Statements On Introduced Bills And Joint Resolutions

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

By Mr. DURBIN (for himself, Mr. Leahy, and Mr. Feingold):

S. 1346. A bill to penalize crimes against humanity and for other purposes; to the Committee on the Judiciary.

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Crimes Against Humanity Act of 2009. This narrowly-tailored legislation would make it a violation of U.S. law to commit a crime against humanity. Congress must ensure that criminals who commit mass atrocities do not find safe haven in our country.

I would like to thank the other original cosponsors of the Crimes Against Humanity Act, Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Senator Russell Feingold of Wisconsin, the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on African Affairs.

For generations, the U.S. has led the struggle for human rights around the world and has supported holding perpetrators of crimes against humanity accountable. Over 50 years before the Nuremberg trials, George Washington Williams, an African-American minister, lawyer and historian, called for an international commission to investigate "crimes against humanity'' in the Congo, which was then ruled by Belgium's King Leopold II. Under King Leopold's iron fist, Congo's population was reduced by half, with up to 10 million people losing their lives. In a letter to the U.S. Secretary of State, Mr. Williams decried the "crimes against humanity'' perpetrated by King Leopold's regime.

Over 50 years later, following the Holocaust, the U.S. led the efforts to prosecute Nazi perpetrators for crimes against humanity at the Nuremberg trials. Crimes against humanity were first defined in the Nuremberg Charter in 1945. Sixteen men were found guilty of crimes against humanity in the Nuremberg trials, including Hermann Goring, commander of the Luftwaffe and the highest-ranking official to order the "Final Solution.''

Since then, the U.S. has supported efforts to prosecute perpetrators of crimes against humanity, including Nazi war criminals who had escaped accountability. In 1961, Adolf Eichman, the "architect of the Holocaust,'' was convicted in Israel for committing crimes against humanity. Michael Musmanno, a U.S. Naval officer and judge at the Nuremberg trials, was a key prosecution witness. In 1987, Klaus Barbie, the "Butcher of Lyon'', was convicted in France for crimes against humanity he committed while heading the Gestapo in Lyon.

The U.S. has also supported the prosecution of crimes against humanity before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and the Special Court for Sierra Leone.

More recently, we have seen crimes against humanity being committed on a massive scale in Darfur in western Sudan. In this region of six million people, hundreds of thousands were killed and as many as 2.5 million were driven from their homes in recent years. Part of the solution to the carnage in Darfur is arresting and prosecuting the perpetrators. Otherwise, these perpetrators will continue to act with impunity and victims will feel they have no recourse but to resort to violence themselves.

We have also seen crimes against humanity being committed in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, most disturbingly through the use of rape as a weapon of war. The systematic and deliberate use of mass rape to humiliate, expel and destroy communities in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo offends our common humanity.

However, it is not only Darfur and the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo that are safe havens for the perpetrators of crimes against humanity. Perpetrators of mass atrocities have sought to escape accountability for their actions by coming to our own country. According to the Department of Homeland Security, over 1000 war criminals have found safe haven in the United States.

I am the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee's Human Rights and the Law Subcommittee. Last year I held a Human Rights and the Law Subcommittee hearing entitled "From Nuremberg to Darfur: Accountability for Crimes Against Humanity.'' This hearing identified a glaring loophole in U.S. law--currently, there is no U.S. law prohibiting crimes against humanity. As a result, the U.S. government is unable to prosecute perpetrators of crimes against humanity found in our country. In contrast, other grave human rights violations, including genocide, using or recruiting child soldiers, and torture, are crimes under U.S. law.

We heard testimony in the Human Rights and the Law Subcommittee that many U.S. allies have incorporated crimes against humanity into their criminal codes, including Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, South Africa, Spain, Argentina and the United Kingdom.

Expert witnesses testified before the Subcommittee about the urgent need for the United States to enact similar legislation. Gayle Smith, the Co-Founder of the Enough Project, testified that it is in our national interest to enact crimes against humanity legislation:

If unchallenged, the violence that defines crimes against humanity feeds on itself: conflicts spread, institutions crumble, economies decline and young people are taught the dangerous lesson that violence is more potent tool for change than hope. ..... Ensuring that those who commit crimes against humanity are in violation of U.S. law is in our national interests, and clearly in the interests of the victims who have few if any protectors or defenders.

Diane Orentlicher, a law professor at American University's Washington College of Law and one of our country's leading experts on human rights crimes, testified:

The United States has, since Nuremberg, provided indispensable leadership in ensuring prosecution of crimes against humanity by various international tribunals, as well as by other countries we have supported. So it's quite remarkable that we of all countries don't have a law on our books making it possible to prosecute this crime when perpetrators show up in our own territory.

The crimes against humanity loophole has real consequences. When the U.S. government learned that Marko Boskic, who allegedly participated in the Srebrenica massacre in the Bosnian conflict, was living in Massachusetts, he was charged with visa fraud, rather than crimes against humanity. "They should condemn him for the crime,'' said Emma Hidic, whose two brothers were among the estimated 7,000 men and boys killed in the Srebrenica massacre, upon learning that Boskic had been charged only with visa fraud.

The Crimes Against Humanity Act would close this loophole in U.S. law
and give our government the authority to prosecute those found in the U.S. who commit crimes against humanity. In keeping with the principles the U.S. and our allies established after World War II, this legislation would help ensure that the perpetrators of crimes against humanity do not find safe haven in our country.

This bill would make it a violation of U.S. law to commit a crime against humanity, i.e. any widespread and systematic attack directed against a civilian population that involves murder, enslavement, torture, rape, arbitrary detention, extermination, hostage taking or ethnic cleansing.

I am the author of the Genocide Accountability Act, the Child Soldiers Accountability Act, and the Trafficking in Persons Act, legislation passed unanimously by Congress and signed into law by President George W. Bush that denies safe haven in the United States to the perpetrators of genocide, child soldier recruitment and use, and human trafficking. The Crimes Against Humanity Act is the next logical step. It would subject perpetrators of crimes against humanity to criminal sanctions, in the same way that perpetrators of genocide, child soldier recruitment and human trafficking are subject to criminal sanctions under U.S. law.

Ensuring U.S. law prohibits crimes against humanity is consistent with the longstanding U.S. support for the prosecution of crimes against humanity perpetrated in World War II, Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia and Sierra Leone, among other places.

This legislation will send a clear message to perpetrators of crimes against humanity that there are real consequences to their actions. By holding such individuals criminally responsible, our country will help to deter crimes against humanity.

The Crimes Against Humanity Act is supported by a broad coalition of human rights and religious groups, including Armenian Assembly of America, Center for Justice and Accountability, Center for Victims of Torture, Enough Project, the Episcopal Church, Genocide Intervention Network, Human Rights First, Human Rights Watch, International Justice Mission, Jubilee Campaign USA, Inc., Physicians for Human Rights, Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice & Human Rights, Save Darfur Coalition, the United Methodist Church, and U.S. Campaign for Burma. Today I received a letter of support for the Crimes Against Humanity Act from 29 organizations, including all of those I have named. As the letter explains:

This legislation would fill an existing gap in U.S. law by allowing U.S. prosecutors to hold the perpetrators of mass atrocities accountable for their acts. While often less publicized than genocides, crimes against humanity are as devastating to their victims and as worthy of vigorous and unbending attention from the United States government. We must ensure that perpetrators of mass atrocities cannot evade justice by coming to the United States.

Daoud Hari is a refugee from Darfur now living in our country and author of The Translator: A Tribesman's Memoir of Darfur. I urge my colleagues to contemplate the challenge that Mr. Hari posed at the Human Rights Subcommittee hearing on crimes against humanity: while none of us individually can stop the crimes against humanity committed in Darfur and other countries around the globe, failing to take action only ensures that these horrific atrocities will continue.

With far too few exceptions, we have failed to prevent and stop crimes against humanity. The promise of Nuremberg remains unfulfilled. We have a moral obligation to take action to help the survivors of crimes against humanity around the world and to help prevent this horrific crime by holding perpetrators accountable.

I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill and a letter of support be printed in the Record.

There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source