The Haitian Refugee Litigation: A Case Study in Transnational Public Law Litigation
- Following the 1991 coup, the Coast Guard interdicted fleeing Haitians at sea and returned those screened out while taking screened-in Haitians to Guantanamo.
- About 3,000 Haitians were held at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay in early 1992, virtually all found to have credible fears of political persecution.
- A preliminary injunction giving screened-in Haitians a right to counsel was stayed by the Supreme Court by a vote of five to four, and about eighty-nine clients were returned to Haiti the next morning.
- The litigation went to the Second Circuit six times and the Supreme Court eight times, according to the author.
- On June 21, 1993 the Supreme Court upheld the forced-return policy by a vote of eight to one, accepting the government's position that neither the Refugee Act nor the Refugee Convention required ending it.
Koh, a Yale law professor and counsel of record for the Haitian refugees, recounts the litigation from its origin at the Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic through the Supreme Court. After the 1991 coup, boatloads of Haitians were interdicted at sea and those screened in were held at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay. He describes three phases: a preliminary injunction giving screened-in Haitians a right to counsel, which the Supreme Court stayed by a vote of five to four; a challenge to the forced return of all Haitians interdicted at sea under President Bush's May 1992 order; and a bench trial on holding screened-in Haitians because of suspected HIV infection.
The Supreme Court upheld the forced-return policy on June 21, 1993 by a vote of eight to one. The lecture is an advocate's account, framed as an example of transnational public law litigation, and ends with lessons drawn from the case.
How to cite
Maryland Journal of International Law, 1994, The Haitian Refugee Litigation: A Case Study in Transnational Public Law Litigation, http://digitalcommons.law.umaryland.edu/mjil/vol18/iss1/3
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- Maryland Journal of International Law