International Human Rights - Corporate Liability Claims Not Actionable under the Alien Tort Statute - Kiobel V. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co

The horrific suffering engendered by early 20th century's economic and political nationalism gave rise to precept of individual responsibility for gross violations of human rights. (1) In United States, Alien Tort Statute (2) (ATS) confers federal subject matter jurisdiction for such violations, granting a cause of action for torts committed in violation of law of nations. (3) In Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., (4) United States Court of Appeals for Second Circuit considered whether ATS confers federal jurisdiction over tort claims against corporations. (5) The court refused to classify corporate liability as a norm of customary international law, and held that tort actions against corporations are not actionable under ATS. (6) The plaintiffs are current and former residents of Ogoni Region of Nigeria. (7) The defendants are multi-national petroleum companies engaged in exploration, production, and distribution of oil. (8) The plaintiffs allege that Royal Dutch and Shell compelled their Nigerian subsidiary, Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC), to enlist aid of Nigerian military forces to brutally crush indigenous resistance to SPDC's oil exploration and production. (9) The plaintiffs filed a class action suit under ATS in U.S. District Court for Southern District of New York alleging that defendants aided and abetted, and were complicit in, violations of international law. (10) The defendants filed a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. (11) The district court granted and denied motion in part, and certified order for interlocutory appeal. (12) On appeal, Second Circuit held that corporate tort liability was not a specific, universal, and obligatory norm of customary international law and dismissed claim for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. (13) After lying dormant for nearly two hundred years, ATS was resuscitated by Second Circuit's opinion in Filartiga v. Pena-Irala (14) The Filartiga court held that ATS claims were not restricted solely to customary norms recognized by international community in 1789, but could invoke universal human rights principles that have subsequently ripened. (15) Despite court's sweeping interpretation, it cautioned against overextending jurisdiction under ATS. (16) Notwithstanding large number of ATS filings post Filartiga, appellate review of ATS issues is rare due to tendency of parties to settle ATS claims. (17) Eventually, U.S. Supreme Court had occasion to clarify ATS' limited applicability as a jurisdictional statute in Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain. (18) In Sosa, Court restricted ATS jurisdiction to violations of customary norms analogous in stature to those recognized by international law in 1789. (19) Recent appellate decisions reaffirm classic principle that in determining what complaints properly allege violations of customary international law, courts should look to the customs and usages of civilized nations. (20) In determining whether ATS jurisdiction is properly conferred, courts must decide whether conduct is proscribed by international law and whether liability can be attributed to a specific defendant. (21) In Presbyterian Church of Sudan v. Talisman, Second Circuit considered whether a Canadian corporation could be held liable for allegedly enabling Sudanese military to commit crimes against humanity. (22) The court held that because corporation improved airstrips to allow its employees to access concession area, and not to intentionally aid and abet atrocities, corporation could not be held liable under ATS. (23) The appellate courts, however, have not expressly decided whether corporate entities can be held liable under otherwise permissible extensions of ATS jurisdiction. (24) In Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Shell Co. …

Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.