House of Representatives passed a bill that allowing citizens to sue foreign nations for terrorism that kills its citizens on US soil
The UAE has called on the US Congress to review the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA), according to Emirates News Agency (WAM).
In September this year, the US House of Representatives passed a bill that creates an exception to sovereign immunity created by a 1976 law, allowing US citizens to sue foreign nations for terrorism that kills its citizens on US soil.
“The law undermines the foundations of international relations,” WAM reported Dr. Amal Abdullah Al Qubaisi, speaker of the UAE’s Federal National Council (FNC), as saying while addressing the 135th session of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) in Geneva.
The JASTA law narrows the scope of the legal doctrine of foreign sovereign immunity and also amends the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act and the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act in regards to civil claims against a foreign state for injuries, death, or damage from an act of international terrorism, WAM reported.
Al Qubaisi urged the IPU to include in its communique the rejection of the JASTA, which ignores the principles of international law regarding the legal doctrine of foreign sovereign immunity.
