Schwebel was a key member of the U.S. State Department team that initiated and sought to influence, through an amicus brief, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in its hearing of the landmark case Filártiga v. Peña-Irala. In August 1979, two months before oral arguments at the Second Circuit, Schwebel, as Deputy Legal Adviser, contacted the Civil Rights Division in the Justice Department and expressed the U.S. State Department's desire for the Justice Department to take account of developments in international law, which firmly established that all natural persons are entitled to fundamental human rights. Schwebel wrote: