The Department of Defense "fully support[ed] the purposes of the bill,"[1] recommending that it be expanded to include a longer list of war crimes.

In a January 2002 memorandum to the president, then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales authored a controversial memo that explored whether Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions applied to Al Qaeda and Taliban combatants captured during the war in Afghanistan and held in detention facilities around the world, including Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

He described as "quaint" the provisions that require providing captured Al Qaeda and Taliban combatants "commissary privileges, scrip, athletic uniforms, and scientific instruments".

He also argued that undefined language in the Geneva Conventions, such as "outrages upon personal dignity" and "inhuman treatment", could make officials and military leaders subject to the War Crimes Act of 1996 if mistreatment was discovered.

The charges are based around a case as a result of the Russo-Ukrainian War, in which an American citizen living in Ukraine was detained by Russian soldiers for a period of 10 days in April 2022, during which he was allegedly tortured.