Law Commons^™

Talking Foreign Policy: Jesner V. Arab Bank, Milena Sterio, Thomas Buergenthal, Carsten Stahn, Avidan Cover, Timothy Webster, Michael P. Scharf

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Talking Foreign Policy is a one-hour radio program, hosted by Case Western Reserve University School of Law Co-Dean Michael Scharf, in which experts discuss the salient foreign policy issues of the day. Dean Scharf created Talking Foreign Policy to break down complex foreign policy topics that are prominent in the day-to-day news cycles yet difficult to understand.

This broadcast featured:

• Judge Thomas Buergenthal, the youngest survivor of the Auschwitz death camp, who went on to become the Dean of American University Law School, to serve for twelve years as a judge on the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and then …

Dead Man's Hand: Reshuffling Foreign Sovereign Immunities In U.S. Human Rights Litigation, David J. Bederman

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Litigating Customary International Human Rights Norms, Beth Stephens

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

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 …

State Action And Corporate Human Rights Liability, Curtis A. Bradley

Faculty Scholarship

This essay considers the requirement of state action in suits brought against private corporations under the Alien Tort Statute. It argues that, in addressing this requirement, courts have erred in applying the state action jurisprudence developed under the domestic civil rights statute, 42 U.S.C. § 1983. It also argues that, even if it were appropriate to borrow in this manner from the Section 1983 cases, such borrowing would not support the allowance of aiding and abetting liability against corporations, and that this liability is also problematic on a number of other grounds.

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 …

Can Corporations Be Held Liable Under The Alien Tort Claims Act?, Kelsy Deye

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Boyakasha, Fist To Fist: Respect And The Philosophical Link With Reciprocity In International Law And Human Rights, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

Access To U.S. Federal Courts As A Forum For Human Rights Disputes: Pluralism And The Alien Tort Claims Act, Christiana Ochoa

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

Back to Government?: The Pluralistic Deficit in the Decisionmaking Processes and Before the Courts, Symposium. University of Trento, Italy, June 11-12, 2004.

"When Caterpillars Kill": Holding U.S. Corporations Accountable For Knowingly Selling Equipment To Countries For The Commission Of Human Rights Abuses Abroad, Zaha Hassan

San Diego International Law Journal

With the recent trend towards holding corporations accountable for aiding and abetting human rights abuses abroad, this paper asks the question whether corporations should be held liable for knowingly facilitating human rights abuses abroad by selling equipment widely known to be used in such abuses. To this end, the case of Caterpillar sales to Israel will here be examined. Part II provides an overview of the history of the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA) and its applicability in United States courts. Part III gives an overview of how corporate liability for human rights abuses abroad developed under the ATCA. Part …

Some, But Which? Filling In The Theoretical Gaps In Sosa V. Alvarez-Machain, Arthur Traldi

ExpressO

This Note lays out the development of the ATCA and of the jus gentium (law of nations) into contemporary customary international law, as well as the two existent paradigms of ATCA interpretation, and establishes that Sosa is inconsistent with either extreme position. Since the Court’s holding in Sosa is under-theorized, this Note crafts a reasonable middle ground between the two paradigms: holding all universal jurisdiction offenses (and those significantly analogous) civilly actionable under the ATCA. It then uses Yousef as well as the Princeton Principles to synthesize a test for universal justiciability. The resultant formula constitutes a middle ground consistent …

Justice For The Collective: The Limits Of The Human Rights Class Action, Paul R. Dubinsky

Michigan Law Review

The class action lawsuit is our grand procedural experiment in collective justice. As against the U.S. legal system's strong orientation toward individual rights rather than group rights, the class action is a countercurrent. Through Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, large numbers of previously unaffiliated individuals can proceed in federal court as a group, litigating through representatives. A recent form of this litigation, the human rights class action, takes this experiment to its far reaches. In the human rights class action, the tension between individual claimants and the group as a whole can be heightened. The class …

African Private Security Companies And The Alien Tort Claims Act: Could Multinational Oil And Mining Companies Be Liable?, Jennifer L. Heil

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

This paper focuses specifically on the possible liability under the ATCA of multinational oil and mining companies operating in Africa. First, it will examine the relationships between the multinational oil and mining companies, private security forces and African governments. In doing so, it will describe the actual activities and operations of the private security forces in conjunction with the oil and mining corhpanies. Second, this paper will outline the elements of liability under the ATCA. This will include a discussion of recent cases in which foreign nationals have sued multinational companies in the United States for alleged human rights abuses …

The Mote In Thy Brother’S Eye: A Review Of Human Rights As Politics And Idolatry, William M. Carter Jr.

Articles

Michael Ignatieffs provocatively titled collection of essays, Human Rights As Politics and Idolatry [hereinafter Human Rights], is a careful examination of the theoretical underpinnings and contradictions in the area of human rights. At bottom, both of his primary essays, Human Rights As Politics and Human Rights As Idolatry, make a claim that is perhaps contrary to the instincts of human rights thinkers and activists: namely, that international human rights can best be philosophically justified and effectively applied to the extent that they strive for minimal ism. Human rights activists generally argue for the opposite conclusion: that international human rights be …

Strengthening Human Rights Protection: Why The Holocaust Slave Labor Claims Should Be Litigated, Justin H. Roy

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Abstract forthcoming

Violence Against Women And The Asylum Process, John Linarelli

Scholarly Works

Perhaps no area of public legislation generates as much controversy, or attracts as much rhetoric, as immigration. Immigration is perceived as the core of who we are as a nation. Legal norms governing the movement and migration of people across the borders of countries determine who is entitled to live in a country and ultimately who will control its resources. Immigration goes to the heart of sovereignty, particularly where sovereignty is popular, such as in consolidated democracies.' Asylum is a controversial issue within the immigration debate. This Article will interpret some of the recent developments in asylum law that are …

Jane Doe, On Behalf Of Herself And All Others Similarly Situated: Radovan Karadzic In United States District Court, Susan L. Ronn

Seattle University Law Review

In perhaps the only method available to respond with power to the horrors of "ethnic cleansing" in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Muslim women turned to a United States court for redress under the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA) and the Torture Victim Protection Act (TVPA) The district court denied jurisdiction. This Article examines the opinion of the United States District Court in Doe v. Karadzic and concludes that Jane Doe and all others similarly situated should find redress in the courts of the United States for the brutalities inflicted upon them. Federal courts should not interpret the ATCA and the TVPA so narrowly …

Isolationism Or Deference? The Alien Tort Claims Act And The Separation Of Powers, Victor A. Pappalardo

Michigan Journal of International Law

This Note examines the rationales behind Filartiga and other cases which have had the opportunity to pass upon its holding, notably the holdings in Tel-Oren v. Libyan Arab Republic and Forti v. Suarez- Mason. It then focuses on the validity of these rationales with respect to the constitutional separation of powers scheme. In so doing, it analyzes Filartiga's conclusions in light of the act of state and political question doctrines, two closely interrelated doctrines which have been at the forefront of the separation of powers criticisms of Filartiga. This Note concludes by suggesting that a clear case exists …

After Tel-Oren: Should Federal Courts Infer A Cause Of Action Under The Alien Tort Claims Act, Gregory A. Gross

Penn State International Law Review

This Comment, consisting of three main parts, examines the cause of action issue that arose in Tel-Oren v. Libyan Arab Republic and places it in the context of the Alien Tort Claims Act's (ACTA) prior history. The first part focuses on the three instances in which a federal court has used the statute to exercise jurisdiction in an alien tort action. The second part examines the Tel-Oren case, centering on two of the three concurrences forming the District of Columbia Court of Appeals' decision. The third part suggests that proving a distinct cause of action embodied in the law of …

Legal Rights Of Refugees: Two Case Studies And Some Proposals For A Strategy, Steven M. Schneebaum

Michigan Journal of International Law

In a recent decision of far-reaching implications, Filartiga v. Pena-Irala, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit not only identified one such right, but provided invaluable guidance as to how the broader question is to be addressed. This essay offers an analysis of the decision in Filarh'a, as well as a case presenting intriguing points of comparison, Tran Qui Than v. Blumenthal. It then proposes several generalizations concerning the identification of legal rights of refugees, suggesting a strategy for their enforcement, the upshot of which is this: creative marshalling and invocation of rights well …