What is Jasta?

Jasta is the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act. The legislation gives victims’ families the right to sue in US court for any role that elements of the Saudi government may have played in the 2001 attacks. Fifteen of the 19 September 11 hijackers were Saudi nationals.

Sovereign immunity

Jasta provides an exception to the doctrine of “sovereign immunity,” which holds that one country can’t be sued in another country’s courts. US courts would be permitted to waive a claim of foreign sovereign immunity when an act of terrorism occurs inside US borders, according to the terms of the bill.

Who pushed for Jasta?

Families of terror victims have lobbied for the bill, which would allow them to sue Saudi Arabian officials who intelligence agencies have suggested had ties to the hijackers of the four planes used in the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. But the bill would also allow lawsuits against other countries as well.

Who is against Jasta?

The White House has argued that the bill would prompt other nations to retaliate, stripping the immunity the United States enjoys in other parts of the world. “And no country has more to lose, in the context of those exceptions, than the United States of America, given the preeminent role that we play in global affairs,” White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest.

Quid pro quo

By limiting the defence of sovereign immunity, Jasta opens the door for the US to be sued by former inmates of Guantanamo Bay, those tortured in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, or by victims of perceived or other abuses of US foreign policy overseas, from Vietnam to Afghanistan.

Security services

The prospect of lawsuits being heard in open court in the US exposes US intelligence services and national security officials into having to reveal information that might compromise the US war on terror or its relationships and work with international partners. It is potentially damaging and embarrassing.

Obama’s position

President Barack Obama had vetoed the bill. In an extraordinary three-page veto message to Congress, Obama said he has “deep sympathy” for the families of victims of terrorism, but that the legislation would interfere with the president’s ability to conduct foreign policy. “I recognise that there is nothing that could ever erase the grief the 9/11 families have endured,” Obama said. “Enacting Jasta into law, however, would neither protect Americans from terrorist attacks nor improve the effectiveness of our response to such attacks.”

Congressional override

Congress on Wednesday overwhelmingly rejected President Obama’s veto of legislation allowing relatives of the victims of the September 11 attacks to sue Saudi Arabia, the first veto override of his presidency, just four months before it ends.

The House of Representatives voted 348-77 against the veto, hours after the Senate rejected it 97-1, meaning Jasta is now law.