ABSTRACT
Human rights law groups began a major policymaking initiative in the 1980s to persuade United States courts that new international norms have binding legal effect. Since the 1950s the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), 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 1980s, when several federal courts made unprecedented decisions based on international law. This chapter explains how and why human rights public interest law groups developed, their litigation strategy, the preconditions for success or failure, and the possible consequences. In the early 1950s Congress and the President did considerably more than the courts to frustrate internationalist litigation.
