War Crimes Accountability Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, Europe has seen its share of horrors over the last century: the atrocities of World War I, World War II, as well as the Bosnian war. Ukrainians, in particular, suffered under the rule of Joseph Stalin. During the tragedy known as Holodomor, millions of Ukrainians died of starvation--forced starvation.

In the wake of some--but not all--of these atrocities, the world responded by bringing the perpetrators to justice. After World War II, of course, there were the Nuremberg trials; and after the Bosnian war, President Milosevic was charged with crimes against humanity by an international criminal tribunal.

Sadly, now, in 2022, we are faced with the question: How will the world react to the crimes that are now being committed in Ukraine?

Over the past week, we have witnessed the reality of Vladimir Putin's genocidal rampage on the innocent people of Ukraine, and the scenes of brutality in Bucha are seared in our collective memory.

Today, in Bucha, Ukraine, there are mass graves surrounded by bodies hastily shoved into garbage bags, civilian cars crushed like tin cans, and front yards and gardens lined with the dead bodies of innocent Ukrainian people.

One survivor, Antonina Pomazanko, aged 76, watched helplessly as Russian soldiers murdered her daughter, Tetiana. Without provocation, the Russian soldiers opened fire on her home, and the bullets ripped through the gates and fence as Tetiana was standing in the yard. She was killed in an instant.

On Sunday, the New York Times ran a photo of Mrs. Pomazanko looking over her daughter's dead body. Mrs. Pomazanko had covered it with plastic sheets and wooden boards. It was lying in the same spot where she was killed last month.

In the words of Mrs. Pomazanko:

There was so much shelling, I did not know what to do.

There is nothing that will fill the void of loss and despair that Mrs. Pomazanko and millions of Ukrainians feel at this very moment, but there is more--much, much more--that we, as Americans, must do.

The actions of Vladimir Putin harken back to some of Europe's darkest days--the atrocities committed by the Nazis during World War II, the massacres of the former Yugoslavia--days that we must endure and days which we hope we never have to relive. And as I mentioned, after the Allied Forces liberated Europe in 1945, the world responded. It came together at the historic Nuremberg trials.

When the trials first convened at the Palace of Justice on November 21, 1945, Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson delivered the opening statement.

He said:

The wrongs which we seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated, so malignant, and so devastating, that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored because it cannot survive their being repeated.

``Civilization cannot tolerate'' and ``cannot survive'' the war crimes we have witnessed in Ukraine going unpunished.

President Biden recognized that fact on Monday in his calling for a war crime trial for the horrors in Ukraine.

President Lincoln once said to Congress when he proposed an end to slavery:

We--even we here--hold the power, and bear the responsibility.

It is within the power and the responsibility of this body to deny safe haven in America or anywhere to perpetrators of these heinous crimes.

Under existing law, foreign war criminals who come to the United States, incredibly, cannot be prosecuted. They cannot be held liable in a civil action or even be deported for their heinous crimes. Currently, the War Crimes Act only applies if the perpetrator or victim is a U.S. servicemember or a U.S. national. In other words, it would not cover the Russian officials who are responsible for the commission of war crimes in Ukraine nor cover the Russian soldiers who committed those crimes.

We also don't have a statute or a law in America making crimes against humanity a violation of U.S. law. This was the primary offense prosecuted in Nuremberg, and it was a critical tool for holding violators accountable.

Other grave human rights violations, including genocide and torture, are already crimes under U.S. law that cover any offender found in the United States. This should also be true for war crimes and crimes against humanity, and that is why I will introduce the War Crimes Accountability Act.

The War Crimes Accountability Act will ensure the United States has the tools to hold accountable the perpetrators of war crimes and other atrocities. The bill expands the War Crimes Act to cover all war criminals who are in the United States, regardless of where they are from. It fills the gap in our criminal code for prosecuting crimes against humanity so that we can hold perpetrators who come to this country accountable.

This is not just a hypothetical idea. Consider one example: After the massacre of thousands of innocent men and boys in the Srebrenica massacre, a war criminal named Marko Boskic made his way to the United States. When law enforcement tracked him down, they could only charge him with visa fraud, not a war crime or crimes against humanity. We must bring war criminals to justice for their horrific crimes, not slap them on the wrist with a visa technicality.

The United States must never again provide safe haven for perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Our Nation led the first prosecutions for crimes in the Nuremberg trials. It is time for the United States to lead again.

Ultimately, the day will come when Vladimir Putin faces justice, and his name and his regime will be remembered in history alongside the worst of the worst. Until Putin and his sycophants are brought to justice, we cannot waver--we cannot equivocate--in providing Ukraine with all the resources, weapons, and aid they need to triumph over Russia.

Quite simply, the United States of America should never be a safe haven for a war criminal. The United States of America should be holding war criminals responsible for their horrible conduct and what they have done to the poor and innocent people in other places, and they should be held liable on criminal and civil bases. That is what this bill would do. It is an effort to move forward with the cause of justice, but I hope it is only the beginning.

When nations around the world adopt similar laws to the ones which I am proposing, we will make it clear that there are no safe havens left for war criminals. They will pay a price wherever they end up, and that is the way it should be if there is going to be justice.

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