Genocide Accountability Act
Floor Speech
GENOCIDE ACCOUNTABILITY ACT -- (Senate - May 08, 2007)
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, S. 888, the Genocide Accountability Act, is the first legislation produced by the Senate Judiciary Committee's new Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law, which I chair. It is bipartisan legislation that I introduced with Senator TOM COBURN, ranking member of the Human Rights and the Law Subcommittee, Senator PATRICK LEAHY, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and Senator JOHN CORNYN.
The Genocide Accountability Act would close a legal loophole that prevents the U.S. Justice Department from prosecuting individuals who have committed genocide. Under current law, genocide is only a crime if it is committed within the United States or by a U.S. national outside the United States. The Genocide Accountability Act would amend 18 U.S.C. 1091, the Genocide Convention Implementation Act, to allow prosecution of non-U.S. nationals who are brought into or found in the United States for genocide committed outside the United States.
I recently received a letter from David Scheffer, U.S. Ambassador at Large for War Crimes from 1997 to 2001, which makes clear the impact that the Genocide Accountability Act could have. Ambassador Scheffer's letter explains that the loophole in our genocide law hindered the U.S. Government's efforts to secure the apprehension and prosecution of former Cambodian dictator Pol Pot, one of the worst war criminals of the 20th century. If the Genocide Accountability Act had been law when Pol Pot was alive and at large, maybe the United States would have been able to bring him to justice.
The Genocide Accountability Act recently passed the Senate unanimously. I am hopeful that in short order the House of Representatives will pass it and the President will sign it into law.
The United States should have the ability to bring to justice individuals who commit genocide, regardless of where their crime takes place and regardless of whether they are a U.S. national. The Genocide Accountability Act would end this immunity gap in U.S. law.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have Ambassador Scheffer's letter to which I referred printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the letter was to be printed in the RECORD as follows:
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