How a Country Treats its Citizens No longer Exclusive Domestic Concern

Over the last twenty-five years some aliens present
within the United States have initiated action
against other aliens for crimes transgressing the law
of nations committed abroad. This trajectory is
considered by some as progress in international law,
since only a few decades earlier this body of law
concerned itself exclusively with the relations among
independent states. Therefore the ability to employ
international instruments for the advancement of
individual human rights is perhaps a cause celebre.
But this growing practice has also generated a
significant controversy and opposition. What is
international law or the law of nations? Under what
authority do United States Courts entertain disputes
concerning a foreign sovereign s treatment of its own
citizens under its own laws? The Judiciary Act of
1789 which created the Alien Tort Statute, a
relatively obscure piece of legislation is at the
center of these actions. But what was the original
intent of the Alien Tort Statute? Is this an elusive
goal or is it possible to reconstruct the meaning of
that statute?