The EU Global Human Rights Sanctions Mechanism is a mechanism of the Council of the European Union to punish personnel from non-EU countries responsible for gross violations of human rights. Inspired by the Global Magnitsky Act in the US, the mechanism permits the EU to maintain a list of human rights violators around the globe, imposing on them various sanctions, such as visa bans or asset freezes, on behalf of the entire bloc. Background In its history, the EU has on multiple occasions imposed sanctions on other countries for human rights violations. Some of the examples include an arm embargo imposed on China since 1989 for the Tiananmen Square Massacre, or asset freezes on certain officials in Iran who repressed and tortured human right activists. However, those were individual sanctions which only targeted particular countries. This approach of adopting a new sanction policy for each country has its limitations, such as the time required to go through the legislation process in the EU or the political implications the process may bring. In 2016, the US enacted the Global Magnitsky Act which allows the US government to impose sanctions on human right violators on a global scope. Multiple countries, including several members of the EU, soon followed the US's lead and enacted similar legislations to crack down on foreign human right violations. Estonia passed a law in 2016 banning foreigners deemed guilty of human right abuse from entering the country. Lithuania, Latvia, and the United Kingdom, which was a member of the EU at that time, also followed suit and passed similar laws. Additionally, the Dutch parliament has on multiple occasions requested the Dutch government to initiate a similar legislation. However, the Dutch government refused and argued that such a legislation will be more effective if passed on the EU level, which led to the discussion of an EU level human rights sanction regime later. Developments In late 2018, the Dutch government drafted a position paper named Towards An EU Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime, in which it proposed an EU-level sanction regime as the title suggested. Following the proposal, the Dutch government invited representatives from all other EU member states to The Hague for discussion. The European Parliament subsequently adopted a resolution regarding the proposed sanction regime on 14 March 2019, in which it called on the council to swiftly establish an EU-level human right sanction regime. The resolution also