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

Abstract

Since 1993, more than 400 women have been murdered in Ciudad Judrez, Mexico. Few, if any of these crimes have been solved, largely because local Mexican officials have failed to adequately investigate them. This Article argues that femicide victims could hold those officials civilly liable as third parties for these femicides in U.S. federal courts under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS). Although aiding and abetting liability is the most common form of third-party liability sought in ATS cases, several high profile cases have challenged whether it should exist under the ATS. The author agrees with many courts and scholars that aiding and abetting liability should be sustained. However, the author argues that none of the previously proposed standards for aiding and abetting would reach the Mexican officials. Instead, the author proposes "acquiescence to torture" as an innovative form of third-party liability. Acquiescence to torture, as it has been defined in U.S. non-refoulement cases, would broaden the scope of the ATS to allow a suit against Mexican officials for their failure to adequately prevent or investigate the femicides in Ciudad Judrez.