TITLE 28--JUDICIARY AND JUDICIAL PROCEDURE
PART IV--JURISDICTION AND VENUE
CHAPTER 85--DISTRICT COURTS; JURISDICTION
Sec. 1350. Alien's action for tort
The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of any civil action by an alien for a tort only, committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States.
(June 25, 1948, ch. 646, 62 Stat. 934.)
Torture Victim Protection Act
Pub. L. 102-256, Mar. 12, 1992, 106 Stat. 73, provided
that: ``SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
``This Act may be cited as the `Torture Victim Protection Act of 1991'.
``SEC. 2. ESTABLISHMENT OF CIVIL ACTION.
``(a) Liability.--An individual who, under actual or apparent
authority, or color of law, of any foreign nation--
``(1) subjects an individual to torture shall, in a civil action, be liable
for damages to that individual; or
``(2) subjects an individual to extrajudicial killing shall, in a civil
action, be liable for damages to the individual's legal representative,
or to any person who may be a claimant in an action for wrongful death.
``(b) Exhaustion of Remedies.--A court shall decline to hear a claim under this section if the claimant has not exhausted adequate and available remedies in the place in which the conduct giving rise to the claim occurred.
``(c) Statute of Limitations.--No action shall be maintained under this section unless it is commenced within 10 years after the cause of action arose.
``SEC. 3. DEFINITIONS.
``(a) Extrajudicial Killing.--For the purposes of this Act, the term `extrajudicial killing' means a deliberated killing not authorized by a previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples. Such term, however, does not include any such killing that, under international law, is lawfully carried out under the authority of a foreign nation.
``(b) Torture.--For the purposes of this Act--
``(1) the term `torture' means any act, directed against an individual in
the offender's custody or physical control, by which severe pain or suffering
(other than pain or suffering arising only from or inherent in, or incidental
to, lawful sanctions), whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted
on that individual for such purposes as obtaining from that individual or
a third person information or a confession, punishing that individual for
an act that individual or a third person has committed or is suspected of
having committed, intimidating or coercing that individual or a third person,
or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind; and
``(2) mental pain or suffering refers to prolonged mental harm caused by
or resulting from--
``(A) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical
pain or suffering;
``(B) the administration or application, or threatened administration or
application, of mind altering substances or other procedures calculated
to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality;
``(C) the threat of imminent death; or
``(D) the threat that another individual will imminently be subjected to
death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the administration or application
of mind altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly
the senses or personality.''
