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52 DePaul L. Rev. 433 (2002-2003)
Indiviuals Enforcing International Law: The Comparative and Historical Concept

handle is hein.journals/deplr52 and id is 443 raw text is: INDIVIDUALS ENFORCING INTERNATIONAL LAW: THE COMPARATIVE AND HISTORICAL CONTEXT Beth Stephens* INTRODUCTION For traditionalists, the concept of individuals enforcing interna- tional law has the whiff of an unpleasant oxymoron, implying a role for individuals in a legal system in which, the traditionalists insist, only sovereign states are legitimate players. From this perspective, individ- ual efforts to enforce international law seem to conflict irreconcilably with a venerable legal precept: international law is created and ap- plied only by sovereign states. Within the United States, individual involvement in international affairs also raises hackles. Defenders of a centralized vision of foreign policy contend that such efforts contra- dict the constitutional assignment of foreign affairs to the exclusive control of the political branches of the government-the executive branch and Congress. As is often the case, there is less to both of these hoary precepts than meets the eye. Individuals have long occupied an important po- sition in the enforcement of international law, as objects of punish- ment when they violate its mandates and as active agents seeking to implement its rules. Similarly, U.S. foreign policy has never been im- mune from the pressure and influence of individuals, nor could it or should it be in a democracy. Both of these supposed truisms have been invoked to challenge an area in which I take particular interest, a series of federal lawsuits seeking damages for violations of international law. Founded on a 1980 interpretation of a statute originally enacted in 1789, the cases now also rely on three modern federal statutes.' These civil lawsuits for human rights abuses have triggered great excitement within the * Associate Professor. Rutgers-Camden School of Law. My thanks to the participants at DePaul University College of Law's 2002 Robert A. Clifford Symposium on Tort Law and Social Policy, as well as to Roger Clark and my colleagues at a Rutgers-Camden faculty workshop. for helpful comments on an earlier draft. I should note that I have participated in several of the human rights lawsuits discussed in this Article, as counsel for plaintiffs or as a consultant. 1. The Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA) 28 U.S.C. § 1350 (1994), was originally enacted as part of the Judiciary Act of 1789. The three modern statutes are cited and discussed in the following section.

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