Abstract

U.S. federal court decision of Filartiga v. Pena-Irala, gave federal courts jurisdiction to hear torts claims for certain human rights violations committed outside the United States, regardless of the nationality of the parties, under the previously Alien Tort Claims Act of 1789. Richard Alan White, an American historian, has written his own account of the Filartiga case in Breaking Silence: The Case that Changed the Face of Human Rights. As a former anti-Vietnam War protester and organizer, White discusses his efforts to build an international coalition of Filartiga supporters, among them Amnesty International, the U.S. State Department, and thousands of private citizens whose influence slowly accreted into a powerful human rights case that governments cannot ignore anymore.