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This book studies how victims of human rights violations in Latin America, their families, and their advocates work to overcome entrenched impunity and seek legal justice. Their struggles show that legal justice is a multifaceted process, the overarching purpose of which is to restore human dignity and prevent further violence. Uncovering, revealing, and proving the truth are essential elements of legal justice, and are also powerful tools to activate the process. When faced with stubborn impunity at home, victims, families, and advocates can carry on their work for legal justice by bringing cases in courts in other countries or in the inter-American human rights system. These extra-territorial courts can jump-start the process of legal justice at home. Seeking Human Rights Justice in Latin America examines the political and legal struggle through the lens of the human story at the heart of these cases

This book studies the struggle to enforce international human rights law in federal courts. In 1980, a federal appeals court ruled that a Paraguayan family could sue a Paraguayan official under the Alien Tort Statute - a dormant provision of the 1789 Judiciary Act - for torture committed in Paraguay. Since then, courts have been wrestling with this step toward a universal approach to human rights law. Davis examines attempts by human rights groups to use the law to enforce human rights norms. He explains the separation of powers issues arising when victims sue the United States or when the United States intervenes to urge dismissal of a claim and analyses the controversies arising from attempts to hold foreign nations, foreign officials, and corporations liable under international human rights law. While Davis's analysis is driven by social science methods, its foundation is the dramatic human story from which these cases arise

When those swept up in counterterrorism operations try to hold governments accountable for rights violations, legal secrecy doctrines such as the "state secrets privilege" and "public interest immunity" frequently derail their efforts. This article shows the effects of legal secrecy doctrines on efforts to hold officials accountable for rights violations in counterterrorism cases. It sets out the limits imposed by international human rights law on these secrecy doctrines, and it explores how these limits are handled in US and British courts. Finally, it sets out requirements in order for legal secrecy practices to comply with international human rights law.

In Filartiga v. Pena-Irala (1980), the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that victims of human rights violations could sue their oppressors civilly in US courts under an eighteenth century law now called the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA). Controversy raged over the Filartiga decision and the proper interpretation of the ATCA for 24 years. Then in Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain (2004), the Supreme Court issued its first ATCA decision. This essay analyzes the effect of the Sosa decision on the development of human rights law in US courts. I find that while the federal judiciary is responding to some of the Supreme Court's directives, lower courts still retain a great deal of discretion in handling ATCA cases. Adapted from the source document.

Through the lens of Guatemala's Jorge Carpio Nicolle case I analyze the mechanisms that preserve impunity in Latin American nations struggling to emerge from violent conflict and embrace the rule of law. I reveal how the infective influence of parallel powers, the ineffectiveness of the judicial process, and obstructive legal doctrine destroy domestic efforts to prosecute those responsible for human rights violations. The Carpio case exposes the role of international courts in providing justice when domestic courts fail to do so, and it demonstrates the importance of human rights groups in pursuing this justice. Adapted from the source document.

In 1980 the Second Circuit Court of Appeals broke with years of legal tradition and ruled that human rights victims could sue their oppressors in federal court—even if the alleged violations occurred outside the country. This court based the extension of its authority on a provision of the 1789 Judiciary Act now referred to as the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA). ATCA cases present a unique opportunity to study judicial behavior in the face of separation of powers interests, traditions of judicial restraint, sovereign immunity defenses, and an active internationalist movement to extend human rights guarantees worldwide. Combining legal analysis with quantitative methodology, I find that U.S. federal courts are slowly accepting an internationalist approach to human rights, and that interest groups are largely driving this transformation. Sovereignty concerns and judicial ideology are not conditioning case outcomes, but party resources and separation of powers issues are.

This paper examines the rise in Supreme Court dissent & concurrence rates, testing whether modern legal education contributes to the abandonment of the consensual norm. Scholars have pointed out that changing external conditions, changing enforcement mechanisms, & changing values may alter the conceptualization of a norm. Modern legal education trains lawyers to apply case law to conflicting arguments creatively in pursuit of desired outcomes. This paper tests the hypothesis that modern legal education has indoctrinated judges to freely pursue adversarial positions, supported by differing interpretations of precedent. This behavior would manifest itself in greater rates of dissents & special concurrences. Statistical tests examining Supreme Court decisions from 1801 through 1991 strongly support the hypothesis. 2 Tables, 1 Figure, 1 Appendix, 38 References. Adapted from the source document.