WASHINGTON, November 29 - RAPSI. The U.S. Senate's consideration of the bill on Magnitsky list has been delayed by ongoing disputes among senators regarding the phrasing of one sentence in the document. On November 16, an overwhelming majority of U.S. House representatives voted in favor of passing the "Magnitsky Act", punishing Russian officials deemed to have violated human rights.

The same bill also lifted the Jackson-Vanik amendment, a landmark Cold War-era law that has long impeded normal US-Russia trade relations.

The U.S. Congress is now considering the issue, but it has yet to set the voting date on the bill and hopes that it will be approved within a month.

The dispute is over one phrase in the bill. The Senate, following the efforts of the U.S. administration, has agreed on the definition of the list of individuals who will be subject to visa restrictions, which reads as follows: "...involved in human rights violations in Russia or any other country of the world."

However, the House of Representatives insists that the sentence should only include the section "...involved in human rights violations in Russia."

The new legislation will serve to deny visas to Russian officials suspected of involvement in the death of whistleblowing lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in a Moscow jail three years ago, and will freeze their assets.

The measures will also allow the United States to take similar action in the future against other Russian officials suspected of human rights violations. Replacing the Senate's version of the bill with the House of Representatives' would be one of the fastest ways to resolve the issue. In this case, U.S. President Barack Obama would be able to sign the law by the New Year, as was previously announced.