For a zombie doctrine, alien tort had a lively late summer. From August 14 to August 23, while defense lawyers frolicked in the Hamptons and human rights lawyers at the Jersey Shore, U.S. judges handed down no fewer than five post-Kiobel rulings. And although alien tort plaintiffs see four rays of hope, their most ambitious claim of all took a stake through the heart.
Kiobel limited the Alien Tort Statute’s reach to actions that “touch and concern the territory of the United States…with sufficient force.” Applying this standard in Sexual Minorities Uganda v. Lively, a Boston judge was satisfied by allegations that the defendant coordinated from the U.S. a Ugandan persecution campaign against gay rights activists (in the court’s words, maintaining “a kind of 'Homophobia Central' in Springfield, Massachusetts)." The initial interpretations of "touch and concern" have been all over the map—for an earlier plaintiff-friendly result, see the al Qaeda embassy bombing case—and appeals are pending in the Fourth, Ninth, and Eleventh Circuits.
