UCLA Journal of International Law and Foreign Affairs

Beginning in 1998, the United States Congress has slowly assembled a Title 18 statutory scheme to criminally prosecute perpetrators of atrocity crimes. These crimes range from the commission of genocide, war crimes, torture, female genital mutilation, and the employment of child soldiers. In the thirty-six years that have followed, the United States has only won two convictions under the scheme—with the second coming in April 2024. The United States has not advanced charges under various statutes, including for genocide, female genital mutilation, and the use of child soldiers. Nonetheless, between December 2023 and December 2024, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced new war crimes and torture charges against Russian and Syrian nationals, including the first war crimes charges in U.S. history.

Critics of the U.S. approach to atrocity crimes prosecutions are legion. Yet, this Article argues that their focus—largely ons tatutory lacunae and issues of interpretation—miss a larger point. The United States currently possesses the tools, expertise, and legal capacity to prosecute a far greater number of atrocity perpetrators. The problem lies not in the statutes themselves but in the administrative apparatus that the executive branch has erected to investigate potential atrocity criminals.

This Article will examine the current atrocity crimes architecture in the United States to identify a number of limitations. It will then deploy salient features of the French and German approaches to investigating atrocity crimes to identify areas of reform. Finally, the Article will conclude by offering three recommendations to improve the U.S. atrocity crimes model. These recommendations will center on clarifying the interagency roles within the Human Rights Violators and War Crimes Center, strengthening information sharing with internal and external U.S. government stakeholders, and rolling back a complex system of agency prior approvals that hamstring efficient prosecutions and create bottlenecks.