Why Jasta Is the Wrong Way to Ensure Justice for 9/11 Victims

9/29/2016

I was one of 77 House members to vote to sustain the President’s veto and vote against the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (Jasta), a measure that would allow Americans to sue foreign governments linked to terror attacks. It is an effort to help the victims of 9/11 seek justice from all of those connected to that horrific act. While I support the intent of the bill and the families, and want to make sure that we always hold those who kill and terrorize Americans accountable, this is the wrong way to do it.

Jasta opens our country, our service members and our intelligence community to counter-measures from countries who do not have the independent judiciary and strong rule of law that we take for granted in the United States. It upends the notion of sovereign immunity, producing cracks in the international order and weakening the safeguards we have helped to create and on which the security of so many largely depends. While no one can fully predict the consequences, it’s clear that this will make us more, not less, vulnerable around the world.

I am no fan of Saudi Arabia, the country at which Jasta is aimed. That kingdom is responsible for much of the vile fundamentalism in the greater Middle East and beyond. Their war in Yemen is a sickening humanitarian disaster. They have significant responsibility for the rise of some of the worst regional terror groups and, despite their stated intentions, have not done enough to combat them or dry up their funding. Furthermore, they have lagged behind their neighbors and Europe in taking in refugees following the greatest human displacement and refugee crisis since World War II in Syria. Insofar as we are allies in the region, it is out of necessity and convenience, not out of shared convictions or morals.

I think this and future administrations should do more to hold them accountable, to condition our support (and arms sales) on their behavior, and to call them out for the role they’ve played in the rise of terror groups around the world. We might even consider naming Saudi Arabia a state sponsor of terror, an available course under current law to hold them accountable without breaking down the international order and putting Americans at risk overseas.

But instead of a sober, deliberative process to achieve our goals, this law will take a fundamental diplomatic executive prerogative from Presidents and turn it over to plaintiffs, trial lawyers and judges. And conforming to the physics of international relations, it will produce an equal and opposite reaction, one that will be borne by those carrying out U.S. policy around the world.

Jasta is bad foreign policy; it’s dangerous for Americans exposed to its consequences around the world; and it redistributes an executive authority to the judicial branch in a manner that will not provide the justice and compensation the 9/11 families deserve.