An international coalition of human rights groups announced that it will be launching a global campaign to hold human rights violators in the Philippines accountable.
The International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP) said it is launching a “Magnitsky Sanctions Campaign Against Philippine Human Rights Violators” to work with the governments in Australia, Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union.
“Magnitsky sanctions” range from travel bans to targeted financial sanctions against individuals who are “perpetrators of egregious acts of international concern.”
An ICHRP statement on March 29 quoted Australian Senator Janet Rice as saying that the “state of terror” allegedly created by the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte “is at the heart of this sanctions campaign.”
“National governments must act to sanction those who commit serious human rights violations to hold the architects of this terror to account,” said Rice of the Australian Greens.
The Magnitsky Laws call for sanctions against any foreign nationals responsible for violations of internationally recognized human rights in a foreign country when authorities in that country are unable or unwilling to conduct a thorough, independent and objective investigation of the violations.
The law provides for the taking of restrictive measures in respect of foreign nationals responsible for gross violations of internationally recognized human rights.
The ICHRP said the Magnitsky campaign is “a direct follow up” to the work of Investigate PH Commission of 2021, which identified “patterns of gross and systemic human rights violations including crimes against humanity” allegedly perpetrated by the Duterte administration.
The group said that in the absence of genuine accountability for the alleged crimes through international mechanisms, such as the International Criminal Court and the UN Human Rights Council, it is launching the global campaign under national Magnitsky Acts to hold those responsible accountable for these widely documented crimes.
The Magnitsky Act, formally known as the Russia and Moldova Jackson–Vanik Repeal and Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2012, is a bipartisan bill passed by the US Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama in December 2012, to punish Russian officials responsible for the death of Russian tax lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in a Moscow prison in 2009.
Since 2016, the bill, which applies globally, authorizes the US government to sanction those deemed human rights offenders, freeze their assets, and ban them from entering the United States.
