Whether the federal Hostage Taking statute requires proof that the defendant knew the victim was a U.S. national

QUESTIONS PRESENTED The federal Hostage Taking statute, 18 U.S.C. § 1203, was enacted to implement the International Convention Against the Taking of Hostages, which treated the taking of hostages “as manifestations of international terrorism.” “Except as provided in subsection (b),” 18 U.S.C. § 1203(a) makes it a crime to “seize[] or detain[] and threaten[] to kill, to injure, or to continue to detain another person in order to compel a third person or a governmental organization to do or abstain from doing any act as an explicit or implicit condition for the release of the person detained.” Subsection (b) provides, in relevant part, that “[i]t is not an offense under this section if the conduct required for the offense occurred outside the United States unless .. . the offender or the person seized or detained is a national of the United States.” 18 U.S.C. § 1203(b)(1)(A). 1. When the United States prosecutes a foreign national for kidnapping a United States citizen in a foreign country, must the government prove that the defendant knew “the person seized or detained was a national of the United States”? 2. May Congress prosecute the foreign of a United States citizen, lacking any relationship to Congress’ regulatory authority under the Law of Nations Clause or any other enumerated power, as an exercise of the Necessary and Proper Clause and the Treaty Power? i INTERESTED PARTIES There are no