Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I yield myself an additional 1 minute. Mr. Speaker, Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on Jurisdictional Immunities of States and Their Properties would apply the territorial tort exception if the act or omission occurred in whole or in part in the territory of the state exercising jurisdiction. Most nations that have codified the exception appear to require some act or omission in their territories, but it is not clear that these nations have done so from a sense of international legal obligation rather than from comity. Even if customary international law were properly read to preclude a nation from applying the territorial tort exception solely on the basis of death and damage within its territory, the application of JASTA to the 9/11 cases, as an example, would still not violate international law since the 9/11 attacks clearly involved tortious acts in the United States. JASTA requires that the physical harm occur in the United States. But to have an exception that says that if people aid and abet from outside the United States, their government--the government--aids and abets from outside the United States, that government can evade the courts of the United States. That is wrong. The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has again expired.”