Legal Organizations Put Members of Congress on Notice of Complicity in Genocide

The National Lawyers Guild, Palestine Legal and the Center for Constitutional Rights send Notice & Demand Letter to all Congressional Representatives

November 3, 2023

RE: NOTICE OF POTENTIAL LEGAL LIABILITY FOR AIDING, ABETTING, INCITING, OR CONSPIRING TO COMMIT GENOCIDE THROUGH CONGRESSIONAL ACTS, AND DEMAND

Dear Congressional Representatives: 

We understand that you will be voting on the emergency military funding package to Israel.  We write to notify you of the legal liabilities of voting for that package, and to demand that you vote against the military assistance package.

The aid package will provide funds to Israel to, inter alia, support its ongoing genocide of, and war crimes against, Palestinians who are confined to the Gaza Strip, and to support apartheid and ethnic cleansing, and the underlying crimes of forcible transfer and deportation, in the West Bank. As the United States is a signatory to both the 1949 Geneva Conventions and the Genocide Convention, it has an obligation to respect and ensure respect for the obligations in those international treaties, including to prevent the commission of genocide and to prevent and punish the commission of grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions – not aid and abet them.

Please take notice that should you vote in favor of that package, you risk facing criminal and civil liability for aiding and abetting genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity under international law, and may face investigation and prosecution at the International Criminal Court, and in third-states under the principle of universal jurisdiction.

Read the full letter here.


 

CIVIL SOCIETY ENDORSEMENTS

Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC)
Climate Defense Project
Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN)
First Defense Legal Aid
Law For Black Lives
Majlis Ash-Shura: Islamic Leadership Council of New York
National Lawyers Guild Anti-Repression Task Force
National Lawyers Guild International Committee
Palestinian Assembly for Liberation: P.A.L. Commission on War Crimes, Reparations, and Justice

Attachments 

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November 3, 2023