Senator Christopher Dodd's (D-CT) Statement on the ASPA

Madam President, I rise to comment briefly about Title II, the American Service Members Protection Act of H.R. 4775 in order to clarify the Senate's intent in insisting on the retention of Sec. 2015 of that Title which was added during Senate consideration of the supplemental.

I read with interest the remarks of Chairman Henry Hyde during House consideration of the conference report on July 23.  I am certainly not in any position to dispute his comments concerning the first 14 sections of Title II relating to the American Service Members Protection Act, ASPA, as I was not a party to those discussions. I leave it to the administration and to others involved in those discussions to make that judgment.

I do, however, know something about the intent behind Sec. 2015 as I was the author of the amendment that was ultimately included in the Senate passed version of ASPA. A review of the Senate debate makes clear that I was offering the second degree amendment because of my concern with respect to the complexity of the House passed language which was offered as a first degree amendment by Senator Warner. As written, I was concerned that it unduly restricted the ability of the President to cooperate with international efforts to bring to foreign nationals accused of genocide, war crimes or crimes against humanity to justice if he chose to do so.

Sec. 2015 makes clear that regardless of the other sections contained in Title II, the President is not prohibited from rendering assistance to any such international efforts, including to the International Criminal Court. An amendment to exclude cooperation with the ICC was proposed during the conference on H.R. 4775, but was rejected by the conferees. Therefore, as the language now stands the President has the discretion to cooperate with any and all international efforts to bring such criminals to justice.

I thank my colleagues for the opportunity to clarify an important addition to the House version of ASPA.