On Wednesday, April 18th, 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court decided by unanimous vote that foreign groups such as the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) cannot be sued under the Torture Victim Protection Act (of 1991), a federal law intended to protect Americans who are tortured overseas.
The lawsuit was filed in 2005 by relatives of Mr. Azzam Rahim, a naturalized U.S. citizen who was tortured and killed during a 1995 visit to the West Bank, allegedly by Palestinian security forces.
Another, and more fundamental, issue the Court may be deciding in a couple of years or less will be whether the Alien Tort Claims Act applies to international-law violations that have occurred overseas.
[WSJ, Thursday, 04/19/2012, p. A3]
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