights side of the law, not the corruption side. This relates to atrocities 

that have been in the news with regularity recently related to the Burmese Government’s 

attacks on its Rohingya minority population. One can use Global Magnitsky sanctions on 

certain military commanders in a way that would sanction them and perhaps play a role 

in sidelining them, while continuing to differentiate them from members of Burma’s 

civilian government. 

I can use a historical example to give a sense of how Global Magnitsky could be used 

in a similar way on the corruption side by referring to an episode back in 2014 in Hungary. In the fall of that year, the U.S. Government applied visa bans on a handful of Hungarian businesspeople and government officials implicated in a corruption scheme related 

to misuse of value-added tax reimbursements. In that instance, the visa bans were implemented under a separate authority, Proclamation 7750, which allows for the suspension 

of entry of persons into the United States ‘‘engaged in or benefiting from corruption.’’ That 

action sent, to my mind, an appropriately strong but targeted signal to the government 

of Hungary about how the U.S. Government views corrupt acts committed in an absence 

of accountability, irrespective of whether those acts were undertaken by individuals in an 

allied country—again, an OSCE participating State and also a NATO member. It’s my 

hope that that example can serve as a model for actions under Global Magnitsky moving 

forward in the OSCE region and beyond. 

Thank you. 

Mr. MASSARO. Thank you so much, Rob. And thank you for emphasizing both this 

exchange of information and cooperation between government and civil society. To me, 

that’s what the Helsinki Commission is all about. I actually just at 12:00 today was at 

the anticorruption advocacy group—a group of 187, I think we are now—civil society 

organizations that come together. I want to hear what every single one of them has to 

say and what all needs to be done. 

It’s amazing to me that we are the type of country that puts this in legislation, right? 

[Laughs.] That’s who we are, it’s part of U.S. Code that we reach out to civil society, and 

that is extraordinary. That is not normal in history, and it’s amazing that we’re here. 

That gets me to that second point of a beacon of hope, because to me that’s what 

it’s really all about. When we fight kleptocracy, I think everyone on this panel would 

agree—I know Charles would because that’s what he’s all about—is fighting back against 

this corrosive influence that is essentially pushing us to betray our values, to put shortterm financial gain over ideals, and strive for what we should be and what we could be, 

which again is that beacon of hope for the rest of the world. 

So, with that in mind, I’d like to move to a point you made about U.S. enablers. I 

think that U.S. enablers are one of the most problematic elements of the kleptocratic 

equation. There is no kleptocracy without us, you know? [Laughs.] Last week, or earlier 

this week actually—all the time is flowing together—I met with a man named Paul 

Ostling. He says he’s whistleblower. He blew the whistle on Brunswick Rail, which is a 

Russian company. He saw them engaging in financial fraud. Then he moved back to the 

United States. He is now under extensive lawsuits by the U.S. court system, by companies 

hired by Russian interests. 

He’s telling me, ‘‘I’m almost bankrupt. I don’t know what I’m going to do. I don’t 

know how to defend myself under this.’’ I think that that sort of thing happens quite 

11

often. I wonder, when we talk about facilitators, when we talk about U.S. court systems 

and being used to facilitate kleptocratic interests or law firms, creating shell companies, 

money laundering, and things like that, to what extent can this law be used to combat 

that element of it? 

Rob, if you’d like to take the first hit at that, and we can move to the right. 

Mr. BERSCHINSKI. So on the final part of your question, a lot of that is beyond my 

area of expertise, and I would defer to Charles, who may have more to say. What I will 

say is that Global Magnitsky is not sufficient to the task at hand. What it does is, it tells 

foreign actors that their ill-gotten gains are not welcome in the U.S. financial system if 

they are designated. I mentioned in my remarks this question is a completely valid and 

difficult question to reconcile, one that we’re still working through in civil society, of do 

we want to maximally name and shame in order to put corrupt actors on notice, with the 

potential downside that they would move their money? 

I think there’s a great interest in actually blocking assets, in freezing assets. But at 

the same time, I would suggest that probably the strongest argument one could make that 

the benefits of publicly outing individuals, even at the risk that they have time to move 

their money before the U.S. Government actually sanctions them, is that at the end of 

the day what’s more powerful than freezing the assets is the moral message that the U.S. 

financial system will not be used for the proceeds of kleptocracy. If actors that feel that 

they are going to ultimately be sanctioned take the initiative to move their money out 

of a rule-of-law–based system and back into a lawless system, that’s on them. 

There’s a reason why whether you are Russian or Ukrainian or Azerbaijani or Central Asian, you want to move your money into the U.S. financial system because we enjoy 

the rule of law. We should not allow those actors in the system. So that’s point one. And 

just quickly, that said, to your point, Paul, this law is necessary, but not in the least bit 

sufficient. As we know through the Panama Papers and other massive expose ́s by investigative journalists, for all of what I just said the U.S. financial system is—to say nothing 

of New York real estate, where I live—a direct beneficiary of much of this money. There 

is little to nothing under Global Magnitsky that is going to change that. 

Mr. MASSARO. Well, that’s very helpful. Let me follow up with, could you name and 

shame a law firm? Could you name and shame a bank? Could you name and shame actors 

like that—not necessarily corrupt officials? 

Mr. BERSCHINSKI. So journalists and anticorruption activists, the tools we have at our 

disposal are essentially our credibility, right? At the end of the day, it’s the U.S. Government that designates. I represent a human rights organization, not an organization that 

focuses on corruption narrowly defined. But when you’re talking about groups like Global 

Witness or Transparency International or the consortiums of journalists that have put out 

these explosive stories in recent months, they need to get their facts right. That’s the most 

important thing. But to the extent that there are indisputable facts and information, I 

think that sunlight is a great disinfectant. 

Mr. MASSARO. Excellent. Charles, do you have anything to say to that? 

Mr. DAVIDSON. Well, I don’t have anything to say, but I’m going to try to say just 

a little something there. Just highlighting this part of the act that I mentioned earlier, 

where we are able to target so-called enablers, people who are not the direct perpetrators 

but who have helped them. I think they could be anywhere, these enablers, the way I read 

the act. Is that correct, Paul? I think so. 

12

So you could think of the plight of this gentleman who is being sued by people who 

he’s blown the whistle on and all of that. Given the NGO component in the actual process 

of identification that Global Magnitsky gives, one could think about the NGO community 

that is respected by our government mobilizing in a case like that. I don’t know if the 

Helsinki Commission can make discreet introductions or indiscreet, I have no idea. But 

one could try to turn the forces that way. 

All we’d need is one case like that. Really, one case and it would completely change 

the mentality, the more major the law firm the better. In related areas, there was a major 

law firm that was called out recently. And the political tide really is kind of turning. So 

now would be a good time. If we could have one case like that, it would be great. 

Mr. MASSARO. Discreet or indiscreetly. [Laughter.] Got it. 

Alex? 

Mr. JOHNSON. On this particular question I really support what my colleagues have 

already said. I think it’s important to recognize—and I’ve tried to emphasize this in my 

opening remarks—that corruption is everywhere. It’s here in the United States. It’s 

throughout the entirety of the OSCE region. So looking at empowering civil society and 

other multinational institutions with mechanisms to hold even the United States to 

account in its role in enabling some of this corruption, it’s very important. 

Mr. MASSARO. Excellent. Well, thank you so much. I’ll ask one more question, then 

we’ll open up questions to the audience. So please start brainstorming. 

I wanted to bring up a piece that I read recently by one Karina Orlova, who I believe 

you know well, that discussed sanctioning Putin’s propagandists, the idea that you could 

go after individuals who had been essentially putting up enormous amounts of 

disinformation or lies. The base of the question comes down to this: Could you foresee 

sanctioning individuals that are spreading disinformation and lies, under this act? To anyone who’d like to take it. 

Mr. BERSCHINSKI. I’ll start on that. First, it’s worth remembering that the two prongs 

of the Global Magnitsky Act relate to gross violations of human rights and acts of significant corruption. So, as I understand it—and I am familiar with the article if not all the 

particulars—Global Magnitsky would not apply. Gross violations of human rights as interpreted by the U.S. Government essentially relate to extrajudicial killing, torture, murder, 

rape. While acts of significant corruption are still somewhat yet to be determined, at least 

as relates to the act, because it hasn’t been implemented yet and the Russian version of 

the law is slightly different than the global version of the law. But nevertheless, it doesn’t 

sound like any of those particular acts would be captured under Global Magnitsky. 

I should also add that as a representative of a human rights organization, I think 

we need to be very careful as we approach questions of sanctions or any sort of policy 

activities that could be seen as retribution against speech. And that is no defense whatsoever of disinformation, which I personally feel is a cancer eating at the soul of democracy 

right now. But we just need to tread very carefully in this space, lest we provide fodder 

to autocratic governments out there that will use any excuse in order to clamp down even 

further than they have on free speech. 

Mr. MASSARO. Anybody else like to take that? Yeah, if you’d like to. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, I agree with Rob, full stop. I think this does not apply in a case 

like that, that the scope of the law is too limited. To reiterate Rob’s point regarding how 

this is not sufficient to the task at hand, that would have to be carefully treaded, that 

13

when you start to regulate speech and proceed in that particular direction. As it stands, 

there are so many cases that could be adjudicated under the current provisions. 

I didn’t have an opportunity to mention it during my opening statement, but just earlier this week the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project broke a story about 

questionable financing of an apartment and expenses for a judge’s daughter in London. 

This is kind of a pattern and a case of a number of officials from throughout the OSCE 

region who have children studying in Western Europe and other places where there are 

so many legitimate cases even within this narrow framework that we should be pursuing 

and daylighting and supporting the capacity to bring to bear, before we even, I would say, 

touch going into some of these more problematic spaces. 

Mr. MASSARO. Definitely. Thank you, Alex. 

So questions, please. No questions? Orest. 

QUESTIONER. Orest Deychakiwsky, formerly with the Helsinki Commission staff, now 

a board member with the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation. 

Has your coalition, Rob, given thought in terms of the mix between egregious human 

rights violators and corruption activists? Or do you just kind of go wherever the evidence 

leads you? 

Thanks. 

Mr. BERSCHINSKI. Thanks. That’s a good question. In this initial round, frankly, the 

group of NGOs that decided to come together, we were basically figuring this out as we 

went along. It’s a process that I expect civil society to improve upon as the years go by, 

in the same way that, frankly, I’m reasonably hopeful that the U.S. Government will come 

out with meaningful sanctions designations in the week or so ahead. But I also expect 

that those designations will become more impactful as more years go by. 

As I mentioned in my prepared remarks, Global Magnitsky is—[laughs]—incredibly 

powerful, but it’s so expansive that it’s really hard to wrap your head around. [Background noise.] [Laughter.] 

And we wrestled with that fact as different human rights and anticorruption NGOs 

got together to discuss what we ended up putting together over the course of the year. 

What we ended up with were a ratio of roughly two-to-one gross violations of human 

rights cases to anticorruption cases. 

That was not for any kind of ideal reason. It was mainly that as we sought to produce 

recommendations around cases that had a pretty solid evidentiary basis to hand over to 

the U.S. Government, really torture cases are much easier to show than almost anything 

else. Why is that? It’s because often the victims can personally identify their perpetrators 

and/or there’s a well-known, well-documented body of evidence that shows extensive violations, where you can show a command responsibility such that we could recommend that 

somebody be designated, not just the guy that’s handling the baton in a particular interrogation room, but his boss and his boss’s boss. 

As I mentioned in my prepared remarks, much harder to do on corruption. That’s not 

to say that, again, some of the allegations that have been put forward, particularly by 

these consortiums of investigative reporters, aren’t very compelling. I find that they are. 

But if the standard that the U.S. Government needs in order to survive any legal challenges is you really have to show person X being handed the cash in exchange for a noncompetitive bid for an extractive service, or whatever the quid pro quo is, that is much 

14

harder to document. So we really are going to wrestle with that moving forward, and I 

would expect that the U.S. Government will as well. 

Mr. MASSARO. Alright. 

QUESTIONER. Yes, Mike Dziedzic from George Mason University. 

Really interested in the aspect of the law that allows NGOs to provide information, 

and stipulates the government will listen. You mentioned your criterion, but I wanted to 

ask you a little bit more about that because it seems to be fixated on individuals. But 

it’s really networks and governments, regimes that are involved. So in at least the first 

cut you took, do you look at not just the individuals but, for example, in South Sudan—

if you were trying to prevent genocide in South Sudan, you’d want to do more than just 

go after Salva Kiir. Is that a way in which you approach this problem? 

The second question is, what needs to be done to make your input more effective in 

terms of the receptivity, or just in terms of the relationship that you have with the 

governments, so that the information that you’re generating can be more valuable and 

more usable? 

Mr. BERSCHINSKI. Thanks for that. Just on the second question first, as I mentioned 

in my prepared remarks, I give great kudos to the administration for its receptivity. They 

were figuring out how to implement this law at the same time, essentially, the NGOs that 

have been focused on it were. And they have reached out both formally and informally—

formal roundtables asking, soliciting input, and then plenty of informal conversations. So 

I don’t have much at the level of just kind of generic receptivity to add. I think that the 

dialogue is there. 

I think there’s infinite potential for common databases, information sharing platforms. And that’s having spent the majority of my career thus far on the government side 

of the table. That’s never going to be anything where the U.S. Government can or, frankly, 

should, for that matter, rely solely on information provided even by the most credible 

organizations. Of course, the U.S. Government is going to need to independently verify 

everything they do. And that’s really important to state. But to the extent that we, in 

civil society, moving forward can formalize our process around coming up with just data 

management tools, I think that’s really an area that’s ripe for additional exploration and 

innovation moving forward. 

On your point on the networking, that’s certainly true with respect to gross violations 

of human rights, and couldn’t be more true on the corruption side. Of course, it doesn’t 

mean much if you are just designating a lone actor. I think that the groups that were 

involved in our process tried as best they could to recommend individuals that we felt 

were emblematic of larger problems within a country. So the head of an internal security 

service known for systemic torture, let’s say. But you’re right, if you really want to affect 

certain policy outcomes, you’re going to be able to do it via one-offs. 

Mr. MASSARO. Please, Alex. 

Mr. JOHNSON. On the receptivity note, I would just want to expand on this infinite 

potential that Rob had mentioned. It’s important that members of Congress are engaged 

in the process as well. Following the efforts by civil society and in conjunction with it, 

a number of members of Congress sent their own letters identifying key individuals that 

they encountered. That was an important part of engaging in this dialogue with the 

administration. So I would call on members of Congress to remain engaged. 

15

Through their engagement with numerous interlocutors, their involvement with 

bodies like the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, which we did not have a chance to discuss 

further, there’s an opportunity to gather a lot of information that is useful to identify 

cases and potential individuals that could be sanctioned under Global Magnitsky provisions. 

Mr. MASSARO. Please. You’re going to have to come all the way up to the mic. 

QUESTIONER. Tanja Nyberg, Magnitsky Act Initiative. 

I would like to speak about the example of Alexander Bastrykin, the head of Russia’s 

Investigative Committee, who is on the Magnitsky list at the moment. I would say that 

he’s continued doing what he does, and recently he orchestrated the arrest of the civil 

staff of Alexander Navalny’s presidential campaign. And he’s continued to do it. But what 

is a positive is that he’s not able to come here to the States, buy property in Florida, and 

so on. It’s just an example of this. 

Thank you. 

Mr. MASSARO. Thank you. Any other questions? 

Alright, I’d like to ask another one then. We’ve talked a lot about the way that the 

sanctions had worked, but what would an appropriate global balance look like? You 

emphasized, Rob, that one of the issues about it is that it’s global. It’s one of the powers 

about it. But what should be the philosophy behind going after 5 people in Latin America, 

10 people in Europe, 5 people in Africa? Do we need the exact same number from each 

region? 

One thing I often run into in anticorruption work is how holistically criminals 

operate. There is no specialization in the criminal world. Yet, for us, we see regions and 

jurisdiction and all sorts of other stuff that stops us from effectively looking at this. I 

could entirely imagine that we run into an area where we say, yeah, we need five from 

this region, five from this region in order to put it on. So what is the appropriate philosophy? What is the appropriate argument structure to create the most effective list? 

Mr. BERSCHINSKI. Good question. I don’t think that there’s probably an ideal here. 

But to speak in generalities, I come back to the question that was asked. I think the right 

question to ask is what is the impact, right? This isn’t a matter of numbers. I can imagine 

an initial tranche of sanctions from the U.S. Government that has less impact, but many 

more names on it than I can imagine that being one potential. I imagine just as equally 

a list with fewer names but that, frankly, has more impact, on the basis of who those 

people are and the message that their designation sends. So I don’t think we should get 

wrapped around the axle on numbers. I think that the right metric is quality and not 

quantity. 

Then in terms of regional breakout, again, there are two. I think flexibility is the 

right watch word. Part of what the NGO consortium tried to signal through our communications with the U.S. Government was that we will be disappointed if the way the 

administration uses this tool is to go after simply those countries that one might expect. 

That’s not to say that, for instance, on the human rights side of the law certain countries 

don’t violate every obligation they’ve signed up to under international law and are certainly deserving in terms of the harm they inflict on their citizenry. But if there’s a list 

that kind of calls out the usual suspects, we feel like the law isn’t being used to its full

potential. 

16

Certainly, the same goes on the corruption side. I think it’s worth reminding ourselves as we think about the OSCE region that the law is intended for environments in 

which criminals enjoy impunity. As Tanja was getting at with her comment, it’s not perfect. A guy like Mr. Bastrykin is still going to do what he does. Global Magnitsky is no 

substitute for real judicial accountability. It’s the minimum that can be done. And in countries in which there is real judicial accountability, we should be urging our counterparts 

to prosecute criminals through their judicial systems. This act is kind of a failsafe for 

those countries where the government simply isn’t going to do that. That’s where it can 

be most useful. And so hopefully that will guide the U.S. Government in its designations. 

Then just a last point that’s somewhat implicated by your question—we were also 

a little bit concerned that the recommendations coming from civil society, if there weren’t 

some attempt, at least, at organization, would simply reflect which organizations get fired 

up about making recommendations, with no real rhyme or reason. So one could imagine 

a very well-meaning effort on behalf of an NGO that follows corruption or gross violations 

of human rights dealing with one specific country coming out with 10 really solid recommendations. More power to them, but we didn’t want kind of the landscape to be dominated by what’s essentially serendipity. Our sense is that we can be of most value to the 

U.S. Government if groups come together and not limit themselves, but adjudicate 

amongst themselves, to try and approach the problem as holistically as possible. 

Mr. MASSARO. Great. Anyone else want to comment on it? Alex, maybe? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes, I just want to reiterate the point that these provisions should be 

as broadly applicable in our partners, as well as countries where there may be bilateral 

tension. It’s really a shame and a challenge that a number of assets still are parked in 

some of these jurisdictions where there are robust judicial processes whereby they can be 

pursued. But I think it is still important to identify some of the corrupt officials who 

operate in those spaces. We should not be reticent about identifying those countries and 

naming officials from there. 

Mr. MASSARO. So, I have another question. That is, we have emphasized many times 

during this discussion that the Global Magnitsky Act is necessary, but not sufficient. So 

with this new idea that essentially started with the original Magnitsky Act that, oh yeah, 

we have the financial system, and we can go after these human rights violators, corrupt 

individuals—what else needs to be done? What is the next step on this? So let’s enter a 

world where Global Magnitsky is applied in a really good way, to the standards that 

everyone on this panel would like to see. What is the next step after that? Please. 

Mr. JOHNSON. I mentioned briefly this handbook on corruption that brought together 

a number of international institutions. I think one of the next steps after the broad 

application of Global Magnitsky, the naming of a number of officials, and potentially the 

adoption of similar measures throughout the OSCE region. It’s important to have robust 

cooperation between law enforcement. So utilizing these international institutions and 

other mechanisms to bring together the experts that then can pursue and investigate 

these particular cases. There needs to be more connective tissue between law enforcement 

and mechanisms for exchange that themselves aren’t subject to potential corruption. 

Mr. MASSARO. Anyone else like to comment? 

Mr. BERSCHINSKI. So I’ll just jump in on that. This comes back to what we were discussing earlier, is it’s worth keeping in mind Global Magnitsky only relates to sanctions 

on non-U.S. persons. Coming back to what you, Paul, mentioned at the outset, a huge porVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:24 Sep 05, 2018 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00020 Fmt 3194 Sfmt 3194 X:\_HS\WORK\28318.TXT NINA
17

tion of the issue is something that we, within the United States, need to tackle. This is 

about new laws around registries for beneficial ownership. 

I was just reading today that the House Financial Services Committee here on, what 

I understand was a more or less party line vote, is moving to rescind an element of DoddFrank that’s a major anticorruption provision related to the extractives industry—so 

moving actively in the wrong direction. So it’s all well and good. And I firmly believe in 

laws like Global Magnitsky in terms of calling out and penalizing corrupt actors abroad. 

But we need to be taking a very close look at our own house, because we are truly, all 

of us, enablers of a lot of this activity. 

Mr. MASSARO. Do you want to make any comments, Charles? Can I force you to, on 

that? 

Mr. DAVIDSON. Well, I could underscore that point, because Rob just mentioned our 

role as enablers. And Paul made a big deal of that in his introduction and in further 

remarks. So my program has taken the position that that is the elephant in the room, 

and that everything else is—I can’t use the word here—if we don’t tackle that. So I think 

that’s an issue, the so-called enabler issue. Maybe we’ll come up with some other diction 

for it at some point. We’ll see. But that’s really the elephant in the room. The Global 

Magnitsky and what we’re going to experience as we try to use it, it may highlight that 

more and more. Its existence and attempts to use it may, therefore, help us with some 

of the ideas and legislation policies that we think should go through. 

Mr. MASSARO. Great. Yes, please. 

QUESTIONER. Hi. My name is Joseph. I’m going to go with Joseph, actually. I’m a 

Turkish lawyer. 

I fled in the United States about a year ago. I was a quite wealthy lawyer, and a 

well-known one, in my area of expertise. And yet, I had to leave my country, all my 

belongings, everything. I start a new life here as homeless, and then—[inaudible]. I could 

manage to take my family with me, too, after I came here. 

So I’m working. In my spare time, I’m trying to do something for the people who have 

been purged in my country. Half of the judicial system—I mean, prosecutors, judges—

have been fired from their work. And then most of them, thousands, are in jail. And police 

officers, army, more than half of these administrations are emptied with false accusations. 

And it is quite difficult to find a lawyer at the moment, because if a prosecutor somehow 

doesn’t like the lawyer’s questions or the judge’s, he may end up being in jail right after 

the court session, even during the session. 

There are many judges and prosecutors who are being detained during the trial. He 

was a judge two seconds ago, and then he’s jailed. There is just one word: Enough. There 

are hotlines about people who are so-called terrorists in the eyes of the government. And 

then even though you are a professor, doctor, or lawyer, you don’t have any illegal things, 

even a traffic ticket, and yet, at that moment you are declared a terrorist. 

So what I am trying to say is under these circumstances, is it really so difficult to 

find evidence? Let me give you some information about the detention. Technically, the 

maximum time for the detention is 24 hours. Let’s say if it is a terrorist group, it should 

be 48 hours. It was. Now it is 30 days of detention time. And after 30 days, you can leave 

the jail, but police officers can take you back to the detention center again. There is no 

time limit. 

18

And you can imagine that there is no control of torture whatsoever. There are tons 

of people who are so-called suicidal during the detention or in the jails. There are tons 

of people who are kidnapped. There is actual video surveillance footage. And prosecutors 

don’t even take any applications about it. So under these circumstances, do you have any 

idea what can we do in order to obtain evidence? 

Because without evidence, I have to try to create maybe twenty applications 

regarding to the Global Magnitsky. But, I’m really having difficulties to convince the 

people whose family members are tortured—I can’t even convince them. Let’s say I convince them to tell the truth. I can’t find the evidence. So please help me out with this. 

Thank you. 

Mr. MASSARO. Do you want to take that on, Rob? 

Mr. BERSCHINSKI. Thanks. First of all, let me just thank you for your bravery and 

just give you my condolences. That’s an absolutely heartbreaking story you tell personally, 

and one that many of us that are familiar with events going on in Turkey, unfortunately, 

I know very well. And it is a heartbreaking situation. 

As relates to the Global Magnitsky Act, what you correctly identify is one of the 

limitations of the act as a tool for the U.S. Government. In order for the government to 

designate any individual or group of individuals, a certain evidentiary standard has to be 

met. As I mentioned in my remarks, that bar is very high, as I understand it. Not only 

that, sir, you mentioned torture. That is considered by the U.S. Government a gross violation of human rights. 

Unfortunately, what isn’t captured under the law, under the definition of gross violations that the U.S. Government uses to understand the law, political imprisonments, lack 

of due process, all the other problems that you mentioned aren’t captured at all. So activists that come to my organization and other human rights organizations tell stories that 

can be extremely well documented of journalists, human rights defenders, lawyers who 

are imprisoned simply on behalf of the work that they do. But unfortunately, the law is 

written in such a way that if they are not tortured or murdered or raped, that doesn’t 

qualify. 

So, Paul, coming back to your question about where might we go moving forward, 

the term, from a legal perspective, ‘‘gross violations of human rights,’’ captures only a 

small subset of internationally recognized human rights. That might be an area for future 

discussion around future legislation. To your point, sir, on documentation, this is difficult. 

The best I can say is, if you are in touch with individual victims who have come out of 

prison, who were tortured, who are able to provide firsthand accounts and talk about 

conditions and, ideally, even name names, know who their abusers are, there are groups, 

like mine, that would be interested in speaking with them. 

As I’ve mentioned before, this is not the ideal form of justice. It’s only a small tool 

in the grand scheme of things. But it’s better than nothing. We have in this initial tranche 

of recommendations that we gave to the U.S. Government taken cases from other countries in which torture in the detention system is rife. On the basis of only one or two firsthand accounts, combined those with well documented, credible information about systemic 

problems, and put those together that makes a recommendation for higher-level people 

within the structure to be sanctioned, under a theory of command responsibility. 

So an idea that it’s—again, not the low-level torturer who no one’s ever heard of, who 

has no assets to freeze, who’s not going to travel to the United States anyway, but rather 

19

the head of that prison or the city police chief, or the head of the internal security service. 

So we can take individual cases and try and make them bigger than what they are. But 

it does take a few people who are both willing to speak up and have the requisite information. And I recognize how hard that is to come by. 

The last thing I’ll say is those people don’t need to necessarily go public. We would 

welcome information that can be held privately, because we recognize that in many situations governments are willing and able to exact retribution on both of the victims, their 

family members, their communities, and so on. So we can work very quietly, if need be. 

Mr. MASSARO. Great. Thanks, Rob. 

Alex, please. 

Mr. JOHNSON. I want to echo Rob’s thoughts, particularly on the personal challenges 

that you’re facing. And maybe offer something a little beyond the scope of Global 

Magnitsky here to give you a methodology around gathering evidence. What comes to 

mind in the OSCE context is, going back to 2002, the Novemberists in Turkmenistan and 

the disappeared. So, since 2002, there have been 112 confirmed cases of individuals who 

are currently detained and a campaign called Prove They Are Alive has been really instrumental in terms of documenting the detainment of those individuals, the new detainments 

that have occurred since then, and finding creative ways to ensure that they are not 

forgotten and to tell that story. 

While it is our hope, particularly in the context that you mentioned, that it doesn’t 

reach a circumstance that reaches many years of indefinite detainment, it’s important to 

look at some of these examples within the OSCE region. In that particular case, the OSCE 

Moscow Mechanism was invoked, and actually generated an investigative mission where 

there was a rapporteur who went and prepared a report on this particular acute case of 

a number of detainments. So there might be international mechanisms that you could also 

similarly gather the experts together and invoke action. 

Mr. MASSARO. Well, we’ve come to the end of our time. Thank you so much to our 

distinguished panel here, and to everyone in the audience, especially those of you who 

asked questions. Really appreciate that. We’ll close the briefing there. [Applause.] 

[Whereupon, at 4:29 p.m., the briefing ended.] 

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