Could a ‘warlord’ Be Your New Nextdoor Neighbor?
Posted on 22. Feb, 2010 by Shera Crossan in Foreign and Domestic Intelligence, Israel & Jewish Issues, Politics, Shera Crossan, War Coverage
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In March, the Supreme Court is to begin hearing oral arguments in a case that may breathe new life into the field of human rights law in the United States, by exposing foreign government officials to civil liability for war crimes and other violations of international law—even when the crimes occurred in their own country, and no US citizen’s rights are involved. In Samantar v. Yousef, a panel of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., unanimously held last January that the protection of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) of 1976, which shields foreign governments from suit in US courts, does not extend to individuals.
The defendant in the case, Mohamed Ali Samantar, is a former official of the Somali regime of Maj. Gen. Mohamed Siad Barre. Samantar, now a resident of Virginia, was sued for acts of torture, rape, and extrajudicial killing committed under his oversight. Samantar was sued personally, rather than the state of Somalia, which has not had a functioning central government since 1991, when the Barre regime collapsed.
The court also reviewed the legislative history of the FSIA, and found that Congress must have intended the Act to apply only to states. “If Congress meant to include individuals acting in [their] official capacity in the scope of the FSIA, it would have done so in clear and unmistakable terms,” The Samantar case solidifies a split in opinion among various courts of appeals. Now the Fourth and Seventh Circuits have held that sovereign immunity does not extend to government officials, while the Second, Fifth, Sixth, Ninth, and D.C. Circuits have held that it does.
In a case of strange political bedfellows, the Zionist Organization of America, Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Congress, along with several other pro-Israel organizations, have filed three separate Amicus Curiae briefs on Samantar’s behalf in the case.
According to the American Jewish Congress, “Our interest is, of course, Israel, which finds itself engaged in law-fare as well as warfare, courts around the world being another battlefield on which Israel finds itself engaged.”
The UK is one of several countries allowing criminal complaints to be brought by war crimes victims under the theory of “universal jurisdiction.” It’s not clear whether any of these officials would have been able to assert a defense of sovereign immunity in the British courts, since all four were tipped off in advance and cancelled their trips.
The United States should never be a haven for war criminals. Our efforts to hold them accountable should begin here at home, in our own courts, and there is no conceivable benefit to extending sovereign immunity to them.
“Our interest is, of course, Israel, which finds itself engaged in law-fare as well as warfare, courts around the world being another battlefield on which Israel finds itself engaged.” EXACTLY.