About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

20 Yale J. Int'l L. 65 (1995)
Fulfilling the Promise of Filartiga: Litigating Human Rights Claims against the Estate of Ferdinand Marcos

handle is hein.journals/yjil20 and id is 71 raw text is: Fulfilling the Promise of Filartiga: Litigating Human Rights Claims Against the Estate of Ferdinand Marcos Ralph G. Steinhardtl I. INTRODUCTION ............................................... 65 II. THE ALIEN TORT CLAIMS ACT: JURISDICTION AND THE PRIVATE RIGHT OF ACTION .... 70 A. Theories of Subject Matter Jurisdiction ............................. 70 B. Private Rights of Action ...................................... 72 I. The Silence of Congress .................................. 75 2. The Silence of International Law ............................ 76 3. The Incompetence of Customary International Law ................. 78 4. The Non-Existence of a Customary International Law of Human Rights ..... 80 III. IMMUNITIES AND OTHER DOCTRINES OF DIFFIDENCE ....................... 83 A. The Act of State and Political Question Doctrines ..................... 83 B. Sovereign Immunity .......................................... 87 C. Former Head of State Immunity and the Analogy to Nixon v. Fitzgerald ........ 90 IV. FORUM NON CONVENJNS ........................................ 91 V. CLASS CERTIFICATION .......................................... 93 VI. DAMAGES AND THE CHOICE OF LAW ................................. 94 VII. THE LAW OF EVIDENCE ......................................... 97 VIII. INTERNATIONAL LAW AND THE CIVIL LEGACY OF NUREMBURG ................ 99 IX. CONCLUSION: TOWARD AN INTERNATIONAL LAW OF REMEDIES ................ 102 I. INTRODUCTION In a recent confirmation that private liability may be imposed for public wrongs, an American jury held the estate of Ferdinand Marcos liable for human rights violations that occurred in the Philippines during the Marcos presidency. After six years of pre-trial maneuvering, multiple appeals to the Ninth Circuit, and two weeks of trial, the estate was found specifically liable to a class of ten thousand Filipinos and twenty-three named plaintiffs for t Professor of Law and Associate Director of the International and Comparative Law Program, National Law Center, the George Washington University; Co-Director of the Programme in International Human Rights Law, Oxford University. The author appeared pro bono as plaintiffs' counsel in Sison et al. v. Marcos, one of the actions discussed in this Article.

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most