Torture Victim Protection Act (TVPA)

New Bill Would Amend the Alien Tort Statute to Apply Extraterritorially

Last week, Senators Dick Durbin and Sherrod Brown introduced a new bill, the Alien Tort Statute Clarification Act (ATSCA), that would amend the Alien Tort Statute (ATS) to apply extraterritorially. Since 1980, plaintiffs have relied on the ATS to bring international human rights claims in federal court against individuals and corporations. But since 2013, the…

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A Primer on Extraterritoriality

[Updated September 1, 2025] Extraterritoriality refers to the application of a state’s law beyond the state’s borders. Although the word “extraterritorial” often has negative connotations, international law permits a great deal of extraterritorial regulation. In a world where trade, information, crime, and lots of other things regularly cross borders, states often have an interest in…

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Ingrid (Wuerth) Brunk

Vanderbilt Law School
ingrid.brunk@vanderbilt.eduEmail

William Dodge

George Washington University Law School
william.dodge@law.gwu.eduEmail

Maggie Gardner

Cornell Law School
mgardner@cornell.eduEmail

John F. Coyle

University of North Carolina School of Law
jfcoyle@email.unc.eduEmail

Hannah Buxbaum

UC Davis School of Law
hbuxbaum@ucdavis.eduEmail

Harold Hongju Koh

Yale Law School
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Rachel Brewster

Duke Law School
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Marketa Trimble

William S. Boyd School of Law, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
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Anokhi Patel

Vanderbilt Law School
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Holden Bembry

Vanderbilt Law School
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Aaron D. Simowitz

Willamette University College of Law
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Wenliang Zhang

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Meng Yu

China University of Political Science and Law
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Alejandro Chehtman

Torcuato Di Tella Law School
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Andres de la Cruz

Universidad Torcuato di Tella
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