Opinion ID: 187095
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Jus Cogens Exception

Text: Appellants next argue that General Ya'alon acted contrary to jus cogens norms of international law and therefore outside any scope of authority that would provide protection from suit. [A] jus cogens norm, also known as a peremptory norm of international law, is a norm accepted and recognized by the international community of states as a whole as a norm from which no derogation is permitted and which can be modified only by a subsequent norm of general international law having the same character. Sideman de Blake v. Republic of Arg., 965 F.2d 699, 714 (9th Cir.1992) (quoting Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties art. 53, May 23, 1969, 1155 U.N.T.S. 332); see also Princz, 26 F.3d at 1173. Appellants claim that any act that violates a jus cogens norm must, by definition, be outside the scope of the individual's authority because no sovereign can authorize jus cogens violations. See Enahoro v. Abubakar, 408 F.3d 877, 893 (7th Cir.2005) (Cudahy, J., dissenting) ([O]fficials receive no immunity for acts that violate international jus cogens human rights norms (which by definition are not legally authorized acts.)); Cabiri v. Assasie-Gyimah, 921 F.Supp. 1189, 1198 (S.D.N.Y.1996) (noting that the defendant did not argue, nor could he, that torture fell within the scope of his authority or was permitted under his nation's laws, because no government asserts a right to torture) (citing Filartiga v. Pena-lrala, 630 F.2d 876, 884 (2d Cir. 1980)); Prosecutor v. Furundija, Case No. IT-95-17/1-T, Judgement, ¶ 56 (Dec. 10, 1998) (noting the inconsistency of preventing courts from prosecuting torturers when no state has the lawful authority to torture). Appellants claim that their allegations of war crimes, extrajudicial killing, crimes against humanity, and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment constitute violations of jus cogens norms. It is not necessary for this Court to reach the issue of whether the acts alleged by Plaintiffs constitute violations of jus cogens norms because the FSIA contains no unenumerated exception for violations of jus cogens norms. In Princz, we rejected this precise argument in the context of the waiver exception to the FSIA. 26 F.3d at 1173. Amici had argued that the Third Reich implicitly waived Germany's sovereign immunity under the FSIA by violating jus cogens norms. Id. Relying in part on Siderman, 965 F.2d at 715, this Court held that although it is doubtful that any state has ever violated jus cogens norms on a scale rivaling that of the Third Reich, even violations of that magnitude do not create an exception to the FSIA where Congress has created none. Princz, 26 F.3d at 1174; see also Smith v. Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, 101 F.3d 239, 242 (2d Cir.1996) (noting that, although Congress had not done so for Libya's role in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, Congress may choose to remove the defense of sovereign immunity selectively for particular violations of jus cogens, as it has recently done in the 1996 amendment of the FSIA). Although appellants put a new twist on the argument  that jus cogens violations can never be authorized by a foreign state and so can never cloak foreign officials in immunity  the same prohibition on creating new exceptions to the FSIA holds. Neither the dissent by Judge Cudahy nor the opinion from the Southern District of New York following Filartiga, which a majority of this Court declined to follow in Tel-Oren v. Libyan Arab Republic, 726 F.2d 774, 820 & 826 n. 5 (D.C.Cir.1984) (Bork, J., concurring) (Robb, J., concurring), see Al Odah v. United States, 321 F.3d 1134, 1149 (D.C.Cir.2003) (Randolph, J., concurring), rev'd on other grounds, Rasul v. Bush, 542 U.S. 466, 124 S.Ct. 2686, 159 L.Ed.2d 548 (2004), nor any of the cases appellants cite from foreign courts are persuasive or sufficient for this Court to carve another exception into the FSIA. We note that the reasoning this Court espoused in Princz applies equally well to our holding here: We think that something more nearly express is wanted before we impute to the Congress an intention that the federal courts assume jurisdiction over the countless human rights cases that might well be brought by the victims of all the ruthless military juntas, presidents-for-life, and murderous dictators of the world, from Idi Amin to Mao Zedong. Such an expansive reading of § 1605(a)(1) would likely place an enormous strain not only upon our courts but, more to the immediate point, upon our country's diplomatic relations with any number of foreign nations. In many if not most cases the outlaw regime would no longer even be in power and our Government could have normal relations with the government of the day  unless disrupted by our courts, that is. 26 F.3d at 1174 n. 1. In this case, Plaintiffs do not make allegations against an Idi Amin or a Mao Zedong  they assert that a general in charge of producing intelligence reports for the Israeli Prime Minister committed war crimes and unlawful killings, among other things, because he failed to prevent a military operation that killed civilians in southern Lebanon. These allegations are not sufficient to abrogate the immunity that Congress conferred upon foreign states. We emphasize that our rejection of the purported jus cogens exception in no way intends to imply that the alleged inaction by a military officer against whom there are no allegations of personal acts of illegality would fall within such an exception even if we were to recognize the existence of such an exception to the FSIA immunity. Appellants also argue that General Ya'alon acted outside the scope of his authority, and therefore outside the protection of the FSIA, because he allegedly violated Israeli law. They urge this Court to carve out an exception, quite similar to that for jus cogens norms, for foreign officials who violate their state's laws. However, just as the FSIA carves out no exception for complaints that allege violations of jus cogens norms, it does not create an exception for alleged violations of a foreign state's laws.