So, corporations now have the same free speech rights as humans to spend as much money as they want to influence political campaigns, but unlike humans, they now cannot be prosecuted for human rights abuses under the Alien Tort Statute. Brilliant.
"So long as they incorporate (or act in the form of a trust), businesses will now be free to trade in or exploit slaves, employ mercenary armies to do dirty work for despots, perform genocides or operate torture prisons for a despot's political opponents, or engage in piracy – all without civil liability to victims."
In the words of Judge Pierre Leval, who disagreed with his colleagues, that is the result of today's ruling by a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, which concluded that corporations could not be sued for human rights abuses under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS). The ATS generally allows suits in federal courts for violations of international law - but, according to the Second Circuit, not if the violation was committed by a corporation.
The decision in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum marks the first time that any appellate court has rejected corporate liability under international law, and only the second time that any court has done so (the first was in a district court decision issued last week). Numerous courts have found that corporations are subject to the same liability as persons. The Kiobel decision is based on a radical misunderstanding of international law; the International Court of Justice has ruled that international law respects the corporate form, and this would be impossible without allowing corporate liability.
Kiobel was brought as a companion case to ERI's own case Wiwa v. Royal Dutch Petroleum (Shell), which settled last year. Both cases involved Shell's complicity in serious human rights abuses against the Ogoni people in Nigeria, including the executions of Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other Ogoni leaders. The new decision will deny justice not just to these Ogoni families, but also to victims of corporate complicity in the Apartheid regime in South Africa, victims of medical experimentation in Nigeria, and possibly even victims of the September 11th attacks--all cases currently being litigated in the Second Circuit.
Source: http://www.earthrights.org/blog/us-cour … hts-abuses
Will this have any effect on the Bophal, India chemical disaster..? http://www.getipm.com/articles/bophal.htm
by Jyoti Kothari 16 years ago
The US banned Chinese toys and now UNO stands in its support. bad luck China. Jyoti Kothari
by Leslie McCowen 13 years ago
"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Supreme Court will weigh next week whether corporations can be sued in the United States for suspected complicity in human rights abuses abroad, in a case being closely watched by businesses concerned about long and costly litigation. The case before the court pits...
by Shinkicker 13 years ago
The Israeli occupation and brutal military rule of Palestinian land is illegal. That's the law!!!The West Bank is not 'disputed' territory. It belongs to the Palestinians. That's the law!! The Israeli settlements are illegal, The Israeli government breach the Geneva Convention because they have...
by KK Trainor 13 years ago
Texas executed Humberto Leal yesterday evening. Leal murdered a 16 year old girl after raping and brutalizing her and bashing her head in with a huge chunk of asphalt. He was kind enough to leave a stick with a nail on the end of it sticking out of her vagina. As a Mexican national, Leal was living...
by Shinkicker 11 years ago
In November the United Nations General Assembly voted by a landslide majority to proclaim 2014 as a 'International Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian People'.Will this be a major 'tipping point' in helping to end Israel's illegal occupation of the Occupied Palestinian Territories or is it just...
by Deforest 12 years ago
Since the US gave former empires the exemple with Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Pakistan, why wouldn't they follow? Since when the West is more righteous than any other part of the world? Since economical interests prevail?
Copyright © 2025 The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers on this website. HubPages® is a registered trademark of The Arena Platform, Inc. Other product and company names shown may be trademarks of their respective owners. The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers to this website may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website.
Copyright © 2025 Maven Media Brands, LLC and respective owners.
As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, hubpages.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.
For more information on managing or withdrawing consents and how we handle data, visit our Privacy Policy at: https://corp.maven.io/privacy-policy
Show DetailsNecessary | |
---|---|
HubPages Device ID | This is used to identify particular browsers or devices when the access the service, and is used for security reasons. |
Login | This is necessary to sign in to the HubPages Service. |
Google Recaptcha | This is used to prevent bots and spam. (Privacy Policy) |
Akismet | This is used to detect comment spam. (Privacy Policy) |
HubPages Google Analytics | This is used to provide data on traffic to our website, all personally identifyable data is anonymized. (Privacy Policy) |
HubPages Traffic Pixel | This is used to collect data on traffic to articles and other pages on our site. Unless you are signed in to a HubPages account, all personally identifiable information is anonymized. |
Amazon Web Services | This is a cloud services platform that we used to host our service. (Privacy Policy) |
Cloudflare | This is a cloud CDN service that we use to efficiently deliver files required for our service to operate such as javascript, cascading style sheets, images, and videos. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Hosted Libraries | Javascript software libraries such as jQuery are loaded at endpoints on the googleapis.com or gstatic.com domains, for performance and efficiency reasons. (Privacy Policy) |
Features | |
---|---|
Google Custom Search | This is feature allows you to search the site. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Maps | Some articles have Google Maps embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Charts | This is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy) |
Google AdSense Host API | This service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Google YouTube | Some articles have YouTube videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Vimeo | Some articles have Vimeo videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Paypal | This is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Facebook Login | You can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Maven | This supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy) |
Marketing | |
---|---|
Google AdSense | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Google DoubleClick | Google provides ad serving technology and runs an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Index Exchange | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Sovrn | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Facebook Ads | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Amazon Unified Ad Marketplace | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
AppNexus | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Openx | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Rubicon Project | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
TripleLift | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Say Media | We partner with Say Media to deliver ad campaigns on our sites. (Privacy Policy) |
Remarketing Pixels | We may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites. |
Conversion Tracking Pixels | We may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service. |
Statistics | |
---|---|
Author Google Analytics | This is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy) |
Comscore | ComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy) |
Amazon Tracking Pixel | Some articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy) |
Clicksco | This is a data management platform studying reader behavior (Privacy Policy) |