## Facts

- Iraqi and Afghan nationals who had been detained by U.S. military forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, and later released without criminal charges, sued senior U.S. defense officials and military officers.
- Plaintiffs alleged they were subjected in custody to torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment, including severe beatings, sexual assault and humiliation, sleep deprivation enforced by violence, deprivation of food/water/medical care, exposure to extreme temperatures, and mock executions and death threats.
- Plaintiffs sought damages and declaratory relief under: (a) implied constitutional causes of action for alleged Fifth and Eighth Amendment violations, (b) the Alien Tort Statute (ATS) based on alleged law-of-nations violations, and (c) the Third and Fourth Geneva Conventions.
- The cases were consolidated in a multidistrict proceeding in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
- Defendants moved to dismiss under Rules 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6), asserting, among other defenses, qualified immunity, Westfall Act substitution/immunity, and lack of a privately enforceable treaty cause of action.

## Issues

1. Whether to recognize a Bivens damages remedy for foreign nationals’ constitutional claims arising from overseas wartime detention and interrogation by U.S. forces.
2. Whether the individual defendants were entitled to qualified immunity on the constitutional claims because any relevant constitutional rights were not clearly established in this context.
3. Whether the Westfall Act required substitution of the United States and barred damages claims against individual federal officials based on alleged international-law violations pleaded through the ATS.
4. Whether the Geneva Conventions are self-executing and confer a privately enforceable right of action for damages.
5. Whether plaintiffs had standing to seek declaratory relief.

## Decision

- The court granted the motions to dismiss in full and dismissed all claims.
- The court declined to extend Bivens to claims challenging wartime detention and interrogation policies and conduct occurring abroad.
- The court held defendants were entitled to qualified immunity on the constitutional claims.
- The court treated the international-law/ATS-based damages claims as barred by Westfall Act immunity (with the United States as the exclusive defendant under FTCA principles), eliminating personal-capacity liability.
- The court dismissed the Geneva Conventions claims, concluding the treaties were not privately enforceable in this setting.
- The court dismissed the declaratory-relief claim for lack of standing.

## Legal Principles

- Courts generally will not create a new Bivens remedy where “special factors” counsel hesitation, including claims that would require judicial intrusion into military operations, foreign affairs, and national-security decisionmaking during armed conflict.
- Qualified immunity bars damages claims against officials unless the asserted constitutional right was clearly established at the time; uncertainty about extraterritorial constitutional protections for nonresident aliens detained abroad supports immunity.
- The Westfall Act provides federal employees acting within the scope of employment absolute immunity from tort-based claims, requiring substitution of the United States and channeling relief, if any, through the FTCA’s limited waiver of sovereign immunity.
- The ATS supplies jurisdiction and does not itself create a general damages cause of action that defeats applicable federal immunities; international-law allegations framed as tort claims remain subject to Westfall Act substitution.
- Treaties that are non-self-executing, and that lack implementing legislation creating an individual remedy, do not provide a private right of action for damages in federal court.
- Declaratory relief requires a live case or controversy; past detention and release, without a showing of likely future injury, defeats standing for forward-looking relief.

## Conclusion

The court dismissed detainees’ damages and declaratory claims against senior defense officials, refusing to extend Bivens into overseas wartime detention, finding qualified immunity on constitutional theories, applying Westfall Act immunity to international-law tort theories pleaded through the ATS, and holding the Geneva Conventions were not privately enforceable by individual detainees in this posture.


In re Iraq & Afghanistan Detainees Litig., 479 F. Supp. 2d 85 (D.D.C. 2007)