Congress Denies Justice to 9/11 Victims' Families

Daniel R. DePetris

Politics, Americas

A bipartisan deal puts Saudi Arabia before Americans.

Last week, the United States Senate did something extraordinary: they passed an incredibly important piece of legislation on a bipartisan basis that would make it far easier for the families of 9/11 victims to seek financial damages against foreign nationals who aided and abetted the worst act of mass murder on American soil in modern times. That bill, called the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA), would remove the statutory restrictions that have prevented the 9/11 families from taking a foreign national or a foreign government to court on charges of supporting acts of terrorism that resulted in the death or injury of their loved ones on that bright, September day.

For the past eight years, Americans who suspected Saudi government involvement in the 9/11 attacks tried to take Riyadh to court. In each of those instances, the U.S. court system not only denied them a final ruling, but also ruled that the U.S. judicial system is effectively closed as an avenue to press their financial claims. To date, U.S. judges in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York have dismissed those lawsuits on the basis of the 1976 Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, which protects foreign governments from being sued in American courts and requires a high bar of direct causation between the state and the act of terrorism. In his September 30, 2015 dismissal in favor of Saudi Arabia, Judge George B. Daniels argued that the plaintiffs “fail[ed] to allege facts that sufficiently show that Saudi Arabia controlled the day-to-day operations of” charities that had a relationship with Al-Qaeda.

JASTA is specifically written to loosen the burden on behalf of the plaintiffs and make it easier for U.S. citizens to proceed with their complaints against foreign governments that they allege supported an act of terrorism inside the United States.