In association with the International Commission of Jurists

General

22 Apr

The Syrian opposition is reporting the slaughter of at least 80 people by government troops in a town south of Damascus. Human Rights Watch has accused authorities in Myanmar of conducting a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya Muslim minority. Heavy fighting between the Nigerian military and the Boko Haram insurgents has cost almost 200 lives over the weekend. An Afghan girls' school may have been victim...

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21 Apr

Our discussion of Kiobel has been fascinating, but it has been focused on the question of what exactly is left of the ATS in the future and what differences exist between the majority opinion and the various concurrences. In our contribution today to Forbes.com, John Yoo and I focus on Kiobel's significance in light of the history of ATS litigation.  Building...

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20 Apr

This week on Opinio Juris, it was hard to miss our insta-symposium on the Supreme Court's decision in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum. Ken beat Julian to the punch to break the news and link to the opinions. The core part of Chief Justice Roberts' opinion for the Court, on the insufficiency of "mere corporate presence" to displace the presumption against extraterritoriality, can be found...

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19 Apr

If you haven't been able to keep up with all of our posts on Wednesday's Kiobel decision, An has a great round-up post here. Don't forget that unsolicited submissions are still welcome for consideration.  In other Kiobel news, ASIL has posted Curtis Bradley's Insight here (.pdf). A judge in the Guatemalan case against former president Efrain Rios Montt has suspended his genocide trial on procedural grounds. Following briefings on the bleak humanitarian...

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18 Apr

In case you missed it, the US Supreme Court ruled on Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum affirming the Second Circuit Court of Appeals' dismissal. We have an insta-symposium (scroll down to related links to see all posts so far) going on with contributions from many prominent voices. As Roger noted yesterday, if you'd like to post on Kiobel, please contact us. SCOTUS Blog also...

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17 Apr

[Anthony J. Colangelo is Associate Professor of Law at SMU Dedman School of Law.] I’ll start with a few brief points about why I believe Justice Breyer’s opinion provides a sounder approach and is more legally accurate than the Court’s opinion. Then I will critique the Court’s opinion and, in particular, its extension of a presumption against extraterritoriality to causes of action...

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17 Apr

One idea that Kiobel has put to rest (at least here in US courts) is the idea that the ATS could be fairly read as a grant of universal civil jurisdiction.  On this theory, the ATS could be applied to overseas activities if the nature of the alleged action was so heinous as to rise to the level of a...

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17 Apr

This is a tough loss for the human rights advocacy community, ending an era that began with the Second Circuit's rediscovery of the Alien Tort Statute in its 1980 decision in Filartiga v. Pena. As Julian highlights below, Justice Kennedy may have left the door ajar to future claims, but only barely. Even Breyer's concurrence -- the rejection of the...

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17 Apr

Would've been helpful if he'd said a wee bit more. For now, we'll have to comb through the majority opinion in search of the questions he has in mind. In the meantime, worth noting the Court was 9-0 in affirming the Second Circuit's decision to dismiss the ATS complaint in this case. JUSTICE KENNEDY, concurring. The opinion for the Court is careful...

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17 Apr

Yesterday, the ICJ reached its judgment in the frontier dispute between Burkina Faso and Niger. The BBC has more here. According to a bipartisan report by the Constitution Project (.pdf), the US has engaged in torture at the highest levels. Human Rights Watch also offers a statement here. The New Zealand parliament has passed a bill legalizing same-sex marriage. Privacy International has sued the United...

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16 Apr

Oral arguments began yesterday at the ICJ in the Thailand-Cambodia border dispute about land surrounding the Temple Vihear, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  Syrian warplanes have launched further attacks in Damascus in addition to a handful of other rebel-held Syrian cities. Heads of the World Health Organization and UNICEF made a rare political plea to the international community yesterday stating that intervention...

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