Closing the Impunity Gap in U.S. Law

This piece is composed of written testimony submitted to the Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law, Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. Senate, on October 6, 2009, for a hearing entitled, "No Safe Haven: Accountability for Human Rights Violators, Part II." The testimony addresses the Crimes Against Humanity Act of 2009. This legislation would introduce into federal law a broader set of criminal offenses pertaining to both U.S. citizens and aliens who visit or reside in the United States. The testimony focuses exclusively on criminal law and military law and how to ensure that U.S. law sufficiently empowers U.S. courts with appropriate jurisdiction to investigate and judge the culpability of alleged perpetrators of atrocity crimes.