As a mountain of evidence points to the fact that Saudi security agents killed Washington Post columnist and U.S. resident Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, the relevance of the 2016 Magnitsky Act comes into focus. The earliest version of the law was designed to bar Russian oligarchs from entering the U.S. after they murdered a Russian national on Russian soil. As enacted, the law is equally available to exclude Saudi’s royals who now enjoy their U.S. sojourns.

The Global Magnitsky Act pierces the veil of diplomatic immunity for crimes committed by foreign governments. Bill Browder, the U.S.-born, British businessman who shepherded the law to passage said, “It is a game-changer. The Magnitsky Act functions more as a strategic tool, a scalpel not a sword, to let the U.S. target foreign malefactors who violate basic human rights by torture and murder of innocents who stand up for fundamental human liberty.”