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Full-Text Articles in Law
Foreign Official Immunity Determinations In U.S. Courts: The Case Against The State Department, Ingrid Wuerth Brunk
Foreign Official Immunity Determinations In U.S. Courts: The Case Against The State Department, Ingrid Wuerth Brunk
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
The immunity of foreign states from suit in U.S. courts is governed by a federal statute, the Foreign Soveriegn Immunities Act (FSIA). This statute does not apply to the immunity of individual foreign officials, however, as the Supreme Court recently held in Samantar v. Yousuf Instead, the Court reasoned, the immunity of foreign government officials is controlled by common law. But there is no extant body offederal or state common law governing foreign official immunity, and the Court did not clarify how this law should be developed going forward. The State Department claims that it holds constitutional power to make …
Abusing The Authority Of The State: Denying Foreign Official Immunity For Egregious Human Rights Abuses, Beth Stephens
Abusing The Authority Of The State: Denying Foreign Official Immunity For Egregious Human Rights Abuses, Beth Stephens
Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law
Government officials accused of human rights abuses often claim that they are protected by state immunity because only the state can be held responsible for acts committed by its officials. This claim to immunity is founded on two interrelated errors. First, the post-World War II human rights transformation of international law has rendered obsolete the view that a state can protect its own officials from accountability for human rights violations. Second, officials can be held individually responsible for their own actions even when international law also holds the states liable for those acts. This Article begins with an analysis of …
Foreign Official Immunity After Samantar: A United States Government Perspective, Harold H. Koh
Foreign Official Immunity After Samantar: A United States Government Perspective, Harold H. Koh
Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law
I am delighted to speak here at Vanderbilt regarding the U.S. Government's perspective on Foreign Official Immunity after Samantar v. Yousuf.' In the Samantar case, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously held that the immunity of foreign government officials sued in their personal capacity in U.S. courts, including for alleged human rights violations, is not controlled by the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976, but rather, by immunity determinations made by the Executive Branch. Let me break my topic today into three parts: first, the world of foreign official immunity as it existed before the Samantar case; second, the Supreme Court's …