Treatment of international human rights violations in the United States

Abstract

In our day and age, the violation of human rights has become a matter of international concern. This article is focused on the sharing of those concerns by the United States, in particular as manifested by the treatment of human rights violations in the United States. Following introductory observations in Part I highlighting the special commitment of the United States to the protection of international human rights, the article will show, in Part II thereof, that in virtue of Article 6, Clause [2] of the American Constitution (the Supremacy Clause), human rights conventions are in principle self-executing in the United States.1 However, the United States invariably adds a reservation to its instruments of ratification of such conventions proclaiming that they will not be self-executing in the United States. Incorporating the provisions of human rights conventions ratified by the United States into the country’s municipal legal system therefore requires Congressional implementation legislation, which will be exemplified in Part III with reference to the Torture Convention Implementation Act of 1994. Part IV of the article is devoted to the exercise of universal jurisdiction by federal courts, in virtue of Article 1, Section (8), Clause [10] of the Constitution, to bring to justice those responsible for piracies and felonies on the High Seas and offences against the law of nations.2 In the United States, universal jurisdiction of federal courts is not confined to criminal prosecutions but has also been extended by the Alien Tort Statute to civil actions by foreign victims of a tort that constitutes a violation of the law of nations or of a treaty entered into by the United States.3 The treatment of human rights violations under the Alien Tort Statute and similar legislation is the subject-matter of Part V of this article. Some concluding observations to evaluate the above manifestations of the American commitment to human rights, notably in view of considerations based on the national interests of the United States and a perception of American exceptionalism, will bring the article to a close in Part VI thereof.