why haven’t African Americans been able to receive redress for the effects of “slavery, legal segregation and continuing discrimination” through adjudication or the legislative process??

In litigating redress claims, plaintiffs have often relied on a combination of domestic tort and contract law in addition to international human rights law. However, this method of achieving redress has led to mixed results. For example, Jewish Holocaust victims have been relatively successful in achieving redress through the settlement of legal claims. Holocaust era settlements from U.S. based litigation have totaled over $8 billion. Similarly, Japanese internment victims have also achieved redress in the form of $1.2 billion in reparations. Although the legal claims of Japanese internment victims were dismissed on procedural grounds, legislative action resulted in monetary reparations, a presidential apology, and a public education campaign. African-Americans, meanwhile, have pled both domestic and international law claims and have yet to receive redress for slavery either through adjudication or the legislative process.

Because there is no formal law of reparations, many plaintiffs have looked to the Jewish Holocaust and Japanese-American internment redress movements for guidance. However, the drastically different outcomes of these redress movements has led some scholars to speculate that redress cases may have more to do with political motivations than legal interpretations.

Source: Shelley Buchanan, Questioning the Political Question Doctrine: Inconsistent Applications in Reparations and Alien Tort Claims Act Litigation, 17 Cardozo J. Int’l & Comp. L. 345, 363, 2009.

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