Human Rights and Civil Litigation in United States Courts: The Holocaust-Era Cases

Human rights are a serious matter. Unfortunately, in spite of half a century of improving the civil rights of individuals through treaties and customary international law, and despite increasing attention to those rights by both governments and scholars of international law and international relations, much remains to be done to prevent and punish even the most egregious violations of human dignity. Professor Neuborne's Article and the extensive briefs to which he repeatedly refers recap the atrocities committed by the German Nazi regime and ask uneasy but necessary questions about the Nazi regime's accomplices and their responsibility for what transpired in the death camps of Eastern Europe some sixty years ago. It invites one so inclined both to analyze some of the more controversial issues of class action litigation--particularly settlement--as well as the role of civil litigation in the U.S. courts within transnational society.

This article examines the role of civil litigation in American courts for purposes of enforcing international human rights law and the way in which such litigation affects the conduct of transnational procedure in general.