Human Rights-Specific Sanctions’ Contribution to Human Rights

While the down of the XX century coincided with a profound crisis for human rigths, the new century seems to be characterized by a renew centrality for the latter – with the adopion by Western states of a set of new measures designed to ensure respect for human rigths worldwide. The author focuses on the so called Global Magnisky Legislation – named after the US Global Magnisky Human Rights Accountability Act of 2016 – which allows to target individual persons and entities (including state actors) for human rights abuses, without any relevant action being taken against the state of origin of the alleged violations. By examining the relevant practice – most notably in response to serious abuses against the Uyghur minority in the Xinjiang (China) – the author finds that human rights-specific sanctions do not necessarily result in the cessation of the violations which triggered their imposition in the first place. They are, however, impactful in many different ways and do ultimately contribute to making human rigths more effectve worldwide.