Alien Tort Statute

The U.S. Alien Tort Statute, short ATS, or Alien Tort Claims Act (about: law regulating foreign claims), short ATCA, specifies that claims which are based on the U.S. civil law, in U.S. can be negotiated and erklagt courts, even if the parties are not American nationality and are, did not take place on U.S. soil, the events that constitute the basis for a claim. However, this applies expressly only for violations of international law or a treaty in which the United States is one of the contractors. The original English text reads:

"The district courts have original jurisdiction of any Shall civil action by an alien for a tort only, committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States. "

The fact that neither place nor operators must have a relationship with the U.S., it is possible due to the ATCA in theory, any civil damage case in any country in the world to negotiate before a U.S. court or any civil action held before a local court bring them before a U.S. court, provided that a violation of international law or international treaties exists or at least is constructed successfully.

The ATCA was in 1789, so almost immediately after the U.S. government establishment, adopted. Worldwide attention was given the ATCA only when in the 1990s descendants of Holocaust victims and forced laborers in German National Socialism Germany and Austria as the legal successor of the Nazi regime and German corporations in U.S. courts sued and were awarded damages amounts in billions of dollars, although the majority of mourners was not residing in the United States. In the follow-up, were always organized by U.S. lawyers and initiated, such as lawsuits against Germany by the Herero people in Namibia ( set later), against Switzerland because of the amounts collected by Jewish gold and against German corporations such as Daimler- Chrysler because of the support of apartheid in South Africa submitted.

The ATCA awarded by the international jurisdiction of U.S. courts is excessive from a European perspective and in terms of international law at least questionable because of the massive intervention in foreign sovereignty. A judgment delivered on this basis, American judgment is likely due to the lack of recognition of responsibility ( § 328 paragraph 1 No. 1 ZPO) in Germany neither eligible for recognition nor enforceable (§ 723 para ZPO).