The D.C. Circuit releases opinions on Tuesdays and Fridays. We read them all so you don’t have to. On Tuesday (Aug. 7), the court issued two opinions:
Al-Alwi v. Trump. Moath Hamza Ahmed Al-Alwi, a Yemeni citizen, was captured in December 2001 during American operations in Afghanistan and was detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where he remains to this day. He sought his release through a habeas petition and made two arguments: first, that “traditional law of war principles” no longer support the government’s authority to detain him, and second, that the hostilities in Afghanistan that initially provided authority for his detention have ended. The court rejected both arguments. Judge Henderson (joined by Chief Judge Garland and Judge Griffith) said the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force allows the government to detain enemy combatants for the duration of hostilities against the Taliban and al Qaeda, and although those hostilities have evolved, they remain ongoing. Full analysis of this case here.
Helmerich & Payne International Drilling Co. v. Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. In June 2010, former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez mobilized the Venezuelan National Guard to seize all of the assets of an American drilling company’s Venezuelan subsidiary. The parent and subsidiary sued Venezuela and two of its agencies. All three defendants claimed sovereign immunity. On remand from the Supreme Court, Judge Tatel (joined by Chief Judge Garland and Judge Sentelle) applied the “expropriation exception” to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, “which authorizes jurisdiction over a foreign state where rights in property taken in violation of international law are in issue,” and reasoned that the American parent company sufficiently alleged a taking of its ownership rights—generally protected by international custom—but the Venezuelan subsidiary failed to satisfy the expropriation exception’s requirements because a state’s seizure of its own national’s property is not typically a “violation of international law.” Judge Sentelle reluctantly concurred in the judgment but admitted “misgivings” about allowing the American parent’s claims to go forward.
