Stop the Untouchables. Justice for Sergei Magnitsky.

Washington must keep pressure on the Kremlin

Toledoblade.com

Published: 4/22/2012 BY MIKE SIGOV

Russia has become a U.S. presidential election issue, with some American politicians exaggerating the challenge the country presents to the world’s leading power and others playing it down.

Those seriously pondering the U.S. policy toward Russia may consider a human-rights bill that, if passed, would impose sanctions on corrupt Russian officials implicated in the prison death of a Russian lawyer. The bill also would target any other known corrupt bureaucrats, be it in Russia or any foreign country.

Neither a friend nor a foe, Russia has so far responded fairly well to the carrot-and-stick treatment. But the old carrot — a long-coveted accession to the World Trade Organization — is already being fed to Russia. And the old whip — the 1974 Jackson-Vanik amendment that denies Russia the most favored nation trade status — became outdated with the downfall of the Soviet Union and is bound to be repealed soon so that U.S. companies trading with Russia aren’t at a disadvantage.

The human-rights bill — the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2011 — would freeze U.S. bank accounts and deny American visas to corrupt officials and human-rights violators anywhere in the world, Russia included.

Such a whip is bound to be effective. After all, it is not Russia’s proteges such as Iran, North Korea, or Syria where Russian bureaucrats like to keep their money, educate their children, or buy real estate but the United Kingdom and the United States.