The “Haiti Paradigm” in United States Human Rights Policy

Abstract

Six years ago, I explained in these pages Why the President (Almost) Alvays Wins in Foreign Affairs. That article identified the recurrent patterns of executive activism, congressional passivity, and judicial tolerance that push Presidents successfully to press the limits of law in foreign affairs. Four years later, in Transnational Public Law Litigation, I applauded the turn by private litigants to United States courts to promote the observance of international human rights norms by foreign and United States government officials. In the Haitian refugee litigation, the theses of these two articles collided, yet both, ironically, came true.