## Facts

- Belzec was a Nazi extermination camp in Poland where approximately 600,000 Jews were murdered and buried in mass pits.
- A Polish governmental entity and the American Jewish Committee (AJC) agreed to construct a Holocaust memorial at the Belzec site, including a plan to dig a trench through part of the former camp using heavy machinery.
- AJC arranged for rabbinic supervision intended to ensure compliance with Jewish burial law during construction.
- Rabbi Avi Weiss (a U.S. citizen and descendant of victims) alleged the trench would desecrate human remains; during a site visit he observed heavy equipment and other items on soil containing human-bone shards and alleged no rabbinic representative was present.
- Weiss asserted New York state-law claims for intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress based on alleged disturbance of his relatives’ remains.
- Rosa Sacharin (a U.K. citizen and descendant of victims) brought a claim under the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA), alleging the construction violated Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions and the ICCPR.
- The case was filed in New York state court, removed to federal court based on the ATCA claim, and plaintiffs sought a preliminary injunction to stop construction while AJC moved to dismiss.

## Issues

1. Whether alleged disturbance of Holocaust victims’ remains during memorial construction states a claim under the ATCA as a tort committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States.
2. If the ATCA claim is dismissed, whether the federal court should exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the remaining New York emotional-distress claims.

## Decision

- The court granted AJC’s motion to dismiss the ATCA claim for failure to state a cognizable violation of the law of nations or a treaty enforceable through § 1350.
- The court held the cited treaty provisions did not supply a sufficiently definite, universally accepted norm applicable to the conduct alleged, and did not create a privately enforceable right in these circumstances.
- After dismissing the only federal claim, the court declined supplemental jurisdiction over the state-law claims and dismissed them without prejudice.
- The court denied the motion for a preliminary injunction because the claims supporting injunctive relief were dismissed.

## Legal Principles

- The ATCA is jurisdictional and permits only a narrow set of claims based on specific, universal, and obligatory norms of customary international law or on an enforceable treaty obligation.
- Allegations invoking international instruments do not suffice unless they reflect a clearly defined and widely accepted norm that supports a judicially manageable cause of action under § 1350.
- Treaty provisions framed as state obligations, or understood as non-self-executing, generally do not create private rights of action in U.S. courts absent implementing legislation.
- Conduct tied to government-approved memorial construction decades after wartime events, involving a private organization’s participation and funding, was not treated as the kind of universally condemned abuse (e.g., war crimes-type conduct) that supports ATCA liability.
- When all claims over which the court has original jurisdiction are dismissed, a district court may decline supplemental jurisdiction over remaining state-law claims and dismiss them without prejudice.

## Conclusion

The court dismissed the ATCA claim because the alleged disturbance of remains during memorial construction did not amount to a violation of a sufficiently specific and universally accepted norm of international law or an enforceable treaty obligation, and it dismissed the state tort claims without prejudice after declining supplemental jurisdiction.


Weiss v. Am. Jewish Comm., 335 F. Supp. 2d 469 (S.D.N.Y. 2004)