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Foreign Sovereign Immunity, Individual Officials, And Human Rights Litigation, Curtis A. Bradley, Jack L. Goldsmith
Foreign Sovereign Immunity, Individual Officials, And Human Rights Litigation, Curtis A. Bradley, Jack L. Goldsmith
Faculty Scholarship
For thirty years, international human rights litigation in U.S. courts has developed with little attention to a lurking doctrinal objection to the entire enterprise. The paradigm international human rights case involves a suit against a foreign government official for alleged abuses committed abroad under color of state law. A potentially dispositive objection to this litigation is foreign sovereign immunity. The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) creates presumptive immunity for foreign states and has no exception that would cover human rights cases. Many courts have assumed that the FSIA has no relevance to human rights suits as long as they are …
Foreign Sovereign Immunity And Domestic Officer Suits, Curtis A. Bradley, Jack L. Goldsmith
Foreign Sovereign Immunity And Domestic Officer Suits, Curtis A. Bradley, Jack L. Goldsmith
Faculty Scholarship
Under international law, official-capacity suits brought against a foreign state’s officers are treated as suits against the state itself and thus as subject to the state’s immunity, even in suits alleging human rights abuses. This immunity regime differs from the immunity regime that applies in the United States in suits brought against state and federal officials for violations of federal law. Despite the federal government’s sovereign immunity and the immunity of state governments under Eleventh Amendment jurisprudence, courts often allow suits against federal and state officers for their official actions. This essay attempts to explain why the immunity rules differ …