Disastrous consequences: Saudis – Law undermines sovereign immunity … future of sovereign investment in US: UAE
This news has been read 10008 times!
RIYADH, Sept 30, (Agencies): Saudi Arabia has warned of “disastrous consequences” from a United States law allowing 9/11 victims to sue the kingdom, in a major spike in tension between the longstanding allies. The warning came after the US Congress voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday to override President Barack Obama’s veto of the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA).
JASTA allows attack survivors and relatives of terrorism victims to pursue cases against foreign governments in US federal court and to demand compensation if such governments are proven to bear some responsibility for attacks on US soil. A Saudi foreign ministry source late on Thursday called on the US Congress “to take the necessary measures to counter the disastrous and dangerous consequences” of the law. The unnamed spokesman, cited by the official Saudi Press Agency, said the law is “a source of great worry.”
This law “weakens the immunity of states”, and will have a negative impact on all countries “including the United States,” the spokesman said, expressing hope that “wisdom will prevail.” In opposing the law, Obama said it would harm US interests by undermining the principle of sovereign immunity, opening up the US to private lawsuits over its military missions abroad.
The erosion of sovereign immunity is also a concern among the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council, of which Saudi Arabia is the most powerful member. Saudi Arabia’s Gulf allies have lined up beside Riyadh to criticise the legislation. Late on Thursday, United Arab Emirates foreign minister Anwar Gargash described the move as “a dangerous precedent in international law that undermines the principle of sovereign immunity and the future of sovereign investments” in the US.
“The populism surrounding the JASTA law overcame the rationality required in matters of international law and investments,” he tweeted, warning of its “long term and dangerous implications.” A senior Saudi prince reportedly threatened to pull out billions of dollars of US assets if JASTA became law, though Saudi officials have distanced themselves from such threats. Gargash criticised what he said was “illogical and demagogic” incitement in the United States against Saudi Arabia which has “suffered most from extremism and terrorism.”
However, he said reactions should “not be hasty. Easing damage requires focused and joint action.” The UAE, a US ally in the Gulf, has played a major role alongside Saudi Arabia in its war against Iran-backed rebels in Yemen.
Bahrain, another GCC ally of Riyadh, has also criticised the bill, which it warned will harm the US. A Saudi newspaper on Friday sent a message to US lawmakers through a headline that played with the letters of “JASTA”. They “Just Acted Stupidly Toward Allies,” the Arab News said on its front page. Analysts have warned that Saudi Arabia could reduce valuable security and intelligence cooperation with ally Washington after the Congressional vote. Riyadh and Washington have a decades-old relationship based on the exchange of American security for Saudi oil.
Yet Saudi Arabia was home to 15 of the 19 al-Qaeda hijackers who carried out the Sept 11, 2001 attacks on the United States which killed nearly 3,000 people. Riyadh denies any ties to the plotters. Ties between Riyadh and Washington became increasingly frayed under Obama, but analysts said security cooperation and intelligence sharing remained solid.
Doubts
US lawmakers expressed doubts on Thursday about Sept 11 legislation they forced on President Barack Obama, saying the new law allowing lawsuits against Saudi Arabia could be narrowed to ease concerns about its effect on Americans abroad. A day after a rare overwhelming rejection of a presidential veto, the first during Obama’s eight years in the White House, the Republican leaders of the Senate and House of Representatives opened the door to fixing the law as they blamed the Democratic president for not consulting them adequately. “I do think it is worth further discussing,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters, acknowledging that there could be “potential consequences” of the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, known as JASTA.
House Speaker Paul Ryan said Congress might have to “fix” the legislation to protect US troops in particular. Ryan did not give a time frame, but Republican Senator Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he thought JASTA could be addressed in Congress’ “lame-duck” session after the Nov 8 election. The law grants an exception to the legal principle of sovereign immunity in cases of terrorism on US soil, clearing the way for lawsuits seeking damages from the Saudi government. Riyadh denies longstanding suspicions that it backed the hijackers who attacked the United States in 2001. Sept 11 families lobbied intensely for the bill, getting it passed by the House days before the 15th anniversary of the 2001 attacks earlier this month after years of effort. “We have to understand the political environment we’re in right now and the tremendous support the 9/11 victims have in the United States,” said Robert Jordan, a former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia. Riyadh is one of Washington’s longest-standing and most important allies in the Middle East and part of a US-led coalition fighting Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria. The Saudis lobbied furiously against JASTA, and the Saudi foreign ministry condemned its passage in a statement on Thursday.
“The erosion of sovereign immunity will have a negative impact on all nations, including the United States,” said the statement, which was carried on state news agency SPA. Still, the new law is not expected to have a lasting effect on the two countries’ strategic relationship. Saudi-US ties have endured “multiple times of deep outrage” over 70 years, said Thomas Lippman of the Middle East Institute. “The two countries need each other as much today as they did before the day before yesterday,” he said. White House spokesman Josh Earnest mocked lawmakers for shifting “within minutes” from overwhelmingly voting to override Obama’s veto to wanting to change the law.
“I think what we’ve seen in the United States Congress is a pretty classic case of rapid onset buyer’s remorse,” Earnest told a White House briefing. Corker said he had tried to work out a compromise with the White House, but Obama administration officials declined a meeting. Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer, who championed JASTA in the Senate, said he was open to revisiting the legislation. “I’m willing to look at any proposal they make but not any that hurt the families,” he said at a news conference. He said he would oppose a suggestion that the measure be narrowed to only apply to the 2001 attacks on Washington and New York. “You know what that does? It tells the Saudis to go ahead and do it again, and we won’t punish you,” Schumer said. Corker said another suggestion was establishing an international tribunal so experts could determine whether there was culpability. He said the Saudis were been willing to work on a compromise, and denied they had threatened retaliation.
Trent Lott, a former Republican Senate Majority Leader now at a Washington law firm lobbying for the Saudis, said attorneys would look carefully at JASTA’s language. “I do feel passionately this is a mistake for a variety of reasons, in terms of threats to troops, diplomats, sovereignty, there’s serious problems here. Hopefully we can find a way to change the tenor of this,” Lott said. A bill passed by Congress allowing the families of 9/11 victims to sue the Saudi government has prompted reactions of outrage and ridicule among some in the Arab world. Many critics say the bill reinforces a long-held perception in the Middle East that the US only demands justice for its own victims of terrorism, despite decades of controversial US interventions around the world. Others support the bill, but point out that the US is meanwhile backing a Saudi-led intervention in Yemen that has led to the deaths of thousands of civilians there.
Two Arabic hashtags were trending on Twitter when the bill was passed, one referring directly to the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, or JASTA, and the other simply titled: #TheAmericanTerrorism. Some Arabic Twitter users shared a photo montage that depicted US military actions in Japan and Vietnam, as well as naked Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison being humiliated by smiling US troops. It read: “Japan, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan can’t wait for JASTA to be implemented so they can, in turn, prosecute the US.” Another shared a 2005 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette editorial cartoon of a young boy on his father’s lap watching an image of the Hiroshima mushroom cloud and asking: “Which terrorist group did that?” One post shared more than 750 times included a clip with Arabic subtitles of stand-up American comedian Eddie Griffin talking about US interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, saying these wars are about “money, money, money.” The criticism, of course, is nothing new, says Eurasia Group’s Director for the Middle East and North Africa Ayham Kamel. “The Middle East, as a region where the US has been dominant, has always been critical of US policy,” he said. The US, for example, has supported unpopular leaders in the region, such as the Shah of Iran until 1979 and Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak until 2011. Both were ousted from power after mass protests. In America, though, “the feeling is the US does more good than bad,” Kamel said. “I think there’s a genuine disconnect and it’s not a new thing … No matter what the US does.” Yemen-based lawyer Haykal Bafana said he’s lost relatives and friends to al-Qaeda attacks in Yemen and fully agrees with the legislation’s intent of allowing lawsuits in US federal courts against foreign countries for actions alleged to have contributed to acts of terrorism in the United States. But, he also had just one word to describe the bill: “Hypocrisy.”
“That’s the only way to see it,” Bafana said, pointing to White House support of the 18-month-long Saudiled intervention in Yemen and US drone strikes launched from Saudi Arabia that have killed Yemeni civilians. Stephen Kinzer, a senior fellow at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University, said the war in Yemen may have actually contributed to a more anti- Saudi stance among members of the US Congress, who have expressed their concerns about Washington’s involvement. Even so, outside the US the bill could reinforce a widespread view in the world that the US seeks to dominate and dictate rules to others, said Kinzer. “They could easily see it as yet another chapter in the more than centurylong history of Americans trying to apply their standards and laws to the whole world,” he said. Existing law allows lawsuits in the US to be brought against countries designated as state sponsors of terrorism, such as Sudan, Syria and Iran. JASTA expands that to allow any foreign country to be brought to trial for alleged involvement in terrorism acts on US soil. The bill was passed Wednesday by both the Senate and House, overriding President Barack Obama’s veto. In a letter to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid ahead of the vote, Obama wrote the US relies on the principles of sovereign immunity to prevent foreign courts from second-guessing its counterterrorism operations and other actions taken daily. Reciprocal lawsuits abroad could subject US service members to litigation. Foreign courts could also decide whether classified US government information is required in trials.
This news has been read 10008 times!
