The Global Magnitsky Act of 2016 within the NDAA 2017 authorizes the U.S. government to sanction those foreign government officials worldwide that are human rights offenders, freeze their assets, and ban them from entering the U.S.[1] In 2009, Russian tax lawyer Sergei Magnitsky died in a Moscow prison after investigating a $230 million fraud involving Russian tax officials.

[3][4][5] Magnitsky's friend Bill Browder, a prominent American-born businessman who worked extensively in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union, publicized the case and lobbied American officials to pass legislation sanctioning Russian individuals involved in corruption.

[8] The main intention of the law was to punish Russian officials who were thought to be responsible for the death of Sergei Magnitsky by prohibiting their entrance to the United States and their use of its banking system.

The people included on the list were:[17][18][19][20] Other foreign individuals who have been sanctioned include: On January 9, 2017, under the Magnitsky Act, the United States Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control updated its Specially Designated Nationals List and blacklisted Aleksandr I. Bastrykin, Andrei K. Lugovoi, Dmitri V. Kovtun, Stanislav Gordievsky, and Gennady Plaksin, which froze any of their assets held by American financial institutions or transactions with those institutions and banned their traveling to the United States.

The bill was unofficially named after Dmitri Yakovlev (Chase Harrison), a Russian toddler who died of heat stroke in 2008 when his adoptive American father forgot he was in the back seat of his SUV.

"[61] State Duma deputy Yevgeny Fedorov argued that the real purpose of the Magnitsky bill was to manipulate key figures in big business and government, with the aim of pro-American policy in the Russian Federation.

[63] Bill Van Auken of the World Socialist Web Site condemned the United States for what he described as invoking human rights as a cover for realpolitik in the Magnitsky Act, stating that Washington DC officials had supported "far greater crimes, [such] as when Boris Yeltsin in 1993 ordered the bombardment of the Russian White House, the seat of the country’s parliament, killing 62 people".

[67] In its review of the controversial documentary, The Guardian includes views of those sceptical of the documentary such as Petras Auštrevičius, Lithuanian member of the European Parliament who also serves on the Foreign Affairs Committee, who said the push to screen the film was one of several moves by the Russian authorities to weaken western confidence in its policy line and secure a review of European Union sanctions against Russia later that year.

[71] In May 2017, US authorities settled a case against Prevezon Holding, one of the companies used for laundering the money exfiltrated from Russia as result of the fraud discovered by Sergey Magnitsky.

[79] The legal framework for the Global Magnitsky Sanctions consists of the following executive order, multiple public laws (statutes), and regulations:[80] Effective 21 December 2017, U.S. President Donald Trump issued Executive Order 13818, the first implementation of the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, under which the U.S. government imposed sanctions against 13 individuals described as "human rights abusers, kleptocrats, and corrupt actors.

[82] According to a February 2018 article in The Economist, the sanctions statement said that Gertler had "amassed his fortune through hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of opaque and corrupt mining and oil deals" in the DRC.

[83] In June 2018, Félix Bautista, a member of the Senate of the Dominican Republic and five companies owned or controlled by him were sanctioned by the U.S. Department of Treasury under the Global Magnitsky Act due to his involvement in significant corruption.

[91] XPCC was used by XUAR CCP Secretary Chen Quanguo, who was subject to similar sanctions on July 9, 2020, to implement a comprehensive surveillance, detention, and indoctrination program targeting Uyghurs and other ethnic minority groups.

Individuals from countries, including Azerbaijan, Bahrain, China, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Liberia, Mexico, Panama, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam, were nominated for sanctions.

Ultimately, there were no individuals or entities from any Arab League member state designated in the Global Magnitsky Act’s first list of designees, despite the submission of eligible cases.

[96]In August 2018, Senator Marco Rubio and a bipartisan group of 16 other members of Congress urged the United States to impose sanctions under the Global Magnitsky Act against Chinese officials responsible for human rights abuses against the Uyghur Muslim minority in Xinjiang.

[98] The 2019 annual report of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China called for Congress to consider sanctions against Chinese officials under the Global Magnitsky Act for crimes against humanity.

[99][100] On April 7, 2020, Rep. Chris Smith, called on Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to form a task force "to identify and investigate" Chinese government officials for their role in allegedly silencing doctors and journalists who have spoken out about China's response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

On 6 July 2020, United Kingdom’s Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab announced the first sanctions under a law similar to the Global Magnitsky Act, where 47 individuals came under travel restrictions and asset freezes.