Interest Group Litigation To Enforce Human Rights: Confronting Judicial Restraint (From World Justice? U.S. Courts and International Human Rights, P 123-147, 1991, Mark Gibney, ed. -- See NCJ-129558)

• NCJ Number: 129564
• Author(s): H Tolley Jr
• Date Published: 1991
• Length: 25 pages
• Sale Source: Westview Press, Inc
• Publication Type: Legislation/Policy Analysis
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This paper explains how and why human rights public interest law groups developed, their litigation strategy, the preconditions for success or failure, and the possible consequences.

Abstract

Human rights law groups began a major policymaking initiative in the 1980's to persuade U.S. courts that new international norms have binding legal effect. Since the 1950's the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the American Civil Liberties Union, and environmental and consumer public law interest groups have successfully used litigation to change government policy on racial segregation, prisoners' rights, conservation, and product liability. Human rights advocates had no such success until the 1980's, when several Federal courts made unprecedented decisions based on international law. The human rights attorneys raising international law claims in domestic courts have a major policy goal: to make the rule of international law directly enforceable by individuals against government officials in domestic courts. Human rights attorneys have both won and lost major cases on alien tort claims, refugee detention, and asylum and deportation procedures. The conflicting results reached in cases that could go either way reveal four significant factors that contribute to successful litigation: congressional authorization, executive approval, vulnerable defendants, and responsive judges. 92 notes