The Torture Victim Protection Act of 1991 (TVPA; ) is a statute that allows for the filing of civil suits in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

against individuals who, acting in an official capacity for any foreign nation, committed

torture Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such as punishment, extracting a confession, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. Some definitions are restricted to acts c ...

and/or

extrajudicial killing An extrajudicial killing (also known as extrajudicial execution or extralegal killing) is the deliberate killing of a person without the lawful authority granted by a judicial proceeding. It typically refers to government authorities, whether ...

. The statute requires a plaintiff to show exhaustion of local remedies in the location of the crime, to the extent that such remedies are "adequate and available." Plaintiffs may be U.S. citizens or non-U.S. citizens. Although the Act was not passed until early 1992, it was introduced the previous year, and the official name of the Act is the "Torture Victim Protection Act of 1991."

Legal issues

In 1992, Sister

Dianna Ortiz Dianna Mae Ortiz (September 2, 1958 – February 19, 2021) was an American Roman Catholic sister of the Ursuline order. While serving as a missionary in Guatemala, she was abducted on November 2, 1989, by members of the Guatemalan military, det ...

was the first to file a case under the act, in a civil action against former general and Defense Minister

Héctor Gramajo Héctor Alejandro Gramajo Morales (11 August 1940 – 12 March 2004) was a general in the Guatemalan Army who served as Defense Minister from 1 February 1987 to 20 May 1990, during the long years of the Guatemalan Civil War (1960–1996). He ran u ...

Guatemala Guatemala ( ; ), officially the Republic of Guatemala ( es, República de Guatemala, links=no), is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico; to the northeast by Belize and the Caribbean; to the east by H ...

, contending that, by his command authority, he was responsible for her abduction, rape, and torture by military forces in Guatemala in November 1989. A federal court in Massachusetts ruled in her favor, awarding her $5 million in damages in 1995. The TVPA has been used by victims of

terrorism Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...

to sue foreign states that have been designated by the U.S. as

state sponsors of terrorism "State Sponsors of Terrorism" is a designation applied by the United States Department of State to countries which the Department alleges to have "repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism". Inclusion on the list imposes ...

, such as Iraq (which has since been removed from the list) and Iran. In May 2000, Miami based attorney Andrew C. Hall and clients David Daliberti, Bill Barloon, Chad Hall, Kenneth Beaty and their wives were awarded a collective sum of almost $19 million for the pains the men suffered in captivity. see ''Daliberti v. Republic of Iraq,'' 97 F.Supp.2d 38 (D.D.C. 2000); and also ''Weinstein v. Islamic Republic of Iran,'' 184 F.Supp.2d 13 (D.D.C. 2002). The

Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 (FSIA) is a United States law, codified at Title 28, §§ 1330, 1332, 1391(f), 1441(d), and 1602–1611 of the United States Code, that established criteria as to whether a foreign sovereign nation ...

(FSIA), , prohibits foreign states from being sued in U.S. courts for most non-commercial issues. The

Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), , was introduced to the United States Congress in April 1995 as a Senate Bill (). The bill was passed with broad bipartisan support by Congress in response to the bombings of th ...

(AEDPA), (a)(7), created an exception to the FSIA, allowing U.S. nationals to sue foreign states if the state has been designated as a

state sponsor of terrorism State-sponsored terrorism is terrorist violence carried out with the active support of national governments provided to violent non-state actors. States can sponsor terrorist groups in several ways, including but not limited to funding terrorist ...

and if the plaintiff's injury has been caused by the state's support of a terrorist organization. Following the passage of the AEDPA, numerous suits have been filed against state sponsors of terrorism, particularly

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

. Because some courts have held that the AEDPA does not create a cause of action against foreign states, plaintiffs have used the TVPA and the AEDPA in concert, first using the AEDPA to provide an exception to a foreign state's sovereign immunity, and then using the TVPA to provide a cause of action. The TVPA has also been used by victims of torture by agents of the United States. In ''

Meshal v. Higgenbotham ''Meshal v. Higgenbotham'' is a U.S. federal lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of Amir Mohamed Meshal, a natural born citizen of the United States, charging two agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Ch ...

'', a native-born American citizen alleges U.S. officials repeatedly threatened him with torture,

forced disappearance An enforced disappearance (or forced disappearance) is the secret abduction or imprisonment of a person by a state or political organization, or by a third party with the authorization, support, or acquiescence of a state or political organiza ...

, and other serious harm. On April 18, 2012, in ''Mohamad v. Palestinian Authority'', the United States Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the TVPA applies exclusively to natural persons and does not impose liability against any organizational entity.Asid Mohamad v. Palestinian Authority, et al.
No. 11-88 The court's decision was based on the statute's use of the word "individual", as distinguished from "person" (the latter of which is usually defined in U.S. law and statutes as meaning an individual or an organization). The court examined the word both in context of its ordinary meaning and through the legislative history of the TVPA. The court noted that the original language of the TVPA bill had used the word "person" and that during a House committee markup, one of the bill's sponsors proposed an amendment "to make it clear we are applying it to individuals and not to corporations."

Legal issues

References

Further reading