“[J]udicial [I]mperialism”? The South African Litigation, The Political Question Doctrine, and Whether the Courts Should Refuse to Yield to Executive Difference in Alien Tort Claims Act Cases – Note by Marissa Renée Geannette

From Volume 82, Number 5 (July 2009)
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For decades, foreign nationals alleging human rights abuses were frustrated by their inability to receive their idea of adequate redress in the courts of their own countries. Beset by ills such as environmental pollution triggered by aerial drug eradication programs, the murder of union leaders by right-wing paramilitary groups allegedly financed by multinational corporations (“MNCs”), and torture and deprivation in countries like South Africa, these plaintiffs were offered a glimmer of hope by a series of rulings in U.S. courts, which had purportedly opened up to them relief through a statute passed by the American Founding Fathers themselves. But that relief has often proven elusive, as courts have hesitated to grant redress for claims brought under what they see as an outdated statute.