Search: extraterritorial sanctions
28 Mar The “American Tort” Interpretation of the Alien Tort Statute
...district courts for money damages in the event of harm to their persons or property when the United States had expressly or implicitly promised the aliens that no such harm would come to them. The ATS both provides a right of action and original jurisdiction in federal district court to aliens injured under circumstances implicating U.S. sovereign responsibility; it is therefore a federal law for purposes of Article III arising-under jurisdiction. Translated to a modern context, the ATS would plausibly be available to “extraterritorial” tort actions by alien detainees at...06 Sep Targeted Killing Away from the Battlefield: A Response to Ken
...arbitrarily limited in this way, then it invites combatants to use territory outside of the “armed conflict” as a haven. Under some circumstances, for diplomatic or other political reasons, a state might choose not to attack even though participants are taking haven, but the reason is not a matter of the law of war jus in bello. To begin with, this is a caricature of Melzer’s position. He does not claim that combatants can be lawfully targeted only when they are on the battlefield; his discussion of the extraterritorial reach...
28 Jul Transnational ne bis in idem for Corporate Involvement in International Crimes: The Lafarge Proceedings in the U.S. and France
...court would be based on extra-territorial jurisdiction. In the event that the ambit of the constitutive facts is understood in this way, not extending to the activities of the Lafarge corporation and its executives initiated in France, this leave open the possibility that defendants would argue for ne bis in idem on those charges. Alternatively, a French court might consider that its jurisdiction over crimes against humanity is inherently extraterritorial and therefore those charges can be subject to the transnational ne bis in idem principle. This could be the case...18 Apr Kiobel Insta-Symposium: What Remains of the ATS?
...extraterritoriality, the statute itself “would need to evince a ‘clear indication of extraterritoriality” . . . and surely it’s difficult to read the language of the ATS to draw the sorts of distinctions that would “displace” the presumption in such categories of cases. Moreover, the Court at several places indicates that the question it is addressing is whether causes of action can be brought “for violations of the law of nations occurring abroad.” To be sure, a future court could certainly point to such passages in the Kiobel opinion as...
02 Feb International Economic Law Symposium: Emerging Powers and International Economic Governance–More Promises, More Risks or Irrelevance?
...of human rights of home states, Buser suggests that the incorporation of extraterritorial obligations of human rights can guide the reform of international economic law to the direction of achieving better global justice. This extraterritorial human rights-based approach is helpful to persuade great powers, including emerging powers to balance the pursuit of their own state interests and the promotion of welfare of individuals around the world. I wonder, however, that it can serve as a major approach towards delivering more global justice. First, as Buser notes, the work of the...02 Oct Kiobel Roundtable: What is the Purpose of the ATS? Should That Matter?
pirates on the high seas, and therefore should apply to modern day analogues to pirates (“Hitler, Inc.”); 2) The ATS was applied extraterritorially in Filartiga or similar cases, and therefore should continue to be read to do so. The second argument doesn’t get you all that far, since the extraterritoriality issues weren’t raised in those cases, or in Sosa. Only the first argument offers a theory of the ATS’ purpose, but that theory fails to draw on actual historical evidence about the ATS. The best evidence is not any case...17 Apr Kiobel Insta-Symposium: When Can the Presumption Against Extraterritoriality Be Rebutted?
also overcome the presumption in particular ATS cases: “claims that touch and concern the territory of the United States . . . with sufficient force to displace the presumption against extraterritoriality.” The Court’s new presumption—which is, in effect, a “presumption against recognition of extraterritorial causes of action under the ATS”—thus appears to be different from the standard Morrison-style presumption against extraterritoriality in at least three ways: (1) the presumption’s coverage (the new presumption applies narrowly to recognition of extraterritorial causes of action by federal courts under the ATS, whereas the...12 Jan Laurie Blank on the Rationales for Targeted Killing
...or the law governing the resort to force, hinders the development and implementation of the law going forward, and risks complicating or even weakening enforcement of the law. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first essay by an American scholar that carefully distinguishes between the two potential violations of international law involved in an extraterritorial targeted killing: (1) a violation of the attacked state’s sovereignty; and (2) a violation of the attacked individual’s right to life. As Blank shows, “self-defense” is relevant only to the first violation;...27 Mar The ATS and Extraterritoriality, Part II: Universal Civil Jurisdiction and Choice of Law
[Anthony J. Colangelo is an Assistant Professor of Law at SMU Dedman School of Law] I summarized in a previous post my arguments that the presumption against extraterritoriality should not apply to the ATS to the extent courts use international law incorporated into U.S. common law as the rule of decision. The presumption was raised explicitly by the brief of the UK and Dutch Governments in Kiobel and will likely be raised again. This post addresses three discrete but related issues that may arise going forward: 1. Whether the ATS’s...29 Apr Kiobel Insta-Symposium: Deepening the Divide
...extent that state courts increasingly operate concurrently with federal courts as forums for the litigation of cases with extraterritorial elements, the disparate treatment of extraterritoriality issues under state and federal approaches becomes ever more problematic. And Kiobel seems likely to compound those problems, not only because it pushes another category of foreign-squared or -cubed cases into state court, but because it takes the federal law of extraterritoriality in a direction increasingly incompatible with state conflicts approaches. What do I mean by this? I see two main ways in which Kiobel’s...