International Convention Against the Taking of Hostages Message to the Senate Transmitting the Convention.

To the Senate of the United States:

With a view to receiving the advice and consent of the Senate to ratification, I transmit herewith a copy of the International Convention Against the Taking of Hostages, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 17, 1979 and signed on behalf of the United States of America on December 21, 1979. The report of the Department of State with respect to the Convention is also transmitted for the information of the Senate.

In recent years, we have witnessed an unprecedented and intolerable increase in acts of terrorism involving the taking of hostages in various parts of the world. Events have clearly demonstrated that no country or region is exempt from the human tragedy and immense costs which almost invariably result from such criminal acts. Consequently, the urgent need to take positive action against these manifestations of international terrorism has become readily apparent. Although the penal codes of most States contain provisions proscribing assault, extortion, kidnapping, and other serious crimes inherent in hostage-taking incidents, an international framework for cooperation among States directed toward prevention of such incidents and ensuring punishment of offenders, wherever found, has not previously existed.

The Convention creates a legal mechanism whereby persons alleged to have committed offenses under the Convention will be prosecuted or extradited if apprehended within the jurisdiction of a State Party, wherever the offense was committed. In essence, the Convention imposes binding legal obligations upon States Parties either to submit for prosecution or to extradite any person within their jurisdiction who commits an act of hostage taking (as defined in Article 1), attempts to commit such an act, or participates as an accomplice of anyone who commits or attempts to commit such an act. A State Party is subject to these obligations without regard to the place where the alleged act covered by Article 1 was committed.

Article 1 of the Convention declares that the act or offense of taking of hostages is committed by any person who seizes or detains and threatens to kill, injure, or continue to detain another person (the "hostage") in order to compel a third party (a State, an international intergovernmental organization, a natural or juridical person, or a group of persons) to do or abstain from doing any act as an explicit or implicit condition for the release of the hostage. States Parties to the Convention will also be obligated to cooperate in preventing hostage-taking offenses by means of internal preventive measures, exchange of information, and coordination of enforcement activities.

This Convention is a vitally important new element in the campaign against the scourge of international terrorism in general and the heinous crime of hostage taking in particular. I hope that all States will become Parties to this Convention, and that it will be applied universally. I recommend, therefore, that the Senate give early and favorable consideration to this Convention.

JIMMY CARTER

The White House,

August 4, 1980.