''Filártiga v. Peña-Irala'', 630 F.2d 876 ( 2d Cir. 1980), was a landmark case in

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 ...

and

international law International law (also known as public international law and the law of nations) is the set of rules, norms, and standards generally recognized as binding between states. It establishes normative guidelines and a common conceptual framework for ...

. It set the precedent for

United States federal courts The federal judiciary of the United States is one of the three branches of the federal government of the United States organized under the Constitution of the United States, United States Constitution and Law of the United States, laws of the fed ...

to punish non-

American citizens Citizenship of the United States is a legal status that entails Americans with specific rights, duties, protections, and benefits in the United States. It serves as a foundation of fundamental rights derived from and protected by the Constituti ...

for

tort A tort is a civil wrong that causes a claimant to suffer loss or harm, resulting in legal liability for the person who commits the tortious act. Tort law can be contrasted with criminal law, which deals with criminal wrongs that are punishable ...

ious acts committed outside the

that were in violation of public international law (the law of nations) or any treaties to which the

is a party. It thus extends the

jurisdiction Jurisdiction (from Latin 'law' + 'declaration') is the legal term for the legal authority granted to a legal entity to enact justice. In federations like the United States, areas of jurisdiction apply to local, state, and federal levels. Jur ...

of United States courts to tortious acts committed around the world. The case was decided by a panel of judges from the

United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (in case citations, 2d Cir.) is one of the thirteen United States Courts of Appeals. Its territory comprises the states of Connecticut, New York and Vermont. The court has appellate juri ...

consisting of judges Wilfred Feinberg,

Irving Kaufman Irving Robert Kaufman (June 24, 1910 – February 1, 1992) was a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and a United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern Dist ...

, and

Amalya Lyle Kearse Amalya Lyle Kearse (born June 11, 1937)Goldstein, Tom. "Amalya Lyle Kearse; Woman in the News", ''The New York Times'', June 25, 1979. is a senior United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and a worl ...

Events

The Filártiga family contended that on March 29, 1976, their seventeen-year-old son Joelito Filártiga was kidnapped and

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 ...

d to death by Américo Norberto Peña-Irala. All parties were living in

Paraguay Paraguay (; ), officially the Republic of Paraguay ( es, República del Paraguay, links=no; gn, Tavakuairetã Paraguái, links=si), is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to th ...

at the time, and Peña was the

Inspector General An inspector general is an investigative official in a civil or military organization. The plural of the term is "inspectors general". Australia The Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security (Australia) (IGIS) is an independent statutory off ...

Police The police are a constituted body of persons empowered by a state, with the aim to enforce the law, to ensure the safety, health and possessions of citizens, and to prevent crime and civil disorder. Their lawful powers include arrest and t ...

Asunción Asunción (, , , Guarani: Paraguay) is the capital and the largest city of Paraguay. The city stands on the eastern bank of the Paraguay River, almost at the confluence of this river with the Pilcomayo River. The Paraguay River and the Bay of ...

, the capital of Paraguay. Later that same day, police brought Dolly Filártiga (Joelito's sister) to see the body, which evidenced marks of severe torture. The Filártigas claimed that Joelito was tortured in retaliation for the political activities and beliefs of his father

Joel Filártiga Joel Holden Filártiga Ferreira (15 August 1932 – 5 July 2019) was a Paraguayan doctor, artist and human rights activist. He became known for his human rights activism after his son, Joelito Filártiga, who was killed by the police during the d ...

. Filártiga brought

murder Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification (jurisprudence), justification or valid excuse (legal), excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethought. ("The killing of another person wit ...

charges against Peña and the police in Paraguay, but the case went nowhere. Subsequently, the Filártigas' attorney was arrested, imprisoned, and threatened with death. He was later allegedly

disbarred Disbarment, also known as striking off, is the removal of a lawyer from a bar association or the practice of law, thus revoking their law license or admission to practice law. Disbarment is usually a punishment for unethical or criminal conduct ...

without just cause. In 1978, Dolly Filártiga and (separately) Américo Peña-Irala came to the United States. Dolly applied for political asylum, while Peña had stayed living and working illegally after entering under a visitor's visa. Dolly learned of Peña's presence in the United States and reported it to the

Immigration and Naturalization Service The United States Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) was an agency of the U.S. Department of Labor from 1933 to 1940 and the U.S. Department of Justice from 1940 to 2003. Referred to by some as former INS and by others as legacy INS, ...

, who arrested and

deported Deportation is the expulsion of a person or group of people from a place or country. The term ''expulsion'' is often used as a synonym for deportation, though expulsion is more often used in the context of international law, while deportation ...

Peña for staying well past the expiration of his visa.

Case

When Peña was taken to the Brooklyn Navy Yard pending deportation, Filártiga lodged a civil complaint in U.S. courts, brought forth by the

Center for Constitutional Rights The Center for Constitutional RightsThe Center for Constitutional Rights
(CCR) is a wrongful death by torture, asking for damages in the amount of $10 million. After an initial district court dismissal citing precedents that limited the function of international law to relations between states, on appeal, the circuit ruled that freedom from torture was guaranteed under customary international law. "The torturer has become – like the pirate and slave trader before him – ''

hostis humani generis (Latin for 'enemy of mankind') is a legal term of art that originates in admiralty law. Before the adoption of public international law, pirates and slavers were already held to be beyond legal protection and so could be dealt with by any nati ...

'', an enemy of all mankind", wrote the court. The appellants argued that Peña's actions had violated wrongful death statutes, the

United Nations Charter The Charter of the United Nations (UN) is the foundational treaty of the UN, an intergovernmental organization. It establishes the purposes, governing structure, and overall framework of the UN system, including its six principal organs: the ...

, the

Universal Declaration of Human Rights The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is an international document adopted by the United Nations General Assembly that enshrines the Human rights, rights and freedoms of all human beings. Drafted by a UN Drafting of the Universal De ...

, the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man, and other customary international law. They also claimed the U.S. courts had jurisdiction to hear the case under the

Alien Tort Statute The Alien Tort Statute ( codified in 1948 as ; ATS), also called the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA), is a section in the United States Code that gives federal courts jurisdiction over lawsuits filed by foreign nationals for torts committed in viola ...

, which grants district courts original jurisdiction to hear tort claims brought by an alien that have been "committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States". This case interpreted that statute to grant jurisdiction over claims for torts committed both within the United States and abroad.

Judgment

U.S. courts eventually ruled in favor of the Filártigas, awarding them roughly $10.4 million. Torture was clearly a violation of the law of nations, and the United States did have jurisdiction over the case since the claim was lodged when both parties were inside the United States. Additionally, Peña had sought to dismiss the case based on '' forum non conveniens'', arguing that Paraguay was a more convenient location for the trial, but he did not succeed.

Subsequent events

Following the judgment in ''Filártiga'', there was a concern that the U.S. would evolve into a haven for international tort claims. In '' Kadic v Karadžić'' (1995), victims of atrocities committed in Bosnia during the

Bosnian War The Bosnian War ( sh, Rat u Bosni i Hercegovini / Рат у Босни и Херцеговини) was an international armed conflict that took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina between 1992 and 1995. The war is commonly seen as having started ...

commenced proceedings against Serbia for war crimes in an American domestic court, with Radovan Karadžić being in the U.S. at the time. The

then considered issues as to the scope of ATS claims, specifically concerning non-state actors as defendants and the related question of whether genocide, war crimes and

crimes against humanity Crimes against humanity are widespread or systemic acts committed by or on behalf of a ''de facto'' authority, usually a state, that grossly violate human rights. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity do not have to take place within the ...

require a state action. The Court of Appeals found that federal courts have subject matter jurisdiction under ATS even where defendants were not acting under "color of state law", when the allegations touched upon

genocide Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Latin ...

, summary executions, torture and war crimes. Following the ''Karadžić'' judgment, it was ruled in '' Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain'' 542 U.S. 692 (2004) that Congress intended with the

that extraterritorial jurisdiction was allowed for only the most egregious international crimes. This was further limited in '' Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co.'', where it was affirmed that there was a presumption against extraterritoriality and that "mere corporate presence" in the United States was not enough to overcome that presumption in cases where all the alleged wrongful acts were committed outside the United States by a foreign corporate defendant. The scope of ATS was more strictly limited to preclude foreign corporate defendants as parties in

Jesner v. Arab Bank, PLC ''Jesner v. Arab Bank, PLC'', No. 16-499, 584 U.S. ___ (2018), was a case from the United States Supreme Court which addressed the issue of corporate liability under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS). Plaintiffs alleged that Arab Bank facilitated terr ...

. ATS claims have been limited to foreign national plaintiffs and did not provide jurisdiction for lawsuits against foreign governments. Eleven years after ''Filartiga'', Congress enacted the

Torture Victims Protection Act The Torture Victim Protection Act of 1991 (TVPA; ) is a statute that allows for the filing of civil suits in the United States against individuals who, acting in an official capacity for any foreign nation, committed torture and/or extrajudicial ...

, creating a cause of action which, until then, had existed in the

common law In law, common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law created by judges and similar quasi-judicial tribunals by virtue of being stated in written opinions."The common law is not a brooding omnipresen ...

, however this too has been restricted in scope to individuals who torture or commit extrajudicial killings, and not to corporations or political associations like the

Palestine Liberation Organization The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO; ar, منظمة التحرير الفلسطينية, ') is a Palestinian nationalism, Palestinian nationalist political and militant organization founded in 1964 with the initial purpose of establ ...

(see '' Mohamad v. Palestinian Authority''). Because individuals often don't have the means to pay large damage awards in these kinds of cases, the

Seventh Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit (in case citations, 7th Cir.) is the U.S. federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the courts in the following districts: * Central District of Illinois * Northern District of Ill ...

in '' Boim v. Quranic Literacy Institute'' gave voice to the idea that allowing claims to proceed against organizations and states that finance FTOs would "imperil the flow of money and discourage the financing of terrorist acts" by making it unprofitable. Other Congressional statutes enacted post-Filartiga have created other avenues to pursue claims against foreign governments like the Anti-Terrorism Act and amendments to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act that have broadened the scope of the types of property against which execution can be sought to satisfy judgments under FSIA's terrorism exception).

Notes

External links

*Text at
OpenJurist
*Case Brief

{{DEFAULTSORT:Filartiga v. Pena-Irala United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit cases 1980 in United States case law Alien Tort Statute case law Paraguay–United States relations Operation Condor Venue (law) 1976 in Paraguay Alfredo Stroessner