On a Hierarchy of International Human Rights

Abstract

The quest for a hierarchy of international human rights continues unabated, despite the impressive challenge raised by Professor Weil to the notion of “relative normativity” of international legal norms. To illustrate: in Tel-Oren v. Libyan Arab Republic , a suit brought under the (First) Judiciary Act of 1789, Judge Harry T. Edwards discussed whether torture, as distinguished from terrorism, “is among the handful of crimes to which the law of nations attributes individual [civil] responsibility.”