## Facts

- U.S. citizen plaintiffs and organizations living in or connected to Nicaragua alleged physical and economic injuries arising from the conflict in Nicaragua.
- Plaintiffs challenged U.S. executive actions supporting and funding the Nicaraguan contras.
- Plaintiffs relied on an International Court of Justice judgment concluding U.S. support for contra military activities violated international law and a treaty obligation, and that the United States had a duty to cease such support.
- After the ICJ judgment, the President requested, and Congress approved, continued funding for the contras; the United States also opposed efforts in the U.N. Security Council to enforce the ICJ decision.
- Plaintiffs sought declaratory and injunctive relief, asserting violations of the Administrative Procedure Act, the First and Fifth Amendments, Article 94 of the U.N. Charter, customary international law, and asserted *jus cogens* norms.
- The district court dismissed the case as presenting a nonjusticiable political question.

## Issues

1. Whether challenges to U.S. foreign-policy funding decisions were barred as a political question.
2. Whether Article 94 of the U.N. Charter, customary international law, or asserted *jus cogens* norms provided a domestic cause of action to enforce an ICJ judgment in U.S. courts.
3. Whether a federal statute authorizing contra funding controlled domestically despite alleged conflicts with earlier treaty obligations or customary international law.
4. Whether plaintiffs stated a Fifth Amendment due process claim based on alleged injuries from U.S. support of the contras.

## Decision

- The D.C. Circuit affirmed dismissal, but rejected the district court’s blanket reliance on the political question doctrine.
- The court held plaintiffs failed to state a claim for relief because Congress’s funding authorization controlled domestically over contrary international-law obligations.
- The court held private parties lacked a right of action to enforce ICJ judgments or to compel U.S. compliance through Article 94 of the U.N. Charter.
- The court rejected the argument that *jus cogens* required domestic enforcement of the ICJ judgment, particularly where the ICJ’s jurisdiction was disputed.
- The court held the Fifth Amendment claim failed because plaintiffs did not plausibly show causation attributable to U.S. support and did not show intentional or arbitrary government action sufficient for due process liability.

## Legal Principles

- Foreign-affairs subject matter does not automatically render a case nonjusticiable; courts may adjudicate legal questions even when politically sensitive.
- A later-in-time federal statute prevails domestically over inconsistent earlier treaty obligations; clear congressional enactments also displace contrary customary international law in domestic litigation.
- ICJ judgments and Article 94 obligations operate between states and do not, without implementing legislation, create privately enforceable rights or a private cause of action in U.S. courts.
- The asserted peremptory character of certain international norms does not convert an ICJ judgment into a self-executing domestic rule enforceable by private litigants.
- Fifth Amendment due process claims require plausible traceability of injury to governmental action and government conduct that is intentionally injurious or sufficiently arbitrary; indirect harms from foreign conflict are generally insufficient.

## Conclusion

The D.C. Circuit affirmed dismissal because domestic law provided no vehicle for private plaintiffs to enforce an ICJ judgment or alleged international-law violations against U.S. foreign-aid decisions, and because the plaintiffs’ due process theory failed for lack of causation and culpable governmental conduct.


Comm. of U.S. Citizens Living in Nicaragua v. Reagan, 859 F.2d 929 (D.C. Cir. 1988)