Russia Warns USA Against Adopting Magnitsky Act Or Retaining Trade Amendment
Interfax - 4.3.12 - JRL 2012-62

Moscow, 3 April: Russia will react in strong terms if the USA replaces the Jackson-Vanik amendment with new anti-Russian restrictive measures.

file photo"Our understanding is that the hypothetical decision to grant Russia permanent normal trade relations treatment may be passed this year. We would not at all like to see the abolition of the Jackson-Vanik amendment, which will be necessary in view of this, accompanied with an attempt to replace Jackson-Vanik with something more 'up-to-date' but just as unrelated to trade as the amendment itself," Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said in an interview to Interfax.

Several influential US senators have said they will not support the abolition of the discriminatory Jackson-Vanik amendment, which operates against Russia, unless the so-called Magnitsky Act is adopted. The senators believe that this law should ban entry to the USA to people believed implicated in the death of the lawyer Sergey Magnitskiy in a Moscow pre-trial detention centre (in November 2009).

"If it does happen then we simply will not be able to stay impassive, we shall have to react, and react in strong terms, because it would be the repeat of the logic of the old, long-gone era. It would be an attempt to apply the same logic in a new situation," Ryabkov said.

"If the Jackson-Vanik amendment stays and is not abolished, then it will all remain, as it has been, America's own problem. There will be no actions, no requests, no signals from us," the deputy minister stressed. "We are not going to ask for it to be abolished," Ryabkov insisted. "As for US companies, they will simply be unable to use the mechanism of arbitration to settle disputes, as envisaged by WTO (World Trade Organization) standards. There is an arbitration body within WTO. If the amendment stays in place, US companies will not be able to resort to this mechanism and will find themselves at a disadvantage compared with companies from other countries," he said.

Keywords: U.S.-Russian Relations - Russian News - Russia

Moscow, 3 April: Russia will react in strong terms if the USA replaces the Jackson-Vanik amendment with new anti-Russian restrictive measures.

file photo"Our understanding is that the hypothetical decision to grant Russia permanent normal trade relations treatment may be passed this year. We would not at all like to see the abol