## Facts

- Federal inmates in California prisons worked in Bureau of Prisons job assignments, including Federal Prison Industries (UNICOR).
- The Bureau of Prisons and UNICOR set inmate wage rates substantially below market pay.
- The inmates alleged they were required to work for low wages and claimed entitlement to “fair wages.”
- They asserted the wage scheme violated the Fifth Amendment and purportedly enforceable international norms, including the ICCPR, the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, and customary international law.
- The district court dismissed the complaint for failure to state a judicially enforceable right to higher prison wages, and the inmates appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether the Fifth Amendment creates a judicially enforceable right for federal prisoners to receive compensation, or a particular level of compensation, for prison labor.
2. Whether the ICCPR or other asserted international standards create privately enforceable rights to higher prison wages in federal court absent implementing legislation.
3. Whether customary international law can supply a cause of action for higher prison wages, including through the Alien Tort Statute, and whether domestic prisoners can invoke that statute.

## Decision

- The Ninth Circuit affirmed the dismissal.
- The court held federal prisoners have no constitutional entitlement to compensation, or to any specific wage level, for prison work.
- The court held the ICCPR is not self-executing and, without congressional implementation, does not provide privately enforceable rights to higher prison wages.
- The court held the Standard Minimum Rules and similar instruments do not create binding, privately enforceable rights in U.S. courts.
- The court held the Alien Tort Statute was unavailable because the plaintiffs were not “aliens,” and the court declined to create an exception permitting domestic plaintiffs to sue under the statute.

## Legal Principles

- The Constitution does not provide prisoners a substantive entitlement to compensation for their prison labor.
- The Thirteenth Amendment’s exception for punishment following conviction permits compelled prison labor, undermining constitutional claims premised on forced work or low compensation.
- Non-self-executing treaties do not create privately enforceable rights in U.S. courts absent implementing legislation.
- Nonbinding international standards and guidelines do not, by themselves, furnish enforceable domestic rights.
- Customary international law claims for damages generally require a valid jurisdictional and remedial vehicle; the Alien Tort Statute is limited by its text to suits brought by aliens, and courts will not expand it where Congress has assigned wage-setting authority to the political branches.

## Conclusion

The Ninth Circuit concluded that federal prisoner wage rates are a matter committed to Congress and the executive branch, and that neither the Fifth Amendment nor the invoked sources of international law provided a judicially enforceable right to “fair wages” for prison labor.


Serra v. Lappin, 600 F.3d 1191 (9th Cir. 2010)