Trump creates new ‘State Sponsor of Wrongful Detention’ designation

The White House has established a new ‘State Sponsor of Wrongful Detention’ designation that would impose sanctions, travel restrictions and other penalties on countries that detain Americans for political reasons.

An executive order signed by President Trump Friday empowers the Secretary of State to designate any foreign country whose government ‘directly engages in or provides support for the wrongful detention of a US national’ based on criteria including failure to release wrongfully detained Americans after notification by the United States.

‘No American should fear being taken as a political pawn by rogue states,’ the executive order states. ‘Wrongful detentions are an affront to the rule of law and aim to undermine our leadership on the world stage. The United States will not tolerate these attacks on our sovereignty and U.S. nationals.’

Countries designated under the new framework would face a range of potential consequences including economic sanctions under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, travel restrictions prohibiting US passport use for travel to the designated country, and restrictions on foreign assistance and exports.

The designation criteria also applies to countries that show ‘a pattern in which the government is responsible for, complicit in, or materially supports the unjust or unlawful detention of third country nationals in which cases the United States has a national interest’.

The order builds on the Robert Levinson Hostage Recovery and Hostage-Taking Accountability Act, which established procedures for determining wrongful detentions and responding to hostage-taking by foreign governments.

The framework applies not only to recognised foreign governments but also to ‘an entity exercising control over most or all of the territory of a country, regardless of whether such entity has been recognized as the government of such country’.

The order specifies that not every American detained in a designated country should be considered wrongfully detained, with such determinations made under existing Levinson Act procedures.

Countries that have previously detained Americans on questionable grounds include Iran, Russia, China, Venezuela and North Korea, though the executive order does not name specific targets for designation.