Using Electric Circuits to Develop a TWAIL-Based Critique of the Global Human Rights (Magnitsky) Sanctions Regime

The Global Human Rights Sanctions (GHRS) regime was established by the US in response to the death of Sergei Magnitsky in 2016. It empowered governments to impose sanctions on foreign individuals and entities that committed serious human rights abuses, such as torture. Since then, the regime has gained widespread acceptance in First World countries, particularly in the UK, the EU, Canada, and Australia. However, whilst the regime was aimed at human rights violators in general, in practice, it demonstrated a particular bias against state actors from the Third World. This article critically examines the GHRS regime through the lens of Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL). It contends that the regime is built on a colonial ontological premise, designed to perpetuate systemic bias against the Third World. To visualize this systemic bias, the article uses electric circuit diagrams that demonstrate the biased architecture of the GHRS regime. The article also highlights how the regime operates on a racial binary that dehumanizes the Third World by using human rights as a form of weapon. In so doing, it moves beyond descriptive critique to provide an innovative way of imagining how human rights discourse can serve as an instrument of subordination.