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Filartiga’S Legacy In An Era Of Military Privatization, Laura T. Dickinson
Filartiga’S Legacy In An Era Of Military Privatization, Laura T. Dickinson
GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works
Filartiga v. Pena-Irala established the idea that domestic tort suits might be brought under the Alien Tort Claims Act ("ATCA") against those accused of violating human rights norms. But what is the legacy of this case in an era of military privatization? Are there available legal responses to what we might call the privatization of torture? In the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, where detainees were tortured and abused, the individuals involved in the torture included not only members of the military, but contractors hired from the private sector. Because U.S. constitutional scrutiny traditionally applies only to state actors, privatization …
Torture And Contract, Laura T. Dickinson
Torture And Contract, Laura T. Dickinson
GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works
This essay is a contribution to the War Crimes Research Symposium: "Torture and the War on Terror” at Case Western Reserve University School of Law, October 7, 2005. The symposium raised important questions about the problem of torture and the use of torture in the so-called "War on Terror." In considering this problem, this essay focuses on an aspect of the issue that has only recently received popular and scholarly attention, but that is likely to have profound implications: the privatization of military functions, and specifically, the privatization of torture. Such privatization may, at first blush, seem to render it …