Crime without punishment

Lehmann says the American police are unique in that they have been recruited by a private contractor -- DynCorp. Other contingents tend to be made up of the sponsor countries' own national police, he says, and as a matter of national pride, they often send their best officers.

Whether the employees are sent by the U.N. or fired by DynCorp, a second problem emerges once they're home, Singer says. These contractors are not prosecuted in the U.S. because, as Army Materiel Command staff judge advocate David Howlett says, U.S. law does not cover most common crimes when those crimes are committed in a foreign country.

Congress took steps to close this loophole with the passage of the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act of 2000. Theoretically, the law allows for prosecution in U.S. courts of contractors working alongside the military overseas, but the law is far from comprehensive.

For one thing, the regulations to govern just how the statute works have yet to be written. So while the law is technically in effect, how it is to be carried out -- how prisoners would be handled, who would defend suspects, which federal magistrates would handle cases -- is unclear. Even when the needed regulations are written, it will take another 90 days before they become active.

"As far as I know, this act doesn't have the regulations that are designed to implement it yet," Howlett says, "and it hasn't ever been used [to prosecute] a person who committed a crime overseas."

Howlett says in a rare instance the law could be used without those regulations, but calls such a possibility unlikely.

"Let's say one of our contractors from the Army Materiel Command that we have over in Southwest Asia right now kills another contractor, and it's a murder case. The host nation probably doesn't want to deal with it because it's two Americans and it doesn't bother their sovereignty a lot. That might be a case where we might say: 'All right, let's try and bring this person to justice using this method,'" Howlett says. "It's my hope personally that before the situation arises, we'll have these regulations."

Singer, at the Brookings Institution, also points out that the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act covers only American citizens working for American forces. If MPRI employees go to Afghanistan to train the new Afghan army, for example, they will probably technically be employees of Afghanistan, not of the United States. And the act does not cover workers contracted to the U.N.

"The U.S. government has absolutely no criminal jurisdiction to prosecute civilian police officers who serve with U.N. missions abroad," Vandenberg explains. So, as the U.N.'s Stefo Lehmann says, officers accused of committing a crime in Bosnia are immune from Bosnian prosecution and are sent home by the U.N. to be punished. But there is no U.S. law that would allow them to be prosecuted at home.

Vandenberg says that she has heard of efforts currently underway to expand the Military Jurisdiction Act of 2000 to include all U.S. contractors working overseas, but to the best of her knowledge no bills have been introduced. MPRI's Soyster says he would not be opposed to such a law, because he'd "rather be tried in a U.S. court than a Bosnian court." But even if such laws are introduced, Vandenberg expects a significant amount of legal wrangling before they take effect. She doesn't see a solution in the immediate future.

Vandenberg points out that the International Criminal Court, which is scheduled to be born on July 1, may technically have the jurisdiction to prosecute crimes committed by military contractors. But the administration of President George W. Bush publicly opposes the court and has already announced that it will not participate in U.N. peacekeeping missions unless Americans in those missions are granted immunity from the court. Even if that were not the case, Vandenberg says, the court would probably not pursue cases such as those raised by the DynCorp lawsuits, as it will be focused more on large-scale crimes such as genocide.

"What you have," Vandenberg says, "is a climate of complete impunity."

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