EU Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime

The EU Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime (EUGHRSR) is a horizontal, thematic sanctions framework that allows the European Union to impose targeted restrictive measures on individuals, entities, and bodies—state or non-state—responsible for or involved in serious human rights violations and abuses worldwide, regardless of where they occur.

It was established on 7 December 2020 through Council Decision (CFSP) 2020/1999 and Council Regulation (EU) 2020/1998, adopted under Articles 29 TEU and 215 TFEU. The regime is often described as the EU's equivalent of the U.S. Global Magnitsky Act, though the EU version is not named after Sergei Magnitsky and does not cover corruption offences (a gap that has prompted ongoing debate about adding an anti-corruption track).

Listed conduct includes:

• Genocide and crimes against humanity
• Torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment
• Slavery, trafficking in human beings, and forced labour
• Extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions and killings
• Enforced disappearances
• Arbitrary arrests or detentions
• Other widespread, systematic, or otherwise serious abuses such as those affecting freedom of expression, assembly, religion, or the rights of women and minorities

Measures available are asset freezes and travel bans to the EU; EU persons are prohibited from making funds or economic resources available to those listed. Listings are decided by unanimity in the Council on proposals from the High Representative or any Member State, and are subject to judicial review before the General Court of the EU.

The first designations under the regime were adopted on 2 March 2021, targeting individuals connected to abuses in Russia, China (Xinjiang), the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Libya, South Sudan, and Eritrea. Subsequent rounds have addressed actors linked to the Wagner Group, the Iranian "morality police" following the death of Mahsa Amini in 2022, and perpetrators in Myanmar, Nicaragua, and elsewhere. The regime complements, rather than replaces, existing country-specific EU sanctions frameworks.