Written Evidence from Richard Ratcliffe, Free Nazanin Campaign (FSP0016)

I, Richard Ratcliffe, am the husband of British Iranian charity worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who is currently held hostage by the Iranian authorities. She has been held for over 1,000 days on spurious charges as diplomatic leverage. Members of the Committee have raised her case in Parliament.

I am submitting evidence to the inquiry since the Committee’s focus on the potential of Magnitsky Powers (as defined below) is timely for the Free Nazanin Campaign. We, together with other families and their representatives, are exploring the possibilities of using Magnitsky Act possibilities – in the UK and elsewhere – to challenge state-sponsored hostage-taking practices. Our experience is that there is currently a protection gap in conventional consular approaches to dealing with state-sponsored hostage taking and holding the offenders, e.g. Iranian authorities, to account. The Committee’s inquiry offers the chance to encourage the government to close that gap.

Executive Summary

The Magnitsky Act offers new possibilities for human rights protections and is particularly useful for cases like that of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, unfairly detained and held in Iran for almost 3 years. Nazanin is one of an increasing number of dual nationals held hostage by Iran, as diplomatic leverage against Western countries.

The need for Magnitsky Powers for cases such as Nazanin arises because there is currently a protection gap for state-sponsored hostage-taking practices, such as those practised increasingly by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Similarly, there have been limitations in how historically UK consular policy has protected its citizens overseas.

The UK’s new Magnitsky Powers could help close these gaps, since they:

• Provide a mechanism for smart sanctions targeted on specific abuses, and to address specific behaviour change;
• Focus on holding perpetrators individually accountable for participating in specific gross human rights abuses, rather than a blunt instrument of collective punishment, building clear mutual understanding even in contexts of heightened mistrust;
• Offer an opportunity to ensure new protections for British citizens, as the UK articulates its new place in the world. While there has been much focus on the new British passport’s colour, it will be the protections on the inside page, and consular protections in terms of citizenship rather than subjecthood, that will matter more; and
• Resonate internationally: there have been increasing calls for Magnitsky Powers to be used in a number of jurisdictions specifically to disrupt Iran’s hostage industry. Magnitsky Powers provide a resource to stand up for common values and are a tool for coordinated action to make Iran safe again. This is an area where the Foreign Secretary can take a lead.

If there is no progress on Nazanin’s situation in the coming months, one form of escalation we will be discussing with the UK government is its use of Magnitsky Powers against Iranian officials involved in the detention and abuse, and justification of this abuse, of Nazanin and other British Iranians.

The Committee can help strengthen the UK’s approach to the use of its Magnitsky Powers by establishing a Magnitsky policy for gross human rights abuses, providing advice and a mechanism for how people can propose sanctions under Magnitsky Powers, including an appeal mechanism. It can also ensure Parliament has a role in decision-making in respect of the imposition of sanctions under Magnitsky Powers, and the proposal of names of individuals for sanction. To ensure effectiveness, it can also raise the creation of a Magnitsky Cooperation Committee with the UK’s key international partners.

DETAILED SUBMISSION

New Possibilities

In the U.S., the “Magnitsky Act”, which came into force in December 2012, entitles the U.S. government to sanction gross violators of human rights, including by freezing their assets and banning them from entering the U.S.[1] Equivalent measures came into force in Canada in 2017, in respect of individuals who are responsible for or complicit in serious human rights abuses.[2]

In the UK, Parliament is considering various private members’ bills and amendments to existing legislation (e.g. Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (“POCA”) and Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018 (“SAMLA”)) to introduce similar sanctions measures.

Broadly speaking, these powers enable governments to sanction human rights violations by imposing specific measures against individuals, including restrictions on the use of assets and visa restrictions and are referred to in this document as “Magnitsky Powers”.

In both the U.S. and Canada, the first stage of the procedure involves the relevant public body introducing an order to add a designated person (or group of people) to a public list of sanctioned persons specifying what sanctions orders will apply to such person (or group of people). Sanctioned persons hoping to overturn these decisions and have their name removed from the list of sanctioned persons have formal recourse through the administrative appeals process.

Once an individual is added to the list of sanctioned persons, it can be difficult to remove them due to the high evidentiary burden to establish valid grounds for removal. In Canada, Parliamentary committees recommend whether an individual should remain or be removed from the sanctions list.

Magnitsky Powers offer new avenues of human rights protection. Magnitsky Powers fall under two categories: (a) imposing visa restrictions and (b) imposing financial sanctions (including asset freezing, seizing assets, and imposing restrictions on third parties to prevent them from dealing with sanctioned individuals). Such sanctions are imposed autonomously by nations against individuals alleged to be responsible for, to be complicit in, or to have directly or indirectly engaged in, “serious human rights abuses” or corrupt acts anywhere in the world.

These measures are powerful because they target individual perpetrators of human rights abuses as well as domestic or foreign citizens who materially assist sanctioned persons. The enforcement mechanisms differ from country to country.[3]

A Parliamentary review of applicable Canadian sanctions rules occurs every five years. The Magnitsky Powers established by the Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act (the “Canadian Act”) were recommended following a review in October 2016; another Parliamentary review is scheduled for October 2022.[4]

Magnitsky Powers in the U.S.

The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) is the subdivision responsible for evaluating and imposing financial sanctions. The law requires that “credible evidence” supports sanction imposition. Persons whose assets are blocked by OFAC face significant restrictions in dealing with their property. The restrictions capture two categories of “Sanctioned Person”:

individuals named in an Executive Order or otherwise placed on OFAC’s list of Specially Designated Nationals (“SDNs”);[5] and

entities owned in the aggregate 50 percent or more, directly or indirectly, by one or more individuals designated in (a) above. The assets of such entities are blocked regardless of whether the entity itself is listed in the annex to the Executive Order or otherwise placed on OFAC’s list of SDNs.

Under U.S. rules, a U.S. person may not engage in any transactions with a Sanctioned Person, unless authorized by OFAC.[6]

Under the Magnitsky Act, the Treasury Secretary may freeze assets without prior notice to the sanctioned individual and may lift the sanctions at his or her discretion. Sanctioned assets are then placed in interest-bearing accounts until such time as the sanctions are lifted. 

Magnitsky Powers in Canada

In Canada, a number of pieces of legislation, namely the Freezing Assets of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act, the Special Economic Measures Act (“SEMA”), the United Nations Act and the Export and Import Permits Act are used to enforce asset freezing orders.[7]

The Governor in Council may bring about an order or regulation, which results in an individual being added to the sanctions list, which is published by Canada’s foreign ministry (“Global Affairs Canada”). Though some countries may have been reticent to publicise the names on a Magnitsky list, Canada has shown its willingness to reveal these. There is an official Canadian government “Consolidated Canadian Autonomous Sanctions List”[8] (the “Canadian List”) which includes individuals and entities subject to specific sanctions regulations made under the Canadian Act and SEMA. The only method to add individuals to the list is through Parliament.

Global Affairs Canada has the role of monitoring the use of the Canadian Act. Global Affairs Canada maintains the Canadian List and lists individuals and entities that are designated under SEMA and the Canadian Act[9] (the “Canadian Regulation”). The Canadian Regulation has a schedule listing individual(s), each of whom is described therein[10] as “...a foreign national who, in the opinion of the Governor in Council, has committed an act set out in subsection 4(2) of the Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act (Sergei Magnitsky Law)”; as of 12 December 2018, the schedule contains 70 names.

Once sanctions measures are in place, Global Affairs Canada must monitor their implementation on an ongoing basis to determine if they are having the desired effect and are working to achieve their purpose, making changes where necessary. As the independent agency which is responsible for supervising federally regulated financial institutions, the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (“OSFI”) has a key role regarding monitoring requirements. OSFI issues monthly reminders of reporting requirements on its website, directed at organisations referred to in the Canadian Act (e.g. banks, authorized foreign banks, property and casualty insurance companies).[11]

Benefits of Magnitsky Powers

The flexibility of Magnitsky Powers means that governments can use them to respond effectively to urgent situations. For instance:

-          Speed: Sanctions were imposed on Saudi individuals in the Jamal Khashoggi case within 4 weeks of the Saudi Arabian government confirming reports that Jamal Khashoggi died inside the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul.[12]

-          No jurisdictional link required: On 21 December 2017, the U.S. imposed sanctions on Gao Yan, the Beijing Public Security Bureau Chaoyang Branch director, for the abuse of human rights activist Cao Shunli.[13] The U.S. imposed sanctions under the Magnitsky Act despite the victim not being a U.S. citizen and the alleged human rights abuses not having occurred on U.S. territory.

-          Sovereign legislative process: Unlike EU or UN sanctions, Magnitsky Powers are a matter of domestic legislation and do not require international negotiation, with states having different alliances and agendas. Once a legislature introduces Magnitsky legislation and a government determines that it wishes to sanction certain individuals, it can do so without negotiating with other states.

-          Coordinated response: The Committee noted in its previous report that “sanctions are most effective when allies act together.”[14] Notwithstanding that Magnitsky Powers are within a state’s sovereign domestic power, states can mount a coordinated response to specific human rights violations. For instance, each of the U.S., Germany, France and Canada sanctioned individuals from Saudi Arabia in response to the killing of Jamal Khashoggi. The U.S. and Canada co-operated to sanction the same 17 individuals.[15]  Although the identities of the individuals sanctioned by France and Germany were not made public, it was widely reported that the sanctions were imposed on 18 individuals.[16] There is a strong likelihood of overlap.

-          Targeted for specific behaviour change: Magnitsky Powers also provide for sanctions that encourage specific behaviour change, as the Committee has previously counselled.[17]

-          Lifting data protections: One area of focus for campaigners is the lifting of data privacy rights for sanctioned (and especially associated) people and direct or indirect entities, and to freeze assets across private networks used to protect such rights. This significantly enhances the potential of Magnitsky Powers to act as a deterrent.

Not yet been used in the UK

However, as the Committee notes, Magnitsky Powers are less developed in the UK, where there is no stand-alone Magnitsky legislation. Under the existing sanctions regime, the UK must apply EU or UN sanctions through a UK statutory instrument. The UK also has certain autonomous powers to impose sanctions in connection with terrorism offences. While EU and UN sanctions have regularly been imposed against non-EU governments, companies, groups or organizations as well as individual perpetrators of human rights abuses, including in relation to the detention and mistreatment of prisoners, the EU has often been criticised for taking an inconsistent approach in the application of sanctions.[18]

The UK also has autonomous powers under POCA as amended by the Criminal Finances Act 2017, to recover property which was obtained through unlawful conduct, including a gross human rights abuse or violation. However, POCA has limited usefulness in connection with gross human rights abuses or violations, as it requires evidence of a link between the perpetrator’s unlawful conduct and the property seized.

As part of the UK’s preparations for Brexit, the UK’s sanctions regime is being overhauled. SAMLA received Royal Assent in May 2018, but is not expected to come fully into force until the UK’s withdrawal from the EU.[19]

Section 1(2)(f) of SAMLA (dubbed the “Magnitsky Amendment”) grants Ministers very broad powers to introduce autonomous sanctions against individuals and entities[20] for a very broad range of permitted purposes. These permitted purposes include “to provide accountability for or to be a deterrent to gross violations of human rights, or otherwise promote compliance with international human rights law or respect for human rights”. Section 1(2)(f) was a late amendment to SAMLA and significantly broadened the UK’s powers to introduce secondary legislation in relation to Magnitsky Powers – including visa restrictions and financial sanctions.

Once SAMLA comes into force, it is hoped that the broad powers it conveys will be used by the UK government to introduce Magnitsky Powers following the U.S. and Canadian models, covering both visa restrictions and financial sanctions against targeted individual perpetrators of human rights abuses, as well as domestic or foreign citizens who materially assist sanctioned persons.

Sanctions are imposed where any Minister considers it appropriate to comply with the UK’s international obligations or for any of the discretionary purposes listed in section 1(2) of SAMLA, including compliance with international humanitarian law. When imposing sanctions to advance one of the discretionary purposes in section 1(2), the designating Minister must present Parliament with a report demonstrating that there are good reasons to pursue that purpose and that the imposition of sanctions is a reasonable course of action for that purpose.[21] The designating Minister will monitor the implementation and continued use of the sanctions measures by reporting to Parliament annually on whether the stated purpose continues to be met and, where the purpose is discretionary, that the section 1(2) criteria continue to be met.

The UK has historically avoided “naming and shaming” individuals subject to sanctions in order to avoid litigation.[22] However, the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation maintains a consolidated list of individuals and entities subject to financial sanctions in the UK as imposed by the UK, the EU and the UN.[23]

There is neither a formal procedure to apply, nor stand-alone Magnitsky legislation providing, for the addition of individuals to a sanctions list in the UK. Considering the broad powers given to Ministers under SAMLA, campaigning and lobbying Ministers may be effective. However, the imposition of sanctions depends on Parliament. Currently, the UK has only listed individuals and entities subject to financial sanctions.

SAMLA creates a challenge process for a designated person to request variation or revocation of a name from a list of sanctioned persons via the designating Minister, rather than the designated person having immediate recourse to the courts.[24] This gives the UK government significant protection from legal challenges, thereby empowering the UK government to use the very broad powers included in SAMLA to uphold the highest principles of international human rights law and to pursue those who commit human rights violations.

We hope that the UK government uses the powers contained within SAMLA to introduce secondary legislation containing a robust enforcement mechanism and substantial punitive measures for non-compliance with the Magnitsky Powers, including fines, imprisonment and forfeiture of property of offenders. We also hope that the UK government follows the example of Canada and expands the mandate of the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation to play a role similar to Global Affairs Canada and the OSFI, in order to monitor the effectiveness of UK sanctions and compliance by private individuals and corporations with UK sanctions.

Nazanin’s Case

Magnitsky Powers are particularly useful for gross human rights violations, such as the injustices suffered by Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.

Nazanin is a British Iranian charity worker who was arrested in April 2016 while on holiday with her then 22 month old daughter, Gabriella, as part of a wave of arrests of dual and foreign nationals by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard in the wake of the Iran nuclear deal. She was kept in solitary confinement for 8½ months, accused of attempting to overthrow the regime, convicted of secret charges in a secret Revolutionary court, and then had a second court case opened against her blamed on Boris Johnson’s words to this Committee. Her baby daughter’s British passport was confiscated for over a year. 

The judicial process has been used by the Iranian authorities as an extension of their security services and Nazanin’s most basic due process rights have been violated. She was convicted on secret charges, in secret proceedings at which she was not allowed to speak. She had no access to a lawyer until two days before her trial in the presence of her interrogators, where she was not allowed to speak. When she was subsequently allowed to present her defence, this had to be done blindfolded. Her lawyer was then personally prosecuted for defending her. The scheduling of her court cases and the announcement or postponement of verdicts has consistently depended on the timing of extraneous events in the UK’s relationship with Iran.

Iranian state TV and media has similarly been used as an extension of the security services in its depiction of Nazanin’s case. The Revolutionary Guard used secret cameras to film her initial arrests, the interrogations conducted while she was in solitary confinement, the formal statements she made in exchange for a promised release and her trial. State media has subsequently been used to drip feed selected footage into ordinary Iranians’ living rooms. There has been extensive and libellous propaganda in the Iranian media proclaiming Nazanin and her husband as spies – using a mixture of invented stories, misrepresentations of innocent facts, stolen and often doctored documents from her private email and footage of her being arrested at the airport, and repeating footage of British politicians’ inaccurate statements as proof against her. There have also been orchestrated denouncements of Nazanin as a spy in state mosques at Friday prayers.

Nazanin has been kept largely in a state of conspicuous suffering, caused and encouraged by Iranian authorities. She has been denied medical attention for neurological problems, severe depression and potentially cancerous growths, despite treatment having been approved by the prison. Her suffering seems a deliberate tool of pressure, with the UN observing that such denial of care may well amount to torture.[25]

Nazanin has been privately told by the judiciary and her interrogators on a number of occasions that she is being held as leverage over a secret government arms trading debt from the 1970s and 1980s, whose accounts are not laid before Parliament. Nazanin’s treatment is further exacerbated by a breath-taking lack of accountability by Iran. In over 1,000 days of imprisonment, the Iranian authorities have never agreed to meet with Nazanin’s family in the UK, have not responded to any of the family’s messages and have never granted her husband a visa to travel to Iran to visit Nazanin and/or Gabriella.

Nazanin’s case highlights the accountability gap caused by government operations outside Parliamentary accountability arrangements, and potential risks to innocent citizens of blowback from government secrets. Without the possibility or threat of Magnitsky Powers, the UK government has no appropriate mechanism to apply pressure to the individuals directly involved in Nazanin’s imprisonment. The availability of Magnitsky Powers would likely create accountability, even if such powers were not used.

Moreover, Nazanin is not the only person held. As the Foreign Secretary has noted, Nazanin is one of a number of innocent dual nationals held “as diplomatic leverage” by Iran against Western countries. Those targeted have typically been Iranians with links to outside countries and certain sectors, particularly culture, environment, charities, media and academia.[26] This targeting is marketed through a grandiose propaganda on Iranian state media and mosques depicting them as ‘infiltrators’ or foreign ‘spies’. Typically, those held have both a foreign and Iranian citizenship. As such, they are used by the Iranian security agencies to prevent uncontrolled detente with the West, and as leverage in bilateral issues. It is effectively a protection racket.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry has demonstrated limited ability to resolve these cases diplomatically. It has been reluctant to acknowledge its responsibility or accountability for the actions of other parts of the Iranian regime, insisting publicly on the independence of the Judiciary, or even to meet with the families of those detained and explain the reasons for their arrest.

The Protection Gap

As noted in the Trust Law report “Held Hostage?”[27], there is a clear ‘protection gap’ in the protections afforded to victims of state hostage-taking at the levels of both international[28] and national law.[29] The report notes the increasing trend of certain States detaining civilians, in particular dual nationals on unfounded criminal charges as a means of pursuing ulterior national interests; this includes Iran predominantly though not exclusively.

The individual circumstances of the detentions suggest they are arbitrary. Additionally, the broader political relations between the nations involved and the underlying political motives of the detaining nations suggest that many of these detentions meet the international law definition of hostage-taking. The crucial feature of the offence of hostage-taking under international law is the release of the prisoner being contingent upon satisfaction of certain conditions in order to compel a third party to do or to refrain from doing certain actions.

In the absence of an international legal framework to cover hostage-taking by states, countries whose citizens have been detained typically rely on consular processes to deal with such situations, which are ad hoc and not transparent, rather than falling within a formalised framework of legal protections of the detained individual’s rights. Individuals unfairly imprisoned can appeal to UN bodies, such as the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention or the UN Special Rapporteur on Iran. However, these processes have limited traction with Iran and UN powers are constrained by state sovereignty. 

Conventional diplomatic norms, built on discretion and flexible accommodation, can play into some of these Iranian practices. Additionally, Iran prevents consular access to many of those held under the guise that it “does not recognise” dual nationality, even whilst using people as leverage precisely because of their dual nationality. With consular access denied, the UK is unable to ensure the safety of its citizens or offer any assurances regarding their treatment. In these situations, the interests of the government and its citizen are often different. Reluctance to go beyond a soft approach in many prominent cases has allowed them to continue for years, rather than just months or weeks.

A preference to treat cases as unconnected individuals which are best managed quietly, without acknowledging the common patterns, or that they are part of a systematic phenomenon, means there is a tendency to just manage the symptoms of Iranian hostage taking, rather than explicitly address the problem. Families are increasingly calling for international coordination to challenge Iranian practices.[30] Iranian authorities continue to counsel silence in the face of these practices, with the Iranian Ambassador to the UK explicitly stating to the British media in January 2019 that the Free Nazanin Campaign was the cause of Nazanin’s continued detention and suffering.[31] Her family’s view remains that silence in the face of abuse is always enabling.

UK Consular Practices

Historically there has also been a gap in UK policy for protecting its citizens overseas.

British subjects have no right to consular protection.[32] As the Foreign Affairs Committee noted in 2014, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (the “FCO”) does not talk about ‘consular protection’, but rather ‘consular assistance.’[33] Protection is discretionary: consular assistance is regulated instead as a matter of policy where actions are taken only at the discretion of the UK government. FCO statements are invariably framed in the language of discretion, calling for ‘humanitarian release’ rather than insisting on rights. In 2018 Redress called for the introduction of a right to consular assistance in UK law and an obligation for the UK government to exercise diplomatic protection where UK nationals, including dual nationals, have suffered or face a risk of serious human rights violations while abroad. Even in Nazanin’s case the FCO has been reluctant to exercise diplomatic protection. The Redress report highlighted the limitations of current policy with case studies, including Nazanin’s.[34]

Effectively, this is an area of legacy law where the UK population remain subjects rather than citizens. The inside page of the British passport is still couched in the language of subjecthood, not citizenship or rights. Much of the discussion over the next British passport has focused on its colour. Yet the value of a passport is not judged by its cover, but by the protections on its inside page. This is an area of legal protection ripe for updating; it likely merits future legislation to bring formal consular protections into the 21st century.

This lack of formal protections can be exacerbated by current policy:

• FCO policy is to not criticise another state’s legal system, even when it is violating the human rights of a UK citizen. For instance, it took the FCO more than two years to acknowledge Nazanin’s detention as arbitrary; in private the FCO’s position to her family for a long period was that Nazanin was unfortunately a criminal under Iranian law;
• FCO policy is to not publicly acknowledge the innocence of British citizens held by overseas governments, even when confronted by the most egregious breaches of due process and the most extreme charges. The Foreign Office does not keep a tally of the number of innocent British prisoners held by overseas governments in their prisons; and
• FCO policy prioritises a “do no harm” approach that strenuously avoids antagonising the other government. Some families have accused this approach of ensuring consular cases do not get in the way of other agendas, particularly corporate and trade agendas.[35]

As the Foreign Affairs Committee has previously noted, this can create inconsistencies in the service offered by government.[36] Discretionary protection inevitably creates gaps in how people are protected and provides an incentive for citizens to become increasingly demanding to ensure they are not short-changed by a government with other priorities.

Foreign policy is an area that often tends to get captured by elite interests.  It is an area of policy that is historically opaque, and thus with limited space or mechanisms to keep the government accountable. The UK has also discouraged its citizens from seeking redress when abused by key trading partners. Perhaps the most prominent historical example was the case of the torture of Sandy Mitchell and colleagues by the authorities of Saudi Arabia. The survivors detailed how a softly-softly diplomatic approach was maintained so as not to disrupt arms sales and negotiations over a new BAE systems contract.[37] When Sandy Mitchell and fellow torture survivors attempted to take Saudi Arabian officials to court for torture and false imprisonment (around the time of a renegotiation of a new BAE arms contract), their 2004 Court of Appeal ruling was overturned by the House of Lords. In June 2006 the House of Lords ruled that the Saudi officials could benefit from state immunity, following British government intervention in support of state immunity over its citizens’ torture claims.[38] Subsequent attempts to enact a private members bill, the Torture (Damages) Bill, to provide a remedy for victims of torture by foreign states passed in the Lords, but not in the Commons, despite support from the Joint Committee on Human Rights in 2009.[39] This approach risks leaving British citizens unprotected.

Magnitsky Act: New Possibilities for International Coordination

Magnitsky Powers can address this gap and offer fresh hope and possibilities in these circumstances, as the Committee has previously identified:

“We applaud the inclusion of a Magnitsky clause in the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill, allowing sanctions regulations to be made for the purpose of preventing, or in response to, a gross human rights abuse or violation. This long-overdue measure sends a powerful signal of support to victims of human rights abuse around the world”.[40]

Hostage-taking by foreign states and officials is an egregious form of arbitrary detention; it represents a human rights violation that would generally meet the threshold for the imposition of Magnitsky Powers.

Since 2014, the U.S. and the EU have worked together to coordinate sanctions against Russia.[41] A more recent example of coordinated sanctions against Russia is the joint U.S. and EU response to the Skripal poisoning in the UK.[42] When Western countries coordinate sanctions, it has the diplomatic advantage of demonstrating unity in condemning intolerable actions taken by other states. When Magnitsky Powers are coordinated in response to human rights abuses carried out by individuals, the message is clear: individual human rights abusers will face severe financial and personal restrictions in the many jurisdictions which are committed to upholding human rights.

The U.S. is the most effective jurisdiction for imposing sanctions, as the U.S. accounts for 37% of world financial stock; the U.S. economy is so large that foreign financial institutions often comply with U.S. sanctions out of an “abundance of caution”. However, the U.S. is not the only major market in which to conduct business, nor the only Western country in which people involved in human rights abuse may wish to live (or send their children to university). Coordination among countries imposing Magnitsky Powers is critical to the practical effectiveness of those sanctions. When sanctions are imposed by multiple jurisdictions, this significantly limits the travel and business options available to sanctioned persons. In order to ensure that human rights sanctions are enforced globally and effectively, the UK, the EU, Canada and other Western countries should coordinate their efforts to ensure that the restrictions imposed under Magnitsky Powers are not avoided.

In practice, for the UK, Magnitsky Powers could:

• provide a mechanism for smart, targeted sanctions, focused on the perpetrators of hostage-taking rather than risking accusations of collective punishment;
• be used in cases such as Nazanin’s to increase the political cost of using innocent people as leverage; and
• increase accountability for citizens: A key issue in Nazanin’s case is the lack of accountability. There is no accountability for the Iranian authorities as no specific individual is held responsible for carrying out Iran’s human rights abuses. Similarly, there is little accountability for the UK authorities over its actions or inaction to protect its citizens. Magnitsky legislation would change this situation by providing direct legal sanctions for individuals’ breach of human rights laws. Not only would this increase the accountability of those directly involved in human rights abuse, but, depending on the legislative framework, it could also ensure that British ministers can be held accountable for a decision not to exercise Magnitsky Powers in a particular case.

In December 2018, Canadian lawmakers called on the Canadian government to exercise Magnitsky Powers by sanctioning 19 Iranian officials in particular for their targeting of Iranian Canadians.[43] Similarly, in December 2018, a number of families called on the international community to threaten and use sanctions against those involved in holding their family members hostage.[44] Thus there is an increasing recognition of the need for coordinated action to address this issue – and to make Iran safe again and able to realise its potential. Magnitsky Powers can serve as an effective tool against hostage-taking by nations and, in particular, strengthen the negotiating position of the detained citizen’s home nation.

Now that Nazanin has been unjustly detained for over 1,000 days, the Free Nazanin campaign is committed to exploring its options under Magnitsky Powers globally to protect Nazanin. We have begun preparing a list of key individuals involved in her abuse with the intention to ask that they be added to Magnitsky lists in different jurisdictions if her case is not resolved by end March 2019.

Recommendations

The Foreign Affairs Committee and a number of its members have played an important role in Nazanin’s case, as has Parliament more generally, in pressing the government to do more. It is likely that Parliament will equally need to take the lead in pressing for the UK to adopt a robust use of its Magnitsky Powers as a tool for accountability for the abuse of the human rights of British citizens by officials overseas.

There are a number of things the Committee might ask the government to do to help UK citizens make better use of new Magnitsky legislation. These include asking the government to:

• establish a Magnitsky Policy for gross human rights abuses;
• include in this a framework for the lifting of all data privacy rights for sanctioned (and especially associated) people and direct or indirect entities;
• provide advice on how people can propose that sanctions be applied under the Magnitsky Powers;
• establish a robust appeal mechanism for victims’ families to contest government decisions on whether to apply Magnitsky Powers (in particular, to allow victims’ families to challenge government decisions not to exercise Magnitsky Powers);
• empower Parliament to be involved in decision-making on the imposition of sanctions under Magnitsky Powers, by granting Parliament a role in proposing individuals to be sanctioned and requiring the executive to seriously consider such proposals;
• explore creating a formal Magnitsky Powers cooperation committee with the UK’s key allies, in order to facilitate coordination in the use of Magnitsky Powers.

The Committee could also encourage the government to review its use of its Magnitsky Powers to date, and its potential as a tool in its toolbox. It is important that the Committee continues to ensure the government has adequate tools to protect British citizens in the 21st century.

January 2019

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