Private Law Remedies for Extraterritorial Human Rights Violations
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Private Law Remedies for Extraterritorial Human Rights Violations Inauguraldissertation zur Erlangung der Doktorwürde der Fakultät für Rechtswissenschaft der Universität Bremen vorgelegt von Eric Engle (geb. in New York) Gutachter: 1. Prof. Dr. Gert Brüggemeier 2. Prof. Dr. Josef Falke Kolloquium am: 30. Januar 2006 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction ......................................................................................................7 Limits of the Inquiry ..........................................................................................7 Interest of the Inquiry .........................................................................................8 Research Objectives ...........................................................................................9 Problématique .....................................................................................................8 Method ................................................................................................................9 Existing Literature ..............................................................................................9 Outline ................................................................................................................9 Chapter I: The Torture Victim’s Protection Act, the Alien Tort Claims Act, and Foucault’s Archaeology of Knowledge .................................................13 Abstract ............................................................................................................13 Introduction ......................................................................................................14 I. The ATCA and the TVPA ...........................................................................14 A. Obstacles to Succeeding Under the ATCA/TVPA ................................17 1. Jurisdictional Requirements ..............................................................17 2. Exhaustion .........................................................................................18 3. Comity ...............................................................................................18 4. Forum non conveniens .......................................................................18 5. Act of State Doctrine .........................................................................19 6. Political Question Doctrine ...............................................................21 7. Immunity ............................................................................................22 8. Burdens of Proof ................................................................................25 II. Foucault – A Methodological Framework to Understand Torture .............26 III. The Use of Torture: A Shameful Chapter in the History of European Society .........................................................................................................28 A. Theory of Torture ...................................................................................30 B. Four Reasons Why Torture Disappeared ...............................................31 IV. Contemporary Events .................................................................................33 V. Conclusion ...................................................................................................36 Chapter II: Alvarez-Machain v. United States and Alvarez-Machain v. Sosa: The Brooding Omnipresence of Natural Law .............................................37 Abstract ............................................................................................................37 I. Introduction .................................................................................................38 A. The Issues Presented to the Supreme Court in Sosa ..............................40 B. The Unsettled Issues which caused the Sosa Court to grant certiorari ..42 1. What Substantive Law is to be Applied? ..........................................42 2. Does the ATS Only Apply to Violations of Jus Cogens? .................43 II. Practical Analysis: The Issues the Justice Department and its Agent Sosa Presented ......................................................................................................44 A. “Whether federal law enforcement officers, and agents of the Drug Enforcement Administration in particular, have authority to enforce a federal criminal statute that applies to acts perpetrated against a United States official in a foreign country by arresting an indicted criminal suspect on probable cause in a foreign country” .....................44 1. Customary International Law Prohibits Abduction by one State of any Person in another State Absent Consent of that State ............45 2. Customary International Law as Part of the Common Law: The Kidnapping of Alvarez-Machain was Illegal under Common Law ....................................................................................46 a. Comparative Law: Customary International Law is an Integral Part of the Common Law in Britain, Canada, and Australia ........47 b. Legal History: Customary International Law has been Part of the Common Law for Centuries ...............................................48 i. What Blackstone can tell us about the Alien Tort Statute .......48 ii. What Coke can tell us about the Alien Tort Statute ................51 3. The Government’s Abduction, while Illegal under International Law may have been Legal under National Law if a statute had displaced the customary law. In all events, the Government’s Abduction was Constitutional ...........................................................53 B. Is the Alien Tort Statute solely a grant of jurisdiction, or does it provide a cause of action for aliens who are victimized by tortious violations of international law? ..............................................................55 C. “If it is proper to imply or create a cause of action under the ATS, whether those actions should be limited to suits for violations of international legal norms to which the United States has assented” .63 1. Plain Meaning Argument – The ATS facially does not distinguish between jus cogens norms and other rules of international law ........66 2. Historical Argument – At the time of drafting of the ATS international law did not distinguish between jus cogens norms and ordinary rules of international law ...................................66 3. Systematic Argument – The hermeneutic separation of the international legal system into a “public-state” and “private- international” sphere did not exist a the time of the drafting 2 of the ATS, is increasingly ignored today, and provides no argument, that the ATS address only jus cogens violations .........67 4. Individual Rights under International Law .......................................68 a. Abduction ......................................................................................68 b. State Action ..................................................................................70 D. “Whether a detention that lasts less than 24 hours, results in no physical harm to the detainee, and is undertaken by a private individual under instructions from senior United States law enforcement officials, constitutes a tort in violation of the law of nations actionable under the ATS” .............................................72 III. Theoretical Synthesis: The Natural Law/Positivism Dichotomy in Sosa ..73 A. The False Dichotomy of Positivism and Natural law ............................74 1. Aristotle .............................................................................................74 2. Hobbes ................................................................................................78 B. The Implications of Re-Cognizing the False Dichotomy of “Naturalism v. Positivism” ................................................................81 C. Examining the ATS in Light of the False Dichotomy ...........................83 IV. Conclusion .................................................................................................84 A. Aristotle and Hobbes ..............................................................................85 B. Sosa and Machain ...................................................................................86 Chapter III: U.S. Corporate Liability for Torts of (Foreign) Subsidiaries ....................89 Abstract ............................................................................................................89 Introduction ......................................................................................................90 A. Practical Scenarios ..................................................................................92 B. Historical Perspective .............................................................................94 I. Imputed Liability .........................................................................................96 A. Respondeat Superior ...............................................................................97 B. Liability based on a Theory of Agency ..................................................97 II. Direct Liability ............................................................................................98 A. Joint and Several Liability ......................................................................98 B. Fraud .......................................................................................................99 C. Piercing the Corporate Veil – Theories of Veil