ABSTRACT
Passed by the first US Congress in 1789, the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA) fell quietly into disuse for almost 200 years. The ATCA reads, "The [federal] district courts shall have original jurisdiction of 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." Its original purpose was to give aliens access to federal rather than state courts as they sought compensation for violations of international law. The ATCA went mostly unnoticed until 1978, when the Filartiga family discovered that a Paraguayan officer who had tortured and unlawfully killed Joelito Filartiga in Asuncion was living in eastern New York. The Filartiga victory spawned an entire line of international human rights litigation in domestic courts, with federal judges regularly hearing cases that spanned the globe in reach.
