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

<DOC>
                                                       Calendar No. 447
114th CONGRESS
  2d 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, Mr. Wicker, 
  Mr. Peters, Ms. Stabenow, Mr. Blunt, Ms. Ayotte, Mrs. Shaheen, Mr. 
     Tillis, Mr. Inhofe, and Mr. Isakson) submitted the following 
  resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations

                             April 28, 2016

   Reported by Mr. Corker, with an amendment and an amendment to the 
                 preamble and an amendment to the title
[Strike out all after the resolving clause and insert the part printed 
                               in italic]
      [Strike the preamble and insert the part printed in italic]

_______________________________________________________________________

                               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
Whereas Christians and other religious and ethnic minorities have been an 
        integral part of the cultural fabric of the Middle East for millennia;
Whereas the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or Da'esh) and associated 
        extremists are committing egregious atrocities against ethnic and 
        religious minorities in Iraq and Syria, including Christians (among them 
        Assyrian Chaldean Syriac, Armenian, Evangelicals, Antiochian and Greek 
        Orthodox, Maronite, Melkite, and Roman Catholic communities), Yezidis, 
        Turkmen, Shi'a, Shabak, Sabaean-Mandeans, and Kaka'i, among others;
Whereas ISIL specifically targets these religious and ethnic minorities, 
        intending to kill them or force their submission, conversion, or 
        expulsion;
Whereas religious and ethnic minorities have been murdered, subjugated, forced 
        to emigrate, and subjected to grievous bodily and psychological harm, 
        kidnapping, human trafficking, torture, and rape;
Whereas ISIL engages in, and publicly argues in favor of, the sexual enslavement 
        of non-Muslim women, including prepubescent girls;
Whereas the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) and the United 
        Nations Human Rights Office (OHCHR) said in a January 2016 report that 
        it believes ISIL is holding around 3,500 slaves, predominantly women and 
        children, ``primarily from the Yezidi community, but a number are also 
        from other ethnic and religious minority communities'';
Whereas ISIL specifically targets religious and ethnic minorities, and has 
        reportedly kidnapped, forcibly displaced, killed, raped, electrocuted, 
        and crucified members of ethnic and religious groups, including 
        Christian, Shabak, Turkmen, and Shia of all ethnicities;
Whereas ISIL has deliberately destroyed and looted numerous cultural sites, 
        religious shrines, places of worship, monasteries, and museums in order 
        to eradicate the cultures of ethnic and religious minorities;
Whereas these atrocities have been undertaken with the specific intent to bring 
        about the eradication of those communities and the destruction of their 
        cultural heritage;
Whereas ISIL operations have in fact driven minority religious and ethnic 
        communities from their ancestral homelands;
Whereas, under applicable domestic and international law codified in section 
        2441 of title 18, United States Code, murder, torture, mutilation, rape, 
        cruel treatment, and hostage taking of non-combatants constitute war 
        crimes;
Whereas crimes against humanity, as defined by the International Military 
        Tribunal convened at Nuremberg in 1945, include murder, extermination, 
        enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against any 
        civilian population, as well as persecution on political, racial, or 
        religious grounds in connection with such crimes;
Whereas the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the 
        Crime of Genocide, signed and ratified by the United States, defines 
        genocide as ``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 according to the United Nations Commission of Inquiry, in February 2014, 
        ISIL ordered Christians in Raqqa, Syria to either convert to Islam, pay 
        jizya, a tax specifically applied on the basis of religious belief, and 
        accept serious curbs on their faith, or face execution;
Whereas, according to the Department of State, in August 2014, as ISIL began to 
        expand beyond Mosul, an estimated 450,000 Yezidis, 300,000 Turkmen, and 
        125,000 Christians, as well as Iraqi Arabs, Shia Muslims, Sunni Muslims, 
        Shabak and other ethnic and religious groups, were forced from their 
        communities;
Whereas in areas controlled by ISIL, churches, monasteries and other places of 
        worship have effectively been shuttered and do not publicly conduct 
        worship services;
Whereas, on August 7, 2014, Secretary of State John Kerry declared that ``ISIL's 
        campaign of terror against the innocent, including Yezidi and Christian 
        minorities, and its grotesque and targeted acts of violence bear all the 
        warning signs and hallmarks of genocide'':
Whereas, in August 2014, the United States conducted targeted airstrikes and 
        humanitarian assistance operations to help break the siege of Mount 
        Sinjar, saving the lives of thousands of Yezidi men, women, and 
        children;
Whereas His Holiness, Pope Francis, has noted that ``entire communities, 
        especially--but not only--Christians and Yezidis, have suffered and are 
        still suffering inhuman violence because off their ethnic and religious 
        identity'' and stated that, for Christians being killed for their faith 
        in the Middle East ``a form of genocide--I insist on the word--is taking 
        place, and it must end'';
Whereas a March 13, 2015, report by the Office of the United Nations High 
        Commissioner for Human Rights detailed ``acts of violence perpetrated 
        [by ISIL] against civilians because of their affiliation or perceived 
        affiliation to an ethnic or religious group'' and stated that ``[i]t is 
        reasonable to conclude that some of these incidents, considering the 
        overall information, may constitute genocide'';
Whereas, on December 7, 2015, the United States Commission on International 
        Religious Freedom called on the United States Government ``to designate 
        the Christian, Yezidi, Shi'a, Turkmen, and Shabak communities of Iraq 
        and Syria as victims of genocide by ISIL'' and urged world leaders ``to 
        condemn the genocidal actions and crimes against humanity of ISIL that 
        have been directed at these groups and other ethnic and religious 
        groups'';
Whereas, on February 3, 2016, the European Parliament expressed the view that 
        ISIL ``is committing genocide against Christians and Yezidis, and other 
        religious and ethnic minorities''; and
Whereas, on March 17, 2016, Secretary of State John Kerry issued a declaration 
        stating, that in his judgement, ``Da'esh is responsible for genocide 
        against groups in areas under its control, including Yezidis, 
        Christians, and Shia Muslims,'' and is ``also responsible for crimes 
        against humanity and ethnic cleansing directed at these same groups and 
        in some cases against Sunni Muslims and Kurds and other minorities'': 
        Now, therefore, be it
    Resolved, That the Senate--
        <DELETED>    (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;</DELETED>
        <DELETED>    (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;</DELETED>
        <DELETED>    (3) declares that ISIS and its leaders should be 
        charged with genocide, crimes against humanity, and war 
        crimes;</DELETED>
        <DELETED>    (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;</DELETED>
        <DELETED>    (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;</DELETED>
        <DELETED>    (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;</DELETED>
        <DELETED>    (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;</DELETED>
        <DELETED>    (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;</DELETED>
        <DELETED>    (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;</DELETED>
        <DELETED>    (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</DELETED>
        <DELETED>    (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.</DELETED>
That it is the sense of the Senate that--
            (1) the atrocities perpetrated by the Islamic State of Iraq 
        and the Levant (ISIL) against Christians, Yezidis, Shi'a, and 
        other religious and ethnic minorities in Iraq and Syria 
        constitute war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide;
            (2) all governments, and international organizations should 
        call ISIL atrocities by their rightful names: war crimes, 
        crimes against humanity, and genocide;
            (3) the member states of the United Nations should 
        coordinate urgently on measures to prevent further war crimes, 
        crimes against humanity, and genocide by ISIL in Iraq and 
        Syria, and to punish those responsible for these ongoing 
        crimes, including by the collection and preservation of 
        evidence and, if necessary, the establishment and operation of 
        appropriate tribunals;
            (4) the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, the Lebanese Republic, 
        the Republic of Turkey, and the Kurdistan Regional Government 
        in Iraq are to be commended for, and supported in, their 
        efforts to shelter and protect those fleeing the violence of 
        ISIL and other combatants until they can safely return to their 
        homes in Iraq and Syria; and
            (5) the protracted Syrian civil war and the indiscriminate 
        violence of the Assad regime have contributed to the growth of 
        ISIL and will continue to do so as long as this conflict 
        continues.
            Amend the title so as to read: ``A resolution expressing 
        the sense of the Senate that the atrocities perpetrated by the 
        Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) against religious 
        and ethnic minorities in Iraq and Syria include war crimes, 
        crimes against humanity, and genocide.''.




                                                       Calendar No. 447

114th CONGRESS

  2d Session

                              S. RES. 340

_______________________________________________________________________

                               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.

_______________________________________________________________________

                             April 28, 2016

  Reported with an amendment and an amendment to the preamble and an 
                         amendment to the title