{"id":1656,"date":"2005-01-01T10:41:15","date_gmt":"2005-01-01T14:41:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/site\/?p=1656"},"modified":"2011-04-12T13:55:37","modified_gmt":"2011-04-12T17:55:37","slug":"issue_46-1_brav","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/2005\/01\/issue_46-1_brav\/","title":{"rendered":"Opening the Courtroom Doors to Non-Citizens"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Abstract:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em>The Alien Tort Statute (\u201cATS\u201d),  U.S. federal law since the first Congress passed it as part of the  Judiciary Act of 1789, has recently gained new life as a vehicle through  which non-U.S. citizens can use U.S. courts to sue for torts occurring  outside U.S. sovereign territory. Despite its brevity, this statute has  been the subject of fierce debate, as courts and commentators have  contested the access foreigners should have to U.S. courts for filing  such claims. In particular, there has been significant discussion  concerning the disposition\u00a0of those claims alleging human rights  violations.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>The debate has focused on whether the ATS created a  cause of action for foreigners or merely granted the federal courts  subject matter jurisdiction over cases involving certain torts committed  abroad. Last Term, the Supreme Court held in <\/em><em>Sosa v.  Alvarez-Machain<\/em><em> that even though the ATS does not create any new  causes of action, non-resident aliens may file a tort suit in federal  court for violations of customary international law. This holding  endorses a slightly more restricted version of <\/em><em>Filartiga v.  Pena-Irala<\/em><em>\u2014the 1980 \u201cbreakthrough\u201d ATS case that first allowed a  federal suit for violation of international human rights\u2014and shifts the  focus of the debate from whether the courts should make rulings based on  norms of customary international law to how they should discern these  norms.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Part II of this Recent Development outlines the case  history of <\/em><em>Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain<\/em><em> and the lines of argument in  each decision. Part III juxtaposes the case with <\/em><em>Filartiga<\/em><em>. By  analyzing the three main themes of <\/em><em>Filartiga<\/em><em>\u2014the existence of  federal common law, problems with separation of powers, and the question  of whether customary international law is federal common law\u2014this piece  will illustrate that Sosa is a narrower extension of <\/em><em>Filartiga <\/em><em>and  thus only \u201ccautiously\u201d opens the doors of U.S. courtrooms to victims of  foreign abuses.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Alien Tort Statute (\u201cATS\u201d), U.S. federal law since the first Congress passed it as part of the Judiciary Act of 1789, has recently gained new life as a vehicle through which non-U.S. citizens can use U.S. courts to sue for torts occurring outside U.S. sovereign territory. Despite its brevity, this statute has been the subject of fierce debate, as courts and commentators have contested the access foreigners should have to U.S. courts for filing such claims. In particular, there has been significant discussion concerning the disposition of those claims alleging human rights violations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_FSMCFIC_featured_image_caption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_nocaption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_hide":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[123],"tags":[107,108],"class_list":["post-1656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-print-archives","tag-ats","tag-scotus"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peZu3S-qI","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1656\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}