As a human rights activist concerned about major human rights issues inside Russia (murder of human rights activists and journalists, suppression of free media, poor prison conditions, political cases like that of Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev), I appreciate the value of linkage. Linkage isn't just malicious conditionality to thwart an enemy; Russia is not our enemy now but a partner on some projects which can't be trusted fully on everything. So linkage can still remain as a sober reckoning that without a basic foundation of human rights compliance, a country will not be a fair or reliable business or security partner. Without free media and free civil society, civilian control of the military and checking of business responsibility and stemming of corruption simply isn't possible. Criminality in Russia is rampant; it succeeds because of the violence tolerated by the state against journalists, including the American Paul Khlebnikov of Forbes who was murdered in Moscow.

I imagine there are those who can make the case that keeping Russia out of the WTO can help make this linkage viable. The problem is that the Obama Administration is not willing to raise human rights except very quietly, and it is not willing to link for a good cause, so the WTO membership will go forward. And it doesn't seem that membership in the WTO would harm human rights; if anything, perhaps more foreign presence and scrutiny might start serving as more of an impetus to Russian government bodies to be less abusive and criminalized. Or maybe not.

But as for Jackson Vanik, there is simply no valid reason to remove it. None at all. It must be kept firmly in place. It is not a relic; it's a triumph of placing morality at the core of foreign policy that Obama should not destroy as it will never be able to be put back. It is still useful for those few countries with non-market economies that do not allow free travel and emigration (Turkmenistan). It demonstrably does not apply to Russia, which now has a market economy and allows emigration. So the president can simply rule that henceforth it doesn't apply to Russia permanently -- full stop -- without having to destroy the law itself.

The Russians would like the smug moral victory of eliminating this irritant not because they changed, but because they didn't. The Jackson-Vanik was only about emigration, not about other human rights, but the hearings in Congress generated by this law enabled scrutiny of other rights, too. We shouldn't move the goalposts, but we should realize that scrutiny still matters. The Russians would love to remove a cold-war "relic" because it would prove that the Americans were wrong to make morality a core of foreign policy, and they are right to make cynicism a core of foreign policy, and go on rampantly and cynically violating human rights at home in ways that are simply not equivalent to anything that the U.S. does at home or in the world. There is no need to give them that smug immoral victory. Yes, Jackson-Vanik doesn't apply to them; each year the president waives it. A permanent waiver can be arranged with cooperation with Congress and the president, without removing the law.

http://3dblogger.typepad.com/minding_russia/2010/02/jacksonvanik-a-test-of-wills-the-us-must-meet-not-with-repeal-but-graduation.html

"violating human rights" hey, I even know the name of that man!

"But as for Jackson Vanik, there is simply no valid reason to remove it" But these were found to Ukraine, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan. After the revolutions in these countries when he was included political assassination, censorship and propaganda, but you do not notice them tactfully. If you read what he wrote, Paul Klebnikov, you'd realize how stupid that what you wrote. The moral law, this is what you have is long gone.

The need for Russia to join the WTO was echoed at Davos by the president of Ukraine, Viktor Yushchenko, whose country was also seeking membership. Accession by Moscow and Kiev to the WTO would help harmonize relations between the two countries, Yushchenko said. Russia and Ukraine applied for WTO membership in 1993. pa auto insurance Until recently, a trade dispute over meat between Russia and Poland, which joined the EU in 2004, has hampered broader discussions between the EU and Russia. However a thawing of relations between Moscow and Warsaw following the formation of a new Polish government has helped improve the atmosphere, making resolution of outstanding problems possible, Mandelson said. WTO membership would place Moscow within the organization's trade dispute settlement system and lead the way to a trade pact with the EU. Outstanding issues with Europe over Russian membership include a dispute with Finland and Sweden over tariffs applied to timber exports from Russia, and with Lithuania over the fees charged for train transit to the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad. Relations between Russia and Britain also have deteriorated recently, but this has not affected the negotiations, Mandelson said. ak car insurance Other WTO countries also would need to resolve problems with Russia before it could join - including the United States, which has been pressing for a cap on Russian agricultural subsidies. To meet WTO standards Russia also will have to alter laws on intellectual property rights.