Passed by the first Congress in 1789 to combat, among others, acts of piracy on the high-seas, the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), 28 U.S.C. § 1350, grants federal district courts jurisdiction over “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.” As threats from Barbary pirates faded in the nineteenth century, this obscure jurisdictional statute lay nearly dormant for 200 years. Indeed, only two ATS cases were adjudicated in the history of the statute until, in 1980, the Second Circuit revived it in Filartiga v. Pena-Irala, 630 F.2d 876 (2d Cir. 1980). The seminal decision in Filartiga opened the floodgates for hundreds of lawsuits that would claim ATS jurisdiction over the next 30 years.
Following Filartiga, the initial ATS suits were brought by aliens and nationals against former foreign government officials for alleged human rights abuses committed while in power. See, e.g., In re Estate of Ferdinand Marcos, 25 F.3d 1467 (9th Cir. 1994). This wave of ATS lawsuits against individuals operating under the color of law continued for more than a decade following Filartiga.
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