## Facts

- Jewish survivors and heirs, all U.S. citizens, filed a putative worldwide class action seeking compensatory and punitive damages for WWII-era persecution of Jews in Yugoslavia.
- Plaintiffs alleged that after the German invasion, the “Independent State of Croatia” operated as a German-controlled regime that adopted and enforced anti-Jewish policies.
- The defendant, a former Croatian official (Commissioner of Public Security/Internal Administration and later Minister of the Interior), allegedly supervised and implemented anti-Jewish measures.
- Alleged conduct included enactment of anti-Jewish legislation, seizure of Jewish property, and imprisonment and execution of tens of thousands of Jewish civilians.
- Plaintiffs alleged the defendant fled Europe in 1945, entered the United States in 1949, and remained despite earlier immigration proceedings.
- Plaintiffs asserted causes of action based on (1) the 1907 Hague Convention, (2) the 1929 Geneva Convention, (3) customary international law prohibitions on war crimes and crimes against humanity, and (4) specified provisions of the Yugoslav Criminal Code.
- The case came before the district court on the defendant’s motion to dismiss; the court accepted the complaint’s factual allegations as true for that purpose.

## Issues

1. Whether the Hague Convention, the Geneva Convention, or customary international law norms against war crimes and crimes against humanity supply a private civil cause of action for damages in federal court absent implementing legislation.
2. Whether provisions of the Yugoslav Criminal Code can serve as the basis for a civil damages claim in a U.S. federal court.
3. Whether the claims were barred by statutes of limitation or related time-bar doctrines.

## Decision

- The court granted the motion to dismiss and dismissed all causes of action.
- It held that the Hague and Geneva Conventions, as pleaded, did not create private rights of action for civil damages against an alleged war criminal.
- It held that customary international law norms invoked by plaintiffs did not, without congressional authorization, provide a freestanding federal damages remedy.
- It rejected reliance on Yugoslav criminal statutes as a source of civil liability enforceable in this forum.
- As an independent basis, it ruled the claims were time-barred given the decades between the alleged conduct and the filing of suit.

## Legal Principles

- Treaties generally do not create privately enforceable damages remedies in U.S. courts absent clear intent or implementing legislation.
- Federal courts should not create new, general damages actions for international law violations without statutory authorization, particularly where foreign affairs concerns are implicated.
- Foreign criminal statutes do not, by their nature, supply civil causes of action in U.S. federal court merely because they are pleaded as a liability standard.
- Civil claims based on historical wartime conduct are subject to statutes of limitation; extreme allegations do not alone justify decades-long tolling without a recognized legal basis.

## Conclusion

The district court dismissed a civil damages class action arising from WWII atrocities, concluding that the pleaded treaties and customary international law did not furnish a private federal remedy, Yugoslav criminal provisions could not be repurposed as civil causes of action, and the claims were independently barred by limitations.


Handel v. Artukovic, 601 F. Supp. 1421 (C.D. Cal. 1985)