What started out as a case about whether corporations could be held accountable in U.S. courts for human rights abuses against foreigners abroad turned into a case about whether anyone can be held accountable. And on Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the answer is, mostly, no.<\/p>\n
In a sweeping holding, Chief Justice John Roberts led a splintered court in ruling that several Nigerians alleging an oil company aided an abetted torture, arbitrary killings, and indefinite detention could not sue, because the corporate conduct occurred outside the United States. Roberts reasoned that what is known as the \u201cpresumption against extraterritoriality\u201d applies to a 200-year-old statute that authorizes civil lawsuits by \u201caliens\u201d for \u201cviolations of the law of nations,\u201d meaning courts should err against enforcing a law intended to punish egregious foreign conduct in the frequent instances when that conduct takes place in a foreign country.<\/p>\n
\u201c[T]here is no indication that the ATS was passed to make the United States a uniquely hospitable forum for the enforcement of international norms,\u201d Justice Roberts wrote for the majority in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum.<\/p>\n
Roberts\u2019 conclusion is rebutted by the very conduct the Alien Tort Statute was designed to prevent. Piracy was one of the primary torts targeted by Congress at the time of ATS\u2019 passage \u2013 conduct that inherently takes place on the high seas. Justice Stephen Breyer explains in a four-justice concurring opinion that would decide the case on significantly narrower grounds:<\/p>\n
As I have indicated, we should treat this Nation\u2019s interest in not becoming a safe harbor for violators of the most fundamental international norms as an important jurisdiction related interest justifying application of the ATS in light of the statute\u2019s basic purposes\u2014in particular that of compensating those who have suffered harm at the hands of, e.g., torturers or other modern pirates. Nothing in the statute or its history suggests that our courts should turn a blind eye to the plight of victims in that \u201chandful of heinous actions.\u201d<\/p>\n