Search: extraterritorial sanctions
03 Apr The Unattractive Question is Back: SCOTUS (Again) Considers Corporate Liability Under the Alien Tort Statute
...the Alien Tort Statute has extraterritorial reach needed to be resolved first, and sent the case back for re-argument the next term. That re-argued case eventually became the 2013 Kiobel decision sharply limiting the extraterritorial scope of lawsuits brought under the ATS to cases that “touch and concern” the territory of the U.S. The corporate liability issue was left fully argued and untouched. To be sure, since 2013, several other circuit courts have issued opinions on the corporate liability issue and all have split from the original Second Circuit Kiobel...17 Oct What Congress Should Take From Hamdan
...Post Facto Clause of the U.S. Constitution that it prohibits prosecutions for actions that were not criminal at the time they were taken. The application of the Ex Post Facto Clause is especially noteworthy here because it had been something of a question whether the U.S. Constitution (other than the Suspension Clause the Supreme Court recognized guaranteed the Guantanamo Bay detainees a constitutional right to seek a writ of habeas corpus) applied to non-citizens held at Guantanamo Bay. While stopping short of answering the question of extraterritorial application directly, the...22 May DRAM chips and the puzzling persistence of extraterritoriality
Administrative lawyers think that international antitrust is a particularly interesting form of bureaucratic cooperation. We see a world where antitrust has changed from a focus of international dissention – see the anger over the US assertion of extraterritorial jurisdiction and the effects test after WWII; note that it is the most cited American case in international law – to one where competition regulators meet their foreign counterparts and arguably conform their conduct to international norms, devised, for better or worse, by the regulators themselves. The constraints created by the international...
21 Apr Symposium: On the Promise and Potential of R2P
...for example, the difficulty in stretching the meaning of the Geneva Conventions’ Common Article 1 to cover an extraterritorial State obligation to react to all war crimes, including those not derived from the Conventions. It exposes the issue with resorting to Article 41 of the Articles on State Responsibility, which lacks formal legal standing, to try to establish a State responsibility to react to atrocity crimes as violations of jus cogens norms. And it demonstrates the glaring absence of a multilateral convention on crimes against humanity, creating enormous gaps in...16 Dec Using State Tort Laws to Combat Terrorism Abroad
million against Iran. But it did so on the basis of state tort laws for wrongful death, battery, and the intentional infliction of emotion distress. That’s right, the state tort laws of Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, New York, Texas, Virginia, and the District of Columbia were applied extraterritorially to combat terrorism in Beirut. Notably absent from this decision, or any other Dammarrell decision, is the word “extraterritorial.” There was absolutely no discussion of the presumption against extraterritoriality for this patchwork of state tort laws. I am a strong advocate of...
17 Jul Symposium on PMSCs: Ukraine’s New Bill on PMSCs – A Possible Pandora’s Box for Operations Abroad?
...jurisdiction. However, no investigation against PMSC personnel has been initiated by the Court. Even in countries like South Africa where the legal framework contemplates special provisions for applying its regulations beyond its border, no steps have been taken to prosecute alleged violations against civilians. In the case of Ukraine, serious accountability gaps remain, as there is no clear legal provision ensuring extraterritorial application of the Draft Law on PMSCs. The aforementioned examples, along with dozens of other cases, illustrate that prosecution, accountability, and oversight of PMSC activities during armed conflicts...09 Jun Emailing Does Not Pass the Kiobel Test: US Court Dismisses ATS Case Against Anti-Gay Pastor
Distracted by #ComeyDay and other international crises, I missed this recent U.S. federal court decision in Sexual Minorities of Uganda v. Lively, dismissing an Alien Tort Statute lawsuit on Kiobel extra-territoriality grounds. While using unusually critical language to denounce U.S. pastor-defendant Scott Lively’s involvement in Uganda’s anti-homosexual laws and actions, the U.S. District Court for Massachusetts held: …Defendant’s status as an American citizen and his physical presence in the United States is clearly not enough under controlling authority to support ATS extraterritorial jurisdiction. The sporadic trail of emails sent by...14 Dec Alaskan State Criminal Statute Applied in Canada
If someone sexually assaults a woman in Canadian territorial waters, where would you expect that person to be prosecuted? Why, in Alaska of course. Earlier this week the Alaska Supreme Court rendered an unusual decision in State v. Jack addressing the question of whether a state criminal statute against sexual assault could be applied extraterritorially to prosecute someone who committed the act in the territorial waters of Canada. I’m all in favor of prosecuting persons who commit sexual crimes in Canadian territorial waters. But the question is, by whom and...
10 Nov An Appeal to Address the Failure in Preventing Genocide in Gaza through the International Court of Justice
...(para. 432). An Extraterritorial Duty It should be noted that the duty to take measures to prevent genocide, as an erga omnes obligation, is an extraterritorial task that exists regardless of territory or a specific link to the state in question. Therefore, all states party to the Genocide Convention, which also have influence on Israel through political and economic connections, have a well-established duty to prevent the commission of genocide in Gaza. One may argue that the current situation in Gaza does not definitively constitute the crime of genocide. However,...
19 Oct The Cruel (Yet Effective) Tutelage of Defeat: A Case for More Transparency on IACHR Admissibility Decisions
...and requests rejected by the Commission (and its gargantuan workload) by sheer virtue of more readily available knowledge and less room for educated guesswork among its users. A few weeks ago, a scholar and practitioner I greatly admire (and whose knowledge of international law is exceptional) expressed their doubts as to the reasons why a petition against the US at the IACHR had being rejected. The petition itself -from what was disclosed- had to do with claimed responsibility for extraterritorial violation of human rights as a consequence of military/law-enforcement activities...