Legal News

Should the Iraq Courts Be Allowed to Try U.S. Contractors?

By Dan Slater

On Tuesday, we pre-gamed the trial of Jose Luis Nazario, the first marine to stand trial in civilian court for crimes said to have occurred while he was serving in Iraq. His lawyer asked: “How is it possible that our Congress sitting in Washington can make it a crime for an American citizen to kill a foreign national in a foreign country?”

Contractors for Blackwater take part in a firefight as Iraqi demonstrators loyal to Muqtada Al Sadr advance on a facility being defended by U.S. and Spanish soldiers, April 4, 2004, in the Iraqi city of Najaf. (AP/Gervasio Sanchez)

Today, we pose a related question: Can the foreign country make it a crime?

It’s been almost a year since Blackwater security contractors shot 17 Iraqis. The DOJ is close to indicting six of the guards. But, as part of U.S.-Iraqi Status of Forces Agreement negotiations, the guards, known as private security contractors, or PSC’s, could face prosecution under the Iraqi system as well. Writing on today’s WSJ opinion page, two research fellows at the New America Foundation, Michael Cohen and Maria Figueroa Küpçü, call this revocation of immunity from Iraqi law a “destabilizing development.”

They write: “[P]lacing contractors at the mercy of an underdeveloped Iraqi legal system is not a solution. Greater liability for PSCs will also bring a higher price tag. Furthermore, PSC ranks will become deprofessionalized, as many of the most experienced contractors may decide that the risks of being thrown in an Iraqi prison are not worth a paycheck.”

They write that accountability for contractors can be achieved through other means, such as Congress’s 2006 extension of the Uniform Code of Military Justice to cover Pentagon contractors. Also, legislation in Congress now would place State Department contractors under the jurisdiction of the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act. That’s the law responsible for bringing Nazario’s war crimes trial to a civilian court.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on August 22, 2008 (boomark / email).