Breaking Silence: The Case That Changed the Face of Human Rights (Advancing Human Rights) [Hardcover]

Richard Alan White (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1589010329 | ISBN-13: 978-1589010321 | Publication Date: September 2004

Young seventeen-year-old Joelito Filartiga was taken from his family home in Asuncion, Paraguay, brutally tortured, and murdered by the Paraguayan police. Breaking Silence is the inside story of the quest for justice by his father--the true target of the police--Paraguayan artist and philanthropist Dr. Joel Filartiga. That cruel death, and the subsequent uncompromising struggle by Joelito's father and family, led to an unprecedented sea change in international law and human rights. The author, Richard Alan White, first became acquainted with the Filartiga family in the mid -1970s while doing research for his dissertation on Paraguayan independence. Answering a distressed letter from Joelito's father, he returned to Paraguay and journeyed with the Filartiga family on their long and difficult road to redress. White gives the reader a compelling first-hand, participant-observer perspective, taking us into the family with him, to give witness to not only their agony and sorrow, but their resolute strength as well--strength that led to a groundbreaking $10 million legal decision in Filartiga v. Pena (Americo Norberto Pena-Irala was the Paraguayan police officer responsible for Joelito's abduction and murder, whom the Filartigas had arrested after finding him hiding in Brooklyn.) That landmark decision, based on the almost obscure Alien Tort Claims Act of 1789, ruled that U.S. courts could accept jurisdiction in international cases--recognizing the right of foreign human rights victims to sue--even though the alleged violation occurred in another country by a non-American and against a non-American. So fundamentally has the Filartiga precedent changed the landscape of international humanrights law, that it has served as the basis for nearly 100 progeny suits, and grown to encompass not only human rights abuses, but also violations of international environmental and labor rights law. Today, there are dozens of class action suits pending against corporate defendants ranging from oil conglomerates destroying the Amazon rainforest to designer clothing companies running sweatshops abroad. Breaking Silence is a remarkable, consuming story, documenting not only the most celebrated case in the international human rights field--but also the tragic and touchingly human story behind it that gives it life. In 2001, Dr. Filartiga was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and the Alien Tort Claims Act continues to be hotly debated among politicians and lawmakers.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Breaking Silence offers a unique, personal insight into the family behind the most important human rights case in modern U.S. legal history. What happened to the Filartigas, and what they did with their family tragedy, invokes simultaneous emotions of sadness, heartbreak and outrage, but also hope, inspiration and admiration for the courage of the people and the creativity of the lawyers behind this groundbreaking lawsuit. Ultimately, this important book shows that anything can happen when you combine the power of law and the power of people. It is a must read for anyone who thinks that the powers they are challenging are just too powerful--sometimes, just sometimes, there is justice and the good guy does win."

About the Author

RICHARD ALAN WHITE is a Senior Fellow at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs and a former consultant on Latin American affairs for ABC World News. He has worked for Amnesty International, and is the author of The Morass: United States Intervention in Central America and Paraguay's Autonomous Revolution: 1810-1840.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 300 pages
• Publisher: Georgetown University Press (September 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1589010329
• ISBN-13: 978-1589010321
• Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 7.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,887,497 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #46 in Books > History > Americas > South America > Paraguay

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Customer Reviews

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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Filartiga Landmark Case, December 13, 2004

By 

Richard Claude "Founding Editor, Human Rights... (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Breaking Silence: The Case That Changed the Face of Human Rights (Advancing Human Rights) (Hardcover)

Breaking Silence, The Case That Changed The Face of Human Rights, by Richard Alan White, (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2004), 320 pp.
[ISBN 1-58901-032-0]

This is a book about a landmark international law case written from a participant-observer point of view by an historian who was involved in a human rights tragedy at every stage of its development. The focal point of the book is the important case of Filártiga v. Pena-Irala [630 F.2d 876, 2d Cir.,1980] which for the first time, imported internationally defined human rights norms into U.S. jurisprudence.

The author is a Senior Fellow of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs (Washington, DC) who was conducting research in 1976 on Paraguay's history where he befriended the family of Dr. Joel Filártiga in Asunción. White explains, "As a trained historian, I happened to be on the scene before, during and after what turned out to be an historical event," acknowledging "these improbable circumstances" enabled him to detail the physician's courageous saga taking him and his family from one end to another of the Western Hemisphere. For the many lawyers, students and activists who are familiar with the famous ruling by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in 1980 and for those not so informed, the author's objective is to present the human in "human rights law" by providing the reader with a riveting account of the case of Filártiga v. Pena-Irala, now routinely appearing in human rights and international law textbooks.

The Filártiga principle, as now understood, stands for the proposition that torture is a tort within the meaning of U.S. law informed by the standards of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a component of international customary law. As such, the Alien Tort Claims Act, part of the first judiciary Act of 1789, applies so as to authorize civil law suits by an alien residing in the United States against another alien for torture, recognized as among the most serious of all human rights violations. As a result, deposed dictators, death squad leaders, rapists and torturers from overseas should expect no safe haven from the reach of civil justice in the United States.

Joelito Filártiga was the 17 year old son of an internationally famous physician, Dr. Joel Filártiga who ran (and still runs) a clinic for the 50,000 campasinos in the Ybycuí Valley, Paraguay. Because, in the 1970s, he routinely gave free medical care to the poor he came under suspicion by the right wing dictatorship then in power in that small landlocked "Southern Cone" country. The physician further provoked the government of General Alfredo Stroessner by publicly speaking with admiration of Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that "Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care...."

Ironically it was the doctor's innocent only son who suffered most at the hands of the dictatorship. Because Dr. Filártiga was an outspoken critic of the government's derelict public health policy, officials suspected him of subversive activities and left-wing connections. In 1976, young Joelito was abducted by police Inspector Américo Peña, who assumed the boy could be forced to betray his father. Instead, he died of cardiac arrest during the hideous torture interrogation. Thereafter, Dr. Filártiga and his family cooperated with Amnesty International human rights workers in Paraguay. Richard Alan White, then visiting in his capacity as an historian from the University of California, Los Angeles documented the case and transmitted information about the politically motivated torture-murder to Amnesty .International's research headquarters in London. The Amnesty Secretariat and its medical officer took an interest in the murdered boy's case under its mandate to act on behalf of those prisoners of conscience who suffer torture in violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The author makes clear that Amnesty International (AI) double checked the facts, making sure that the Filártigas were not advocates of violence, that the boy was taken as a prisoner of conscience and tortured for political reasons. Relying on White's reports from Paraguay, AI then organized a worldwide campaign, issuing reports and urgent action memos calling on members to pressure the Paraguayan and other governments to take action. Soon afterwards, the dictator buckled under the intense international outcry and suspended Peña. While visiting the United States, Dr. Filártiga and his daughter Dolly traced the policeman responsible for the murder of Joelito to New York where he was apprehended by Immigration authorities. Thereafter, Dolly Filártiga and her father filed a wrongful death action in federal district court under the Alien Tort Claims Act , alleging that in 1976 Peña-Irala kidnaped and tortured to death Joelito Filártiga, the physician's seventeen-year-old son. The district court dismissed the Filártigas' complaint for lack of "subject matter jurisdiction." White fully describes the proceedings and his interviews with the principals clearly enliven the case.

The court of appeals reversed, recognizing the emergence of a universal consensus that international law affords substantive rights to individuals and places limits on a state's treatment of its citizens. From these circumstances, the landmark case of Filártiga v. Peña emerged, marking for the first time a U.S. Federal Court accepting jurisdiction in a civil suit against torture committed in a foreign country. Peña's responsibility for the human rights offense supplied the basis on which the court ruled that officially sanctioned torture is a violation of international law [Filártiga, 630 F.2d at 884]. In a classical formulation, the Court said: "Like the pirate and slave trader before him, the torturer has become the enemy of all mankind." In considering the award of damages in the Filártiga's civil suit against Peña, four medical specialists --physicians and psychiatrists- presented expert testimony on the effects of torture on family survivors. In 1984, Judge Eugene Nickerson announced a total judgment against the defendant amounting to $10,385 million [ Filártiga v. Peña, 577 F. Supp.860 (1984)]. The Filártiga case has become important as a precedent, having many progeny cases, including some directed at corporations said to be responsible for human rights violations, hence the current concern of Washington policy-makers. [Linda Greenhouse, "Justices Hear Case About Foreigner's Use of Federal Courts," New York Times, March 31, 2004]

Breaking Silence should be considered for assigned reading and use in diverse fields of study. For students of public policy and political science classes, the volume provides deep context for understanding the posture of the George W. Bush Administration seeking to curb the precedent value of the Filartiga principle, alleging it potentially hinders the U.S. conduct of foreign policy, but more particularly hampers U.S.-based multinational corporations' operations in developing countries. Exxon Mobil, Shell, Unocol Corporation, etc., in their overseas work (respectively Indonesia, Nigeria, Myanmar/Burma) have demanded government security forces to protect their facilities but have unaccountably turned a blind eye when these same police use torture, extra-legal killings, and (in the case of Burma) the recruitment of slave labor. [For information about the on-going campaign to preserve the Alien Tort Claims Act, see: www.nosafehaven.org]

In addition to being a useful supplementary reading for courses on international law, global politics, human rights, political science, social ethics, current history, and Latin American affairs, the book also has promise for courses on international public health. Medical professionals should have an interest in this case because torture victims daily turn up in 25 clinics around the USA dealing with torture survivor issues, especially among immigrants from current and former dictatorships. For them and those treating them, White's book showcases the tenacity of a victimized family in their effort to restore their faith that some touch of justice is attainable in society. Clinicians report that the act of victims' and their loved ones breaking silence is an important step toward healing. Moreover, health professionals will recognize in Dr. Filartiga's struggle the interconnections between human rights and doctors' needs to assess their own and their government's shortcomings by the standards of the right to health and medical care.

White's book merits inclusion among thought-provoking works of humanistic literature. To clarify why the Filártiga family could not secure justice in Paraguay, the author's use of dialogue and dramatic action are worth sampling here as typical of his writing style. He explains that once proceedings in Paraguay were shown to be hopeless and after the Filártiga law suit in the United States commenced, President Stroessner sent an emissary named Martínez Mesa to the physician's clinic. The dictator's interlocutor told Dr. Filártiga:

"I have come with an offer of comfort for you and your family. The government is under a lot of pressure and desires to find a solution for your situation. There were six people who killed Joelito, and we are prepared to deliver you their corpses. All of them. We only ask that you drop... Read more ›

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fascinating tale of courage., December 9, 2004

By 

Maggie Dix "Cover Artist" (Eastern Shore of MD) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Breaking Silence: The Case That Changed the Face of Human Rights (Advancing Human Rights) (Hardcover)

My heart goes out to the Filartiga family. Their courage is an inspiration and the legal case is important not just to them, but to everyone no matter where they live.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Unique, an absolutely superb book!!!, June 26, 2005

By 

Michele Burgess (Huntington Beach, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Breaking Silence: The Case That Changed the Face of Human Rights (Advancing Human Rights) (Hardcover)

Outstanding!!!! Extremely readable, educational, thought-provoking, inspirational, a mystery -- everything rolled into one. Having been in Asuncion with the author shortly after Joelito's murder, I can personally attest to the horror of this tragedy and its effect on the Filartiga family. My mother read the book, too, and liked it so much that she wants to join my Paraguay/Uruguay tour next year. I'll definitely put "Breaking Silence" on the recommended reading list for that trip.