Working Papers logo 130

Over the past quarter century, one of the principal applications of customary international law in U.S. courts has been in human rights litigation brought under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS). In its current form, the statute provides: "The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of any civil action by an alien for a tort only, committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States." The ATS is no modern innovation. It was part of the Judiciary Act of 1789 that first established the federal courts and was a response to the experience under the Articles of Confederation that showed the danger of leaving redress for violations of the law of nations--the eighteenth-century name for customary international law--to the courts of the several states.

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