Among the governments that I believe are using the might of government internationally to further discourage human rights abusers, different tools are being used by different governments.
I could enter into this from a different perspective, not from the point of view of sanctions. For instance, the Government of Sweden has been particularly excellent in using foreign aid or limiting foreign aid tied directly to corruption and tied directly to whether or not they believe that the government needs this money. In other words, if the government is putting most of its money in Swiss bank accounts or bank accounts in Andorra or Singapore, they certainly don't need Swedish foreign aid.
With regard to the sanctions regime, I do believe that in the last eight years the United States has made some significant progress. This progress is underlined by doing less of a country-broad approach and much more an approach aimed at specific individuals inside a government.
Again, I cannot stress enough how if you were to, beyond denouncing these individuals, have that tag, that scarlet letter, of being a human rights violator and being called that by a democratic government, it tends to set off a domino effect, because if they're denied visas to the United States, for instance, or to the United Kingdom or to France—if we're going to do the European Union—it sends a message that perhaps this is not someone we want.
Now, is there a risk that there might be a due process violation or that someone could be accused falsely? There certainly is that risk. However, a visa is a privilege. It's not a right for you to enter another country, so the bar certainly is lowered. That said, I do believe that directives can be written in such a way so as to ensure that if someone is unfairly smeared with human rights violations, as has occurred previously, this does not lead to a visa being pulled.
There are examples, such as the Magnitsky case, where it is beyond question that Sergei Magnitsky is dead, that he was murdered because he blew the whistle on a tax fraud case and that certain government officials were involved in his persecution, prosecution, and the cover-up. In going from the individual to the general, the Magnitsky case is excellent.
Again, I'm not someone who believes that government is in fact the answer to problems. My view is government tends to be the initiator of most problems and most certainly human rights violations around the world are committed mostly by governments. I'm wary of that fact, but I do think the United States has a large enough system and large enough structure that can be emulated and some of the best practices can be used and some of the worst, such as a very low bar for asset seizure can be reformed and made better.