Charles Vanik, a former Democratic Congressman, has died in Florida at the age of 94. He co-sponsored the controversial Jackson-Vanik Amendment in 1974, which forbade normal trade with communist states which stopped their citizens from emigrating.
The ruling is still applied to Russia, despite the country's move to a market economy and the lifting of emigration restrictions. It has proved a key barrier to Russia's entry to the World Trade Organisation. Critics of the Amendment continue to call for its abolition, saying it amounts to trade discrimination and is irrelevant since the end of the Cold War.