Supreme Court Denies Claim of Alvarez-Machain, But Upholds Important Human Rights Law

NEW YORK – JUNE 29 -- Today’s decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain rejects the petitioner’s specific claim but upholds the use of the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA). Since 1980, ATCA has become an important measure to promote accountability for serious human rights violations.

“Today the Supreme Court reaffirmed that U.S. courts will remain open to those who suffer torture and other terrible human rights abuses that violate international law,” said Eric Biel, Deputy Washington Director and Senior Counsel of Human Rights First (the new name of the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights). “Through ATCA, victims of serious human rights violations will continue to have their day in court.”

In today’s decision the Court rejected Dr. Alvarez-Machain’s claim for relief based on his arbitrary arrest and detention in Mexico, concluding that his particular treatment “violates no norm of customary international law so well defined as to support the creation of a federal remedy.” (Opinion at 45.) At the same time, however, the Court rejected the Administration’s arguments that would have limited seriously the statute by requiring Congress to establish a separate cause of action to allow any claim to proceed.

Instead the Court reaffirmed that ATCA’s jurisdictional grant was based on “the understanding that the common law would provide a cause of action for the modest number of international law violations with a potential for personal liability” (Opinion at 30). This was true at the time it was enacted and now applies to clear violations of customary international law today.

“Today’s decision by the Court upholds the fundamental reasoning in modern ATCA cases, beginning with Filartiga v. Pena-Irala in 1980,” said Biel. “The Court’s ruling is consistent with what most courts have done since Filartiga – carefully distinguishing between ATCA claims where the international legal norms are ‘specific, universal, and obligatory’ and claims that fail to meet this test.”

The Supreme Court’s decision made explicit reference to recent Congressional action in support of the broad principle of allowing U.S. courts to provide a forum for such cases. Specifically, the court cited the adoption in 1991 by Congress of the Torture Victim Protection Act, a statute first proposed by Human Rights First.

The decision gives torture victims and others who suffer the most serious human rights abuses abroad a remedy in U.S. courts. It also grants a green light to federal courts to review these cases on an individual basis, and to provide relief when the most serious international law violations are proven.

Background on ATCA
http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/international_justice/
w_context/w_cont_12.htm

Supreme Court decision in Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/29june20041115/
www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/03pdf/03-339.pdf

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