Justyna Gudzowska is director of illicit finance policy at The Sentry, an investigative and policy organization that seeks to disable multinational predatory networks that benefit from violent conflict, repression and kleptocracy. Akira Igata is project lecturer at the Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Tokyo.
As the leaders of the Group of Seven nations meet in the Bavarian Alps this weekend, the brutal Russian invasion of Ukraine and resulting sanctions against Russia will no doubt dominate the discussion.
Never before have such significant sanctions been imposed in such a short period of time on a major economy so deeply integrated into global markets.
The Kremlin was likely surprised that the coordinated sanctions response was not confined to Western nations, as the invasion galvanized countries that had previously shown reluctance to impose sanctions outside of a United Nations framework, namely Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore.
This united and powerful sanctions response to Russia, which notably did not happen after the annexation of Crimea in 2014, sent a critical message to Russian President Vladimir Putin that he had finally crossed the proverbial red line.
Despite oft-repeated claims that sanctions do not work, the Japanese government's decision to join in these multilateral sanctions is a tacit admission that it believes sanctions can be effective. But it should not take the invasion of a sovereign country for Japan to take a stand against atrocities.
Japan remains the only G-7 nation that does not have the legal authority to trigger sanctions for egregious violations of human rights, and this is where the country continues to fall short of both G-7 norms and its own constitutional ideals that "all peoples of the world have the right to live in peace, free from fear and want."
Before the invasion of Ukraine and the ensuing sanctions response, a different type of sanction targeting human rights abusers and corrupt actors galvanized democracies around the world.
The United States was the first, in 2016, to adopt the so-called Global Magnitsky sanctions, which are named after a Ukrainian-born, Moscow-based lawyer who was tortured to death by the Russian state for exposing public corruption. Canada, the European Union, the United Kingdom and Australia, among other countries, have since adopted their own versions.
A Japanese version of the law, after two years of interparty discussions among Diet Members that failed to reach a consensus and the government showing no real interest in seriously considering the law, was finally submitted as a draft by members of the leading opposition party in early June. Now is the time for Japan to pass the law, a move that would come with significant advantages and few downsides.
Sanctions can be a versatile foreign policy tool, and Global Magnitsky-style sanctions are an especially nimble instrument because they target specific individuals or entities and can be used to respond to situations anywhere in the world.
They have been employed to target nefarious actors from countries as diverse as Angola, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Guatemala, Israel, Myanmar, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan and Zimbabwe.
Unlike more controversial, unilateral embargoes imposed by the U.S. on countries such as Iran or Cuba, these targeted smart sanctions do not prohibit transactions with an entire country and thus generally don't have the same type of negative business impact or unintended humanitarian consequences. Most importantly, when they are used properly, they work.
In the experience of The Sentry, Global Magnitsky sanctions, accompanied by diplomacy and clear policy objectives and precisely targeted to focus on bad actors and their networks of shell companies, proxies and enablers, have contributed to averting full-scale war and further atrocities.
For example, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, sanctions were part of a concerted effort that convinced then-President Joseph Kabila not to run for an unconstitutional third term in 2018, resulting in the first peaceful transition of power in the country's history even if the electoral process was flawed.
Outgoing President Joseph Kabila in Kinshasa in January 2019: Sanctions were part of a concerted effort that convinced Kabila not to run for an unconstitutional third term. © AP In South Sudan, a multiyear effort beginning in 2017 utilized sanctions and other tools of financial pressure to de-escalate a long-running civil war by creating financial consequences for the country's kleptocratic leaders.
By adopting its own Global Magnitsky-style sanctions, Japan would be able to act on them according to its own national interests, and merely having the option to sanction would have a deterrent effect, even if sanctions were not ultimately imposed. Moreover, Japan would not be obliged to impose sanctions every time the U.S. or another ally did.
However, if Japan fails to adopt this important and effective tool, it will find itself increasingly sidelined as the multilateralization of human rights-focused sanctions continues and the U.S., EU, U.K. and Canada act in concert to impose consequences on perpetrators of atrocities, as they did in targeting the Chinese officials responsible for abuses against the Uyghur minority in Xinjiang.
More problematically, as the world's major economies shut these perpetrators out of their financial systems, Japan, the world's third-largest economy and a major financial center, would risk becoming a destination for their dirty money.
As recent events have caused the international community to think harder and smarter about what sorts of behavior can be condoned or must be opposed, the willingness of Japan to join a robust coalition of nations in expressing uniform opposition to Russian aggression through the use of sanctions is an important step.
Creating a Japanese version of Global Magnitsky-style sanctions would be a critical and uncontroversial next step in solidifying Japan's role as a world leader in Asia committed to human rights and responsible stewardship of the global economy.