[Congressional Bills 114th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. Res. 340 Introduced in Senate (IS)]

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114th CONGRESS
  1st Session
S. RES. 340

 Expressing the sense of Congress that the so-called Islamic State in 
   Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS or Da'esh) is committing genocide, crimes 
  against humanity, and war crimes, and calling upon the President to 
    work with foreign governments and the United Nations to provide 
 physical protection for ISIS' targets, to support the creation of an 
   international criminal tribunal with jurisdiction to punish these 
  crimes, and to use every reasonable means, including sanctions, to 
             destroy ISIS and disrupt its support networks.


_______________________________________________________________________


                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                           December 18, 2015

  Mr. Cassidy (for himself, Mr. Manchin, Mr. Rubio, Mr. Kirk, and Mr. 
 Wicker) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the 
                     Committee on Foreign Relations

_______________________________________________________________________

                               RESOLUTION


 
 Expressing the sense of Congress that the so-called Islamic State in 
   Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS or Da'esh) is committing genocide, crimes 
  against humanity, and war crimes, and calling upon the President to 
    work with foreign governments and the United Nations to provide 
 physical protection for ISIS' targets, to support the creation of an 
   international criminal tribunal with jurisdiction to punish these 
  crimes, and to use every reasonable means, including sanctions, to 
             destroy ISIS and disrupt its support networks.

Whereas communities of Assyrian Chaldean Syriac, Armenian, Evangelical, and 
        Melkite Christians; Kurds; Yezidis; Shia and Sunni Muslims; Turkmen; 
        Sabea-Mandeans; Kaka`e; and Shabaks have been an integral part of the 
        cultural fabric of the Middle East for millennia;
Whereas Article I of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and 
        Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, signed at Paris December 9, 1948 
        (in this resolution referred to as the ``Convention'') states that ``the 
        contracting parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of 
        peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they 
        undertake to prevent and punish'';
Whereas Article II of the Convention declares, ``In the present Convention, 
        genocide means any of the following acts committed with the intent to 
        destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious 
        group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious 
        bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately 
        inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its 
        physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended 
        to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children 
        of the group to another group.'';
Whereas Article III of the Convention affirms, ``The following acts shall be 
        punishable: (a) Genocide; (b) Conspiracy to commit genocide; (c) Direct 
        and public incitement to commit genocide; (d) Attempt to commit 
        genocide; (e) Complicity in genocide.'';
Whereas section 1091 of title 18, United States Code, declares that ``genocide'' 
        occurs when any person ``whether in time of peace or in time of war and 
        with the specific intent to destroy, in whole or in substantial part, a 
        national, ethnic, racial, or religious group as such (1) kills members 
        of that group; (2) causes serious bodily injury to members of that 
        group; (3) causes the permanent impairment of the mental faculties of 
        members of the group through drugs, torture, or similar techniques; (4) 
        subjects the group to conditions of life that are intended to cause the 
        physical destruction of the group in whole or in part; (5) imposes 
        measures intended to prevent births within the group; or (6) transfers 
        by force children of the group to another group'';
Whereas subsection (c) of section 2441 of title 18, United States Code, defines 
        a ``war crime'' as conduct ``(1) defined as a grave breach in any of the 
        international conventions signed at Geneva 12 August 1949, or any 
        protocol to such convention to which the United States is a party; (2) 
        prohibited by Article 23, 25, 27, or 28 of the Annex to the Hague 
        Convention IV, Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land, signed 18 
        October 1907; (3) which constitutes a grave breach of common Article 3 
        [defined in subsection (d) of such section as torture, cruel or inhuman 
        treatment, performing biological experiments, murder, mutilation or 
        maiming, intentionally causing serious bodily injury, rape, sexual 
        assault or abuse, or taking hostages] when committed in the context of 
        and in association with an armed conflict not of an international 
        character; or (4) of a person who, in relation to an armed conflict and 
        contrary to the provisions of the Protocol on Prohibitions or 
        Restrictions on the Use of Mines, Booby-Traps and Other Devices as 
        amended at Geneva on 3 May 1996 (Protocol II as amended on 3 May 1996), 
        when the United States is a party to such Protocol, willfully kills or 
        causes serious injury to civilians'';
Whereas the United States has ratified the United Nations Convention Against 
        Transnational Organized Crime of 2000, and its Protocol to Prevent, 
        Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and 
        Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against 
        Transnational Organized Crime, which defines ``trafficking in persons'' 
        to mean ``the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or 
        receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other 
        forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of 
        power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of 
        payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control 
        over another person, for the purpose of exploitation'' and defines 
        exploitation as including, ``at a minimum, the exploitation of the 
        prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced 
        labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude 
        or the removal of organs'';
Whereas section 2331 of title 18, United States Code, defines ``international 
        terrorism activities'' as ``activities that (A) involve violent acts or 
        acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws 
        of the United States or of any State, or that would be a criminal 
        violation if committed within the jurisdiction of the United States or 
        of any State; (B) appear to be intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a 
        civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by 
        intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government 
        by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and (C) occur 
        primarily outside the territorial jurisdiction of the United States, or 
        transcend national boundaries in terms of the means by which they are 
        accomplished, the persons they appear intended to intimidate or coerce, 
        or the locale in which their perpetrators operate or seek asylum'';
Whereas section 2332b of title 18, United States Code, defines ``terrorism 
        transcending national boundaries'' to include ``(A) kill[ings], 
        kidnap[ing]s, maim[ing]s, commit[ing] an assault resulting in serious 
        bodily injury, or assaults with a dangerous weapon [of or on] any person 
        within the United States; or (B) creat[ing] a substantial risk of 
        serious bodily injury to any other person by destroying or damaging any 
        structure, conveyance, or other real or personal property within the 
        United States or by attempting or conspiring to destroy or damage any 
        structure, conveyance, or other real or personal property within the 
        United States; in violation of the laws of any State, or the United 
        States,'';
Whereas the President, with the assistance of the Secretary of State and the 
        Ambassador at Large for War Crimes Issues, is obligated under section 
        2113(b) of the ADVANCE Democracy Act of 2007 (22 U.S.C. 8213(b)) to 
        ``collect information regarding incidents that may constitute crimes 
        against humanity, genocide, slavery, or other violations of 
        international humanitarian law'' and ``shall consider what actions can 
        be taken to ensure that any government of a country or the leaders or 
        senior officials of such government who are responsible for crimes 
        against humanity, genocide, slavery, or other violations of 
        international humanitarian law identified [pursuant to such collection 
        of information] are brought to account for such crimes in an 
        appropriately constituted tribunal'';
Whereas Article I of the Convention and the law of nations confirm that 
        government authorities are obligated to prevent and punish acts 
        constituting genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes;
Whereas, on July 10, 2015, Pope Francis, Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church, 
        declared that the pattern of crimes committed by ISIS and its affiliates 
        against Christians are part of a ``third world war, waged piecemeal, 
        which we are now experiencing,'' and that ``a form of genocide is taking 
        place, and it must end'';
Whereas the 2011 Presidential Study Directive on Mass Atrocities declares, 
        ``Preventing mass atrocities and genocide is a core national security 
        interest and a core moral responsibility of the United States . . . [and 
        that] our options are never limited to either sending in the military or 
        standing by and doing nothing . . . The actions that can be taken are 
        many--they range from economic to diplomatic interventions, and from 
        non-combat military actions to outright intervention.'';
Whereas, on August 7, 2014, President Barak Obama authorized military action to 
        stop ISIS' advance in northern Iraq, and ``to prevent a potential act of 
        genocide'' against Yazidis stranded on Mount Sinjar;
Whereas, on August 7, 2014, Secretary of State John Kerry, stated that ISIS' 
        ``campaign of terror against the innocent, including Yezedi and 
        Christian minorities, and its grotesque and targeted acts of violence 
        bear all the warning signs and hallmarks of genocide'';
Whereas, on March 27, 2015, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner 
        for Human Rights reported that its mission to Iraq had ``gathered 
        reliable information about acts of violence perpetrated against 
        civilians because of their affiliation or perceived affiliation to an 
        ethnic or religious group,'' that the ``[e]thnic and religious groups 
        targeted by ISIL include Yezidis, Christians, Turkmen, Sabea-Mandeans, 
        Kaka'e, Kurds and Shia,'' and stated, ``It is reasonable to conclude, in 
        the light of the information gathered overall, that some of those 
        incidents may constitute genocide. Other incidents may amount to crimes 
        against humanity or war crimes.'';
Whereas the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) 
        has ``called on the U.S. government to designate the Christian, Yazidi, 
        Shi'a, Turkmen, and Shabak communities of Iraq and Syria as victims of 
        genocide by ISIL'' and USCIRF Chairman Robert P. George has observed 
        that ``ISIL's intent to destroy religious groups that do not subscribe 
        to its extremist ideology in the areas of Iraq and Syria that it 
        controls, or seeks to control, is evident in, not only its barbarous 
        acts, but also its own propaganda''; and
Whereas members of the International Association of Genocide Scholars, in their 
        Appeal to Congress of September 9, 2015, stated, ``ISIS's mass murders 
        of Chaldean, Assyrian, Melkite Greek, and Coptic Christians, Yazidis, 
        Shi'a Muslims, Sunni Kurds and other religious groups meet even the 
        strictest definition of genocide.'': Now, therefore, be it
    Resolved, That the Senate--
            (1) finds that ISIS, its affiliated organizations, and 
        supporters are parts of an expanding, worldwide criminal 
        network, the members of which have pledged allegiance to its 
        leaders, support its actions, act in concert with them, claim 
        credit for targeted killings, and are ``fully aware that 
        [their] participation'' and support will ``assist [in] the 
        commission'' of its crimes;
            (2) finds that ISIS and its affiliated organizations 
        maintain sophisticated publishing and social media networks 
        that seek to attract others to join their efforts and seek to 
        incite the murder of Christians, Shia and Sunni Muslims, Jews, 
        and any religious believers who refuse to convert to their 
        Wahhabi-Salafist jihadist ideology;
            (3) declares that ISIS and its leaders should be charged 
        with genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes;
            (4) calls upon on the Attorney General to investigate and 
        prosecute any United States citizens or residents alleged to be 
        perpetrators of or complicit in these crimes and to report back 
        to Congress regarding what steps are being taken to investigate 
        and prosecute those involved;
            (5) calls upon the Secretary of the Treasury to investigate 
        and sanction any person, organization, business, or financial 
        institution alleged to be perpetrators of or complicit in these 
        crimes, and to report back to Congress regarding what 
        additional authority, if any, is needed to disrupt ISIS 
        financial support networks;
            (6) calls upon the President to authorize the Secretary of 
        State, the Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global 
        Affairs, and the Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues to 
        cooperate in the collection of forensic evidence of crimes 
        against humanity, genocide, war crimes, slavery, or other 
        violations of international humanitarian law;
            (7) calls on the President, the Secretary of State, and the 
        United States Permanent Representative to the United Nations, 
        working through the United Nations Security Council and its 
        member states as appropriate, to accelerate the implementation 
        of an immediate, coordinated, and sustained response to provide 
        humanitarian assistance, protect civilians, build resilience, 
        and help reestablish livelihoods for displaced and persecuted 
        persons in their communities of origin;
            (8) calls upon the contracting parties to the United 
        Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the 
        Crime of Genocide, signed at Paris December 9, 1948, and other 
        international agreements forbidding war crimes and crimes 
        against humanity, to join with the United States in an effort 
        to investigate, arrest, and prosecute individual and 
        organizational perpetrators responsible for these crimes;
            (9) calls upon the United Nations Secretary-General to urge 
        all United Nations member states to cooperate in an 
        international effort to investigate, try, and prosecute all 
        cases in which prosecutors can prove that the accused have 
        committed crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide;
            (10) makes an urgent appeal to the Cooperation Council for 
        the Arab States of the Gulf to collaborate on the establishment 
        and operation of domestic, regional, and hybrid international 
        tribunals with jurisdiction to punish the individuals and 
        organizations responsible for or complicit in actions that 
        constitute war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide; 
        and
            (11) commends the Governments of the Kurdistan Region of 
        Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, and every other country 
        sheltering and protecting individuals fleeing the violence of 
        ISIS.
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