North Korea State Sponsor of Terrorism Designation Act of 2016

Summary: North Korea State Sponsor of Terrorism Designation Act of 2016 This bill expresses the sense of Congress that North Korea meets the criteria for, and should be designated as, a state sponsor of terrorism.  The President shall submit to Congress a report that finds, with respect to each of 22 acts specified by this bill, whether: (1) North Korea or any of its agents or instrumentalities committed, conspired to commit, attempted, or abetted such act; and (2) such act constitutes support for international terrorism.  If the President finds that North Korea or its agents or instrumentalities committed any of such acts, the Department of State shall submit to Congress: (1) a determination that North Korea is a state sponsor of terrorism, or (2) a detailed justification as to why the conduct does not meet the legal criteria for such a determination. 

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``North Korea State Sponsor of 
Terrorism Designation Act of 2016''.

SEC. 2. REPORT ON DESIGNATION OF NORTH KOREA AS A STATE SPONSOR OF 
              TERRORISM.

    (a) Findings.--Congress finds the following:
            (1) The Government of North Korea has harbored members of 
        the Japanese Red Army since a 1970 hijacking and continues to 
        harbor the surviving hijackers to this day.
            (2) North Korea bombed Korean Airlines Flight 858 in 
        November 1987, killing 115 people, and carried out the Rangoon 
        bombing of 1983, killing 21 people, including 13 senior South 
        Korean officials and two members of the Presidential Guard.
            (3) In 2005, a North Korean agent, Ryu Young-Hwa, was 
        convicted in a South Korean court and sentenced to 10 years in 
        prison for his involvement in the kidnapping of the Reverend 
        Kim Dong-shik, a lawful permanent resident of the United 
        States, in 2000. In 2005, then-Senator Barack Obama was among 
        20 members of the Illinois congressional delegation stating 
        that they would not support the removal of North Korea from the 
        list of state sponsors of terrorism until it provided a full 
        accounting of Rev. Kim's fate.
            (4) Of the three states currently on the list of State 
        Sponsors of Terrorism, both Iran and Syria are designated as 
        State Sponsors of Terrorism for their support of Hamas and 
        Hezbollah. The Department of State's 2005, 2007, 2010, 2012, 
        and 2013 ``Country Reports'' all cited Iran and Syria for 
        supplying weapons to Hezbollah through Syrian territory, and 
        most of them also cited Iran's training of Hezbollah.
            (5) In October 2008, a South Korean court convicted Won 
        Jeong-hwa, a North Korean agent, for attempting to assassinate 
        a South Korean military officer in Hong Kong, and sentenced her 
        to 5 years in prison.
            (6) In December 2009, a North Korean arms shipment aboard 
        an Ilyushin Il-76 cargo plane was discovered and seized by 
        authorities of the Government of Thailand. The cargo, which was 
        marked as consisting of oil-drilling equipment, contained 35 
        tons of rockets, surface-to-air missiles (MANPADS), explosives, 
        rocket-propelled grenades, and other weaponry. A similar 
        shipment was impounded in the United Arab Emirates a few months 
        earlier in July 2009. A third shipment was intercepted by the 
        Israeli government in the Eastern Mediterranean in November 
        2009. According to published media reports, United States and 
        Israeli intelligence agencies concluded that the shipments were 
        destined for Iranian-backed terrorists, including Hezbollah, 
        Hamas, and the Quds Force. Another large quantity of shipments 
        to both Hamas and Hezbollah, is believed to have been 
        transferred unnoticed.
            (7) In June of 2010, Major Kim Myong-ho and Major Dong 
        Myong-gwan of North Korea's Reconnaissance General Bureau pled 
        guilty in a South Korean court to attempting to assassinate 
        Hwang Jang-yop, a North Korean dissident in exile, on the 
        orders of Lieutenant General Kim Yong-chol, the head of North 
        Korea's Reconnaissance General Bureau. The court sentenced each 
        defendant to 10 years in prison.
            (8) On July 16, 2010, in the case of Calderon-Cardona v. 
        Democratic People's Republic of Korea (case number 08-01367), 
        the United States District Court for the District of Puerto 
        Rico found that the Government of North Korea provided material 
        support to the Japanese Red Army, designated as a Foreign 
        Terrorist Organization between 1997 and 2001, in furtherance of 
        a 1972 terrorist attack at Lod Airport, Israel that killed 26 
        people, including 17 Americans.
            (9) On November 23, 2010, North Korea shelled South Korea's 
        Yeonpyeong Island with at least 50 artillery shells, killing 4, 
        including two civilians, and injuring 22 others.
            (10) In November 2012, a South Korean court sentenced An 
        Hak-young, a North Korean agent, to 4 years in prison for 
        attempting to assassinate Park Sang-hak, a North Korean 
        dissident in exile.
            (11) In December 2012, according to South Korean press 
        reports, South Korean prosecutors determined that North Korean 
        agents assassinated Kim Chang-hwan, a human rights activist 
        helping North Korean refugees, in Dandong, China in August 
        2011, using a poisoned needle.
            (12) According to a report in the Los Angeles Times, a 
        North Korean agent was suspected in an attempt to assassinate 
        another human rights activist with a poisoned needle in Yanji, 
        China, the following day.
            (13) North Korea has committed violent acts directly 
        against its own citizens abroad. In 2013, news reports 
        highlighted an attempt to kidnap a North Korean student in 
        Paris.
            (14) On April 18, 2013, Michael Flynn, the Director of the 
        Defense Intelligence Agency testified that Syria's liquid-
        propellant missile program depends on essential foreign 
        equipment and assistance, primarily from North Korean entities. 
        Further statements by United States Government officials report 
        that North Korea helped Syria build the Al Kibar nuclear 
        reactor, which Israel destroyed in 2007, and could have been 
        used to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons.
            (15) In the case of Chaim Kaplan v. Hezbollah (case number 
        09-646), a United States district court found in 2014 that 
        North Korea materially supported terrorist attacks by 
        Hezbollah, a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, against 
        Israel in 2006.
            (16) In July 2014, press reports indicated that militants 
        from Hamas, a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, 
        attempted to negotiate a new arms deal with North Korea for 
        missiles and communications equipment that would have allowed 
        the militants to maintain their armed terrorist attacks against 
        Israel. Security officials announced that the deal between 
        Hamas and North Korea was worth hundreds of thousands of 
        dollars and was handled by a Lebanese-based trading company.
            (17) On November 24, 2014, a hacker group that identified 
        itself as the ``Guardians of Peace'' leaked confidential data 
        from the film studio Sony Pictures Entertainment. The data 
        included personal information about Sony Pictures employees, e-
        mails between employees, information about executive salaries 
        at the company, copies of then-unreleased Sony films, and other 
        information.
            (18) On December 16, 2015, the ``Guardians of Peace'' sent 
        a message to Sony Pictures, to ``clearly show it to you at the 
        very time and places `The Interview' be shown . . . how bitter 
        fate those who seek fun in terror should be doomed to''. The 
        message further stated, ``The world will be full of fear'', 
        ``[. . .] Remember the 11th of September 2001'', and ``We 
        recommend you to keep yourself distant from the places at that 
        time.''. The threat caused theaters across the United States to 
        cancel showings of ``The Interview'' and caused Sony Pictures 
        to cancel the release of the film in theaters.
            (19) On December 19, 2015, the Federal Bureau of 
        Investigation concluded that North Korea was responsible for 
        the cyber attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment and the threat 
        against the movie theaters, and that the ``Guardians of Peace'' 
        was a unit of North Korea's Reconnaissance General Bureau, its 
        foreign intelligence service.
            (20) In March 2015, the South Korean government publicly 
        accused North Korea of responsibility for a December 2014 cyber 
        attack against multiple nuclear power plants in South Korea, 
        stated that the attacks were intended to cause a malfunction at 
        the plants' reactors, and described the attacks as acts of 
        ``cyber-terror targeting our country''.
            (21) On April 13, 2015, the U.S. District Court for the 
        District of Columbia, in the matter of Kim v. Democratic 
        People's Republic of Korea (case number 13-7147), awarded Rev. 
        Kim's family $330,000,000 in compensatory and punitive damages 
        against the Government of North Korea for the kidnapping, 
        torture, and murder of Rev. Kim.
            (22) On May 17, 2015, prosecutors in Seoul announced the 
        arrest and indictment of three South Koreans for conspiring to 
        murder Hwang Jang-yop and other North Korean dissidents in 
        exile, at the behest of the Government of North Korea.
            (23) On October 22, 2015, Ambassador Sung Kim, Special 
        Representative for North Korea Policy with the U.S. Department 
        of State, testified before the House Foreign Affairs 
        Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade that 
        North Korea's ``conduct poses a growing threat to the United 
        States, our friends in the region, and the global 
        nonproliferation regime'' and Ms. Hilary Batjer Johnson, Deputy 
        Coordinator for Homeland Security, Screening, and Designations 
        with the U.S. Department of State noted that ``weapons 
        transfers that violate nonproliferation or missile control 
        regimes could be a relevant factor for consideration, depending 
        on the circumstances, consistent with the statutory criteria 
        for designation as a state sponsor of terrorism''.
            (24) North Korea was designated a State Sponsor of 
        Terrorism on January 20, 1988, for repeatedly providing support 
        of acts of international terrorism.
            (25) However, on October 11, 2008, North Korea's 
        designation as a State Sponsor of Terrorism was rescinded, 
        following commitments by the Government of North Korea to 
        completely, verifiably, and irreversibly dismantle its nuclear 
        weapons program.
            (26) Consequences of a State Sponsors of Terrorism 
        designation include a ban on arms-related exports and sales; 
        restrictions on exports of dual-use items; restrictions on 
        foreign assistance; financial sanctions against transactions 
        with the designated government; imposition of miscellaneous 
        trade and other restrictions; and potential liability in United 
        States courts for acts that fall within the terrorism exception 
        of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. The Criminal Code also 
        prohibits financial transactions by United States persons with 
        the governments of State Sponsors of Terrorism listed states. 
        Issuers of securities must disclose in their public filings any 
        investments in states whose governments sponsor terrorism. 
        Finally, a designation requires United States representatives 
        to oppose any benefits or extensions of credit to the listed 
        states by international financial institutions.
    (b) Sense of Congress.--It is the sense of the Congress that North 
Korea meets the criteria for designation as a state sponsor of 
terrorism and should be so designated.
    (c) Report; Determination or Justification.--
            (1) In general.--Not later than 90 days after the date of 
        the enactment of this Act, the President shall submit to the 
        appropriate congressional committees a report that finds, with 
        respect to each of the acts described in paragraphs (1) to (23) 
        of subsection (a), whether--
                    (A) the Government of North Korea, including any 
                agents or instrumentalities of the Government of North 
                Korea, directly or indirectly, committed, conspired to 
                commit, attempted, aided, or abetted such act; and
                    (B) such act constitutes support for international 
                terrorism.
            (2) Determination or justification.--If the Secretary finds 
        that the Government of North Korea, including any agents or 
        instrumentalities of the Government of North Korea, directly or 
        indirectly, committed, conspired to commit, attempted, aided, 
        or abetted any of the acts described in paragraphs (1) to (22) 
        of subsection (a), and that any such act constitutes support 
        for international terrorism, the Secretary of State shall also 
        submit to the appropriate congressional committees--
                    (A) a determination that North Korea is a state 
                sponsor of terrorism; or
                    (B) a detailed justification as to why the conduct 
                described in the report required under paragraph (1) 
                does not meet the legal criteria for such a 
                determination.
            (3) Inclusion.--The report required by paragraph (1) shall 
        also be included in the first annual report required to be 
        submitted under section 140 of the Foreign Relations 
        Authorization Act, Fiscal Years 1988 and 1989 (22 U.S.C. 2656f) 
        on or after the date of the enactment of this Act.
    (d) Form.--The report required by subsection (c)(1) shall be 
submitted in unclassified form, but may include a classified annex, if 
appropriate.

SEC. 3. DEFINITIONS.

    In this Act:
            (1) Appropriate congressional committees.--The term 
        ``appropriate congressional committees'' means--
                    (A) the Committee on Foreign Relations of the 
                Senate; and
                    (B) the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House 
                of Representatives.
            (2) North korea.--The term ``North Korea'' means the 
        Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
            (3) State sponsor of terrorism.--The term ``state sponsor 
        of terrorism'' means a country the government of which the 
        Secretary of State has determined, for purposes of section 6(j) 
        of the Export Administration Act of 1979 (50 U.S.C. 4605(j)) 
        (as in effect pursuant to the International Emergency Economic 
        Powers Act), section 620A of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 
        (22 U.S.C. 2371), section 40 of the Arms Export Control Act (22 
        U.S.C. 2780), or any other provision of law, is a government 
        that has repeatedly provided support for acts of international 
        terrorism.