Is President Obama promising to veto a bill over fears that it could make U.S. officials the subject of lawsuits over drone strikes and other deadly acts during its War on Terror?
The pending legislation in question is the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA), authored by Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), which would amend the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) and the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA). It would enable victims of 9/11 and other attacks on U.S. soil to sue nations, including Saudi Arabia, if the are found to have been involved or supplied material support for terrorism. Democratic presidential candidates Hilary Clinton and Bernie Sanders declared their support for the legislation just ahead of the New York presidential primary.
Obama arrived in Saudi Arabia Wednesday for a short visit, where, according to CNN, he “received a chilly reception from Saudi Arabia’s leaders,” and where, as the Guardian reported, he may “face some potentially awkward questions from his hosts—not least over a push by some of his political allies” to pass the bill. The White House, however, has already signaled Obama would veto the measure.
As for why, Obama told CBS News on Monday, “This is a matter of how generally the United States approaches our interactions with other countries. If we open up the possibility that individuals and the United States can routinely start suing other governments, then we are also opening up the United States to being continually sued by individuals in other countries.”
Secretary of State John Kerry said nearly the same in February, telling a senate panel that the bill would “expose the United States of America to lawsuits and take away our sovereign immunity and create a terrible precedent.”
Mark Joseph Stern wrote at Slate that such retaliation could take the form of “lawsuits against American service members, diplomats, and government officials in their own courts.” He further noted: “A primary justification for foreign sovereign immunity is comity: America doesn’t judge foreign countries’ internal decisions; in return, other countries don’t judge America’s.”
The Sacramento Bee‘s editorial board wrote Tuesday that the legislation “might allow foreign citizens to sue, for instance, over drone strikes that the president has made a key part of his fight against terror.”
Obama’s opposition to the legislation met backlash from families of 9/11 victims, who wrote in a letter sent to Monday to Obama, “Your place in history should not be marked by a campaign to foreclose the judicial process as a venue in which the truth can be found.”
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