Book contents
- American Transitional Justice
- Human Rights in History
- American Transitional Justice
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Alien Tort Statute Litigation in Legal Practice and the Legal Imagination
- 3 “Foreign Torture, American Justice”
- 4 Filártiga in Paraguay
- 5 Narrating the Marcos Regime in US Courts
- 6 The Marcos Case and Transitional Justice in the Philippines
- 7 Conclusion
- Book part
- Bibliography
- Index
2 - Alien Tort Statute Litigation in Legal Practice and the Legal Imagination
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 June 2020
- American Transitional Justice
- Human Rights in History
- American Transitional Justice
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Alien Tort Statute Litigation in Legal Practice and the Legal Imagination
- 3 “Foreign Torture, American Justice”
- 4 Filártiga in Paraguay
- 5 Narrating the Marcos Regime in US Courts
- 6 The Marcos Case and Transitional Justice in the Philippines
- 7 Conclusion
- Book part
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
This chapter presents the dominant account of Alien Tort Statute litigation, which the remainder of the book challenges, providing at the same time some legal background necessary to understanding the book’s analysis. It outlines the development of human rights litigation under the statute, the law, and practice of such litigation, and the dominant terms of the scholarly and policy debate surrounding this form of litigation. It explains that the debate has pit human rights advocates seeking to promote international norms and human rights accountability beyond borders against conservatives seeking to avoid judicial interference in foreign policy. It highlights the assumptions and blind spots in that debate, in particular the striking indifference to the meaning of the litigation for the societies in which the litigated abuses occurred, at the same time as the United States itself has been viewed as disconnected from the litigated violence.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- American Transitional JusticeWriting Cold War History in Human Rights Litigation, pp. 20 - 37Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020