Targeted sanctions against individuals on grounds of grave human rights violations – impact, trends and prospects at EU level

Please note: Each EPRS Study is assigned a DOI (digital object identifier), which is a safe and long term way of ensuring a hyperlink to the full text of this report. However, when ESO creates this record, on occasion the DOI still has not been activated by the EU Bookshop. If you find the source url hyperlink does not work please use the alternative location hyperlink listed as a related url.Sanctions are one of the tools utilised to address human rights violations. They are also an increasingly prominent tool in the European Union’s foreign policy. International sanctions policy is part of a global trend towards individualisation: rather than affecting the state as a whole, bans nowadays are targeted at individuals identified as responsible for the abuses.

The present study analysed the evolution of targeted sanctions regimes imposed by the EU, as well as by the UN, against individuals on grounds of gross human rights violations. It focused on the most recent developments in international sanctions practice. It provided recommendations on how this tool could be further developed at EU level, making reference to the option of adopting a Global Magnitsky-type legislation allowing for the designation of human rights abusers worldwide.

• Primary Source

European Parliament: Texts adopted: Own Initiative Opinion, 13.09.17: Corruption and human rights in third countries http://www.europeansources.info/record/corruption-and-human-rights-in-third-countries/

European Parliament: European Parliamentary Research Service: Study, April 2018: Targeted sanctions against individuals on grounds of grave human rights violations – impact, trends and prospects at EU level http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2018/603869/EXPO_STU(2018)603869_EN.pdf

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