It sets a bad precedence. Think about the converse…how many people or entities would love to sue the US in their own court system? Or China (hm…ok, maybe this has some merit :p)? I doubt that suits by 9/11 survivors would get a lot of traction in the US court system, but it opens us up to being sued in, oh, say the North Korean court system because we have repeatedly threatened them with nuclear destruction or invasion…or whatever.
I think it’s a bad idea, but I can certainly believe that Congress would be swayed by such populist sentiment to vote to override the Presidents veto, especially in an election year. And the way Clinton has been lately with stuff like the TPTA (flip flopping on the issue because Sanders was against it and it gets her more votes), and Trump being, well, Trump, it’s a perfect storm of political fuckup.
Well, there are no US assets in North Korea to be siezed and the World Court, etc is hardly receptive to them.
But Syria sues us for the latest mis-aimed drone attack. Or Venezuela for the uSA being Imperialist. etc. Lots of Third World nations out there gunning for the USofA and out deep pockets.
And their courts will be run by hopping marsupials.
I think the main problem, as I understand it (and I’m no lawyer, nor do I play one on the SDMB…nor, sadly, have I stayed at a Holiday Inn lately), is with our troops being potentially open to private lawsuits for actions they did when deployed to other countries. It opens up a whole can of worms that would be better left unopened because, well, who wants to open a can of worms? I mean, seriously…yuck.
The problem is that the Royal Family is very large and it’s not always easy to draw a line between government actions and actions of individuals. There is(allegedly) a lot Saudi “private” money the gets funneled into terrorist activities, so I would not be as sanguine as you wrt Saudi innocence in that area.
True, American courts don’t normally have jurisdiction in territories not under US control, but as I understand this bill, the argument is that some officials in the Saudi government may have collaborated / funded / encouraged the 9/11 attacks.
If that can be proven, it’s not a stretch to say that the US courts may have jurisdiction in tort, because the effects of that alleged collaboration / funding / encouragement were felt by individuals in the US, who were injured or killed as a result of the overall plot.
Torts / delicts can be multi-jurisdictional. There can be cases where aspects of the tort / delict occurred in more than one country, and therefore the courts in both countries may have jurisdiction to entertain the action for tort / delict.
That appears to be the allegation here: that government officials in Saudia Arabia contributed in some way to the injuries and deaths suffered by individuals in the US. If so, it’s not that unusual to say that the US courts have jurisdiction. The only wrinkle is the question of sovereign immunity, which the bill addresses.
I am not a civil law expert by any means, but I don’t think Congress needs to pass such a law, because I think that a pre-judgement attachment is already available in civil procedure to prevent a prospective defendant from making himself judgement-proof, although my lack of expertise may well mean there is some subtlety to the process that I am missing.
And how do you know that there was no involvement by the Saudi government? Lawsuits arise because there is a disagreement on the facts of a particular case. The 9/11 families are asserting that there was in fact involvement by some officials in the Saudi government. That’s a disputed question of fact which now apparently can get resolved by a lawsuit, just like disputed questions of fact in other civil litigation.
This bill doesn’t affect foreign investors who have money in the US. Foreign investors potentially already could be sued in the US courts. This bill only affects foreign governments, not foreign investors.
Nor do I follow why you think foreign investments by Americans would get frozen. If there is a lawsuit in a foreign country against the US government, why would that affect US investors who are not parties to the law suit?
How? Suppose some country eliminates sovereign immunity in their own courts exactly the same as the US bill does.
Then someone sues the US government in the courts of that country, alleging the actions of the US government have harmed them.
If the courts of that country rule in favour of the plaintiffs, what US government assets could be seized?
Enforcement of a foreign judgment is not automatic. If the successful plaintiffs want to try to enforce their foreign judgment against US government assets in the US, they’d have to go through the US courts.
Would the courts enforce such claims? Or would they say that under US law, the US government can only be sued in the US federal courts, so the foreign judgment is unenforceable? My money would be on the latter.
And if by some strange approach the US courts allowed the enforcement of the foreign judgment, Congress could easily pass a law immunising federal assets from foreign judgments, expressly barring the federal courts from enforcing those foreign judgments.
Like Bricker, I’m certainly not up on the intricacies of pre-judgment remedies in the US federal court system, but I think the argument would be that a federal statute works immediately, whereas going through the court process requires the plaintiffs to meet fairly rigourous tests before they can get pre-judgment remedies.
The equivalent in the Commonwealth countries is a Mareva injunction, which is not easy to get. I would think the US court system would have similar strict tests before someone could get a pre-judgment freeze.
In other words, a federal freezing statute would get around that pesky due process thingy.
A freeze on assets typically requires the plaintiffs to show that defendants are actively attempting to hide or wrongfully transfer the assets. It’s hard, but not too hard if Joe Schmo transfers title to his car and house to his mother-in-law, but I doubt there are many tort lawyers who could even begin to make the required showing in the case of a country doing it.
I mean that by the time the last victims obtain judgments there (potentially) won’t be anything left to divvy up.
Well obviously, they would seize US assets in their own country. It’s not like this law allows the seizure of Saudi assets in Saudi Arabia. The obvious problem with this is that there’s a lot more foreign assets in the U.S. than U.S. in Saudi Arabia. Maybe they could decide to seize assets from private US companies that have significant government ties, like Halliburton.
I have a hard time believing the plaintiffs in this case can put together enough evidence to refute the 9/11 Commission that exonerated the Saudi government but I guess that’s another thread.
Don’t know if this is still true, but the US has (or had) a tremendous amount of military equipment and supplies pre-positioned on Saudi bases.
And for any countries with US military bases, those bases and the hardware in them would be a tempting target for seizure, and well as a possible flashpoint for violence, depending on the degree that US military forces stationed there resisted the seizure.
I think the US *might *be able to play this game with some extent of impunity. Impound Saudi assets at home in the US, but threaten the Saudis with retaliation if they do the same to US assets in Saudi Arabia.
As for seizing US military assets, that would actually be an act of war. It’s not like the US is trying to seize Saudi Eurofighters in America. Trying to seize US military assets would have to be done by force, and spark a war.
Incidentally, does it seem to anyone else that 9/11 families are considered “above reproach”, in a certain sense? They, like MLK, Ghandhi, Lincoln, etc. have become figures that cannot be criticized or opposed; like a third rail in politics.