Justia International Law Opinion Summaries

Petitioner served as the personal assistant and public-relations secretary to Usama bin Laden, the leader of al Qaeda and mastermind of the 9/11 terrorist attack against the United States. Members of a military commission convicted Petitioner of conspiracy to commit war crimes, providing material support for terrorism, and solicitation of others to commit war crimes. The members sentenced Petitioner to imprisonment for life, and the U.S. Court of Military Commission Review (“CMCR”) affirmed. On Petitioner’s first appeal to the DC Circuit, the court upheld the conspiracy charge but vacated the other convictions as unconstitutional under the Ex Post Facto Clause. The CMCR subsequently reaffirmed Petitioner’s remaining conspiracy conviction and life sentence twice. Petitioner asked the court to vacate his conspiracy conviction or, alternatively, to remand his case for resentencing by military commission members.   The DC Circuit denied the petition. The court explained that Petitioner could have raised the change in law, or other similar objections, in his initial appeal to the CMCR or during the extensive proceedings since then. He did not. On the most recent remand to the CMCR, he questioned the admissibility of the statements in his opening brief but did not argue that Section 948r barred their admission until his reply. Accordingly, the court wrote that it declined to revisit its prior ruling that the convening authority is an inferior officer because the intervening Supreme Court case cited by Petitioner does not clearly dictate a departure from the circuit’s precedent. The court also upheld his sentence of life imprisonment. View "Ali Hamza Ahmad al Bahlul v. USA" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs are U.S. service members wounded in terrorist attacks in Iraq and the families and estates of service members killed in such attacks. They appealed from the dismissal of their claims under the Antiterrorism Act (the “ATA”) as amended by the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (the “JASTA”), against various financial institutions in the United States and abroad (the “Banks”). As relevant to this appeal, Plaintiffs alleged that the Banks conspired with and aided and abetted Iranian entities to circumvent sanctions imposed by the United States and channel funds to terrorist groups that killed or injured U.S. service members. The district court dismissed Plaintiffs’ JASTA conspiracy claims primarily because Plaintiffs failed to plausibly plead a direct connection between the Banks and the terrorist groups. The district court also declined to consider Plaintiffs’ JASTA aiding-and-abetting claims because they were raised for the first time in Plaintiffs’ motion for reconsideration.   The Second Circuit explained that while it disagreed with the district court’s primary reason for dismissing Plaintiffs’ JASTA conspiracy claims, it affirmed the district court’s judgment because Plaintiffs failed to adequately allege that the Banks conspired – either directly or indirectly – with the terrorist groups, or that the terrorist attacks that killed or injured the service members were in furtherance of the alleged conspiracy to circumvent U.S. sanctions. The court agreed with the district court that Plaintiffs forfeited their JASTA aiding-and-abetting claims by raising them for the first time in a motion for reconsideration. View "Freeman v. HSBC Holdings PLC" on Justia Law

Sharifi alleges the U.S. Army took his land when it built Combat Outpost Millet in Afghanistan in 2010. The government asserted that Sharifi’s Fifth Amendment complaint was “vague and ambiguous” because it did not specifically identify the property interest that the government allegedly took, that Sharifi had not provided a legal description of the land, a deed, or other documents that would allow the government to identify the location. The Claims Court instructed Sharifi to file an amended complaint. Sharifi alleged that government records, verified by the District Governor of Arghandab, showed that his grandfather owned the land on which the Army built COP Millet: Ownership of the land passed to Sharifi and his siblings, who subdivided the land by a 2004 inheritance agreement. The government submitted six declarations, including several witness declarations and an expert declaration on Afghan law. The Claims Court dismissed Sharifi’s amended complaint for failure to show a cognizable property interest.The Federal Circuit affirmed. The government records attached to Sharifi’s amended complaint and the 2004 inheritance agreement do not constitute proof of land ownership under the laws of Afghanistan. Even accepting as true all factual allegations in Sharifi’s amended complaint, the amended complaint does not contain sufficient facts to state a plausible takings claim. View "Sharifi v. United States" on Justia Law

In 2009, U.S. Army Specialist Schaefer was killed by a roadside bomb while serving a tour of duty in Iraq. Those directly responsible for such attacks are often unidentifiable or beyond the reach of a court’s personal jurisdiction. Secondary actors, such as the organizations that fund the terrorists, are often amorphous. Despite Congress’s effort to make state sponsors of terrorism accountable in U.S. courts (28 U.S.C. 1605A) any resulting judgment may be uncollectible. Spc. Schaefer’s mother claimed that the bomb that killed her son was a signature Iranian weapon that traveled from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps to Hezbollah to Iraqi militias, who then placed it in the ground and that Deutsche Bank, a German entity with U.S. affiliates, is responsible for her son’s death under the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA), 18 U.S.C. 2333. She argued that the Bank joined an Iranian conspiracy to commit acts of terror when it instituted procedures to evade U.S. sanctions and facilitate Iranian banking transactions. The Seventh Circuit affirmed dismissal of her suit, which “failed to plead facts that plausibly indicated that Deutsche Bank’s actions caused her son’s death.” The Bank’s conduct was not “violent” or “dangerous to human life” as the ATA requires, nor did it display the terroristic intent. To the extent Deutsche Bank joined any conspiracy, it joined only a conspiracy to avoid sanctions, distinct from any of Iran’s terrorism-related goals. View "Kemper v. Deutsche Bank AG" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs sought a declaratory judgment stating that their family members were killed in the course of a U.S. drone attack in violation of international law governing the use of force, the Torture Victim Protection Act (TVPA), and the Alien Tort Statute (ATS). The district court dismissed the claims primarily based on political question grounds. The DC Circuit affirmed and held that it was not the role of the Judiciary to second-guess the determination of the Executive, in coordination with the Legislature, that the interests of the U.S. called for a particular military action in the ongoing War on Terror. In this case, El-Shifa Pharmaceutical Industries Co. v. United States, 607 F.3d 836 (D.C. Cir. 2010), controlled the court's analysis and compelled dismissal of plaintiffs' claims. View "Bin Ali Jaber v. United States" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, who had endured many hardships in 2003 while trying to leave Baghdad, alleged, in a purported class action, that former officials of the President George W. Bush administration engaged in the war against Iraq in violation of the Alien Tort Statute, 28 U.S.C. 1350. The district court held that plaintiff had not exhausted her administrative remedies as required by the Federal Tort Claims Act. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the dismissal, holding that the individual defendants were entitled to official immunity under the Westfall Act, 28 U.S.C. 2679(d)(1), which accords federal employees immunity from common-law tort claims for acts undertaken in the course of their official duties. The court upheld the Attorney General’s scope certification (determining that the employees were acting within the scope of their employment so that the action was one against the United States). The court rejected an argument that defendants could not be immune under the Westfall Act because plaintiff alleged violations of a jus cogens norm of international law from which no derogation is permitted and which can be modified only by a subsequent norm of general international law. Congress can provide immunity for federal officers for jus cogens violations. View "Saleh v. Bush" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, foreign nationals, alleged that they were tortured and otherwise mistreated by American civilian and military personnel while detained at Abu Ghraib. CACI, a corporation domiciled in the United States, contracted with the United States to provide private interrogators to interrogate detainees at Abu Ghraib. Plaintiffs alleged that CACI employees instigated, directed, participated in, encouraged, and aided and abetted conduct towards detainees that clearly violated federal and international law. The court concluded that the Supreme Court's decision in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co. does not foreclose plaintiffs' claims under the Alien Tort Statute, 28 U.S.C. 1350, and that the district court erred in reaching a contrary conclusion. In light of Kiobel, the court held that plaintiffs' claims "touch and concern" the territory of the United States with sufficient force to displace the presumption against extraterritorial application of the Alien Tort Statute. Because the court was unable to determine whether the claims presented nonjusticiable political questions, the court did not reach the additional issue of the district court's dismissal of plaintiffs' common law claims. The court vacated the district court's judgment with respect to all plaintiffs' claims and remanded. View "Al Shimari v. CACI Premier Technology, Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a noncitizen "enemy combatant" undergoing proceedings before a military commission at Guatanamo Bay, sought a declaratory judgment that the commission lacked jurisdiction to hear the charges against him because the alleged acts occurred in Yemen, where he argued no war or hostilities existed in 2000 or 2002. The court held, pursuant to Hamad v. Gates, that Section 7 of the Military Commissions Act, 28 U.S.C. 2241(e), deprived the district court of subject matter jurisdiction. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's dismissal of plaintiff's suit. The court rejected plaintiff’s claims challenging the constitutionality of the Act. View "Al-Nashiri v. MacDonald" on Justia Law

The FBI investigated Alwan, an Iraqi living in Bowling Green, after his fingerprints appeared on an improvised explosive device in Iraq, and introduced Alwan to a confidential source (CHS), who recorded their conversations. CHS convinced Alwan that he was part of a group supporting Jihad. Alwan assisted in sending what he believed to be money and weapons to the Mujahidin several times and eventually asked to lead the fictional terrorist cell. CHS instructed Alwan to recruit others. Hammadi agreed to join, stating that he had participated in IED attacks on American troops and had been arrested, but bribed his way free and fled to Syria. In Syria, he applied for refugee status to immigrate to the U.S. and answered “no” when asked if he had engaged in terrorist activity. Hammadi had moved to Bowling Green on the recommendation of Alwan, whose family he knew from Iraq and whom he had met in Syria. The two transported $100,000 from CHS to a truck, believing that it would find its way to Iraq, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 2339A. They hid rocket-propelled grenade launchers, machine guns, plastic explosives, and sniper rifles in another truck, for transport to terrorists, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 2339A and 2339B. They loaded Stinger missiles into another truck and plotted to murder a U.S. Army Captain. Hammadi pleaded guilty to 10 terrorism and two immigration offenses. Rejecting claims of entrapment and sentencing manipulation, the district court imposed a life sentence. The Sixth Circuit affirmed, noting that Hammadi would not qualify for a departure under either theory.View "United States v. Hammadi" on Justia Law

This case arose out of a contract entered into by Iraq's Ministry of Defense (IMOD) and Wye Oak for the refurbishment and disposal of Iraqi military equipment. At issue was whether, for purposes of analyzing subject matter jurisdiction under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA), 28 U.S.C. 1602-11, a foreign state and its armed forces were separate legal persons. The court concluded that, for jurisdictional purposes, they were not. Therefore, the court held that Wye Oak's claim against Iraq alleging breach of contract entered into by IMOD fell within the FSIA's commercial activities exception. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's denial of Iraq's motion to dismiss Wye Oak's claim for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. View "Wye Oak Technology, Inc. v. Republic of Iraq" on Justia Law