Weiss v. American Jewish Committee

Between March 1942 and March 1943, 600,000 Jews were transported to the Belzec death camp in Poland, executed in gas chambers, and dumped into mass pits. That spring, the Nazis, seeking to destroy the evidence, removed and cremated the bodies and dumped the remains back into the pits. In 2003, the American Jewish Committee (AJC) (defendant) and a Polish agency agreed to construct a memorial on the site. The plans involved digging a trench with large machinery. The AJC arranged for rabbinic supervision to ensure compliance with Jewish law governing the treatment of human remains. Rabbi Avi Weiss and Rosa Sacharin (plaintiffs) were descendants of Jews murdered in Belzec. Weiss was concerned that digging the trench would violate Jewish law and further desecrate the remains. Weiss visited the site and saw cranes, trucks, bulldozers, a dog, garbage, and a portable toilet on soil containing human-bone shards. No rabbinic representative was present. Weiss and Sacharin sued in New York state court, seeking to stop the construction. Weiss asserted state-law claims for intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress based on the displacement of his family’s remains. Sacharin, a United Kingdom citizen, asserted a federal claim under the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA), which gave district courts jurisdiction over actions brought by aliens for torts committed in violation of international law or a United States treaty. Sacharin claimed that the displacement of her brother’s remains violated (1) the Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 (protocol), which provided that the remains of those who died as a result of hostilities should be respected and their gravesites maintained and marked; and (2) the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which provided that privacy and family should not be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference, the family was entitled to societal and state protection, and ethnic, religious, and linguistic minorities were entitled to enjoy their culture, practice their religion, and use their language. The AJC removed the case to federal court and moved to dismiss, arguing that Sacharin failed to state a claim under the ATCA.