Liability of Secondary Actors under the Alien Tort Statute: Aiding and Abetting and Acquiescence to Torture in the Context of the Femicides of Ciudad Juarez

The author argues that local officials who failed to adequately prevent and investigate femicides in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, could be held civilly liable in the U.S. under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS). International victims of human rights abuses have used the ATS to bring civil suits in U.S. courts against governmental officials and multinational corporations for a range of abuses. The author argues that aiding and abetting liability should be allowed to remain as a form of third-party liability available under the ATS, but would not be sufficient to hold the Mexican officials liable for their systematic violations of women's rights. Instead, the author proposes acquiescence to torture as an innovative form of third-party liability that would broaden the scope of the ATS and allow officials to be held liable for their failure to take reasonable steps to prevent and investigate femicides.

William Paul Simmons, Liability of Secondary Actors under the Alien Tort Statute: Aiding and Abetting and Acquiescence to Torture in the Context of the Femicides of Ciudad Juarez (2007) 10 Yale Human Rts & Dev LJ 88.