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Search: Kiobel

08 May

...then analyzed the plaintiffs’ argument that, under customary law, multi-national corporations should be held liable for violations of human rights. The Court referred to American Alien Tort Claims Act litigation, and specified that these cases were not relevant for the purposes of the French case as they discuss the application of American, domestic law, and because some of them have “penal” aspects. The issue of corporate liability for human rights violation is both intriguing and important, as recent discussion on the Kiobel case has amply demonstrated, but in the interest...
08.05.13 | |

28 Apr

...foreign affairs exclusivity with respect to this case. Julian additionally analyzed the ATS in the Supreme Court’s decision in Mohamed v. Palestinian Authority and discussed how the decision may affect re-argumentation in the Kiobel case. He added a post showcasing a roundtable in DC with John Yoo, promoting their new book, Taming Globalization, and pointed out that despite China’s growth, infrastructural problems remain. Deborah Pearlstein commented on Charlie Savage’s NY Times article about executive power, and after a thought-provoking comment by Savage himself, clarified her position. Leading up to Thursday’s...
28.04.12 | |

04 Oct

...criticism can be levied at the potential for claims of corporate abuse to be heard in either a corporation’s “home” courts or in a jurisdiction that welcomes such claims (in the wake of Kiobel it seems that the United States might no longer qualify as such a jurisdiction, although if the dispute “touches and concerns” the United States its courts might still be open). In practice they would siphon off from domestic courts disputes that might otherwise have been resolved locally. Domestic courts would then lose both the opportunity to...
04.10.13 | |

28 Jan

I’m pleased to flag the fact that the American Journal of International Law has recently launched its own blog — AJIL Unbound. Interested readers can find out more about the project and the Journal‘s interest in reader feedback here. In the meantime, AJIL Unbound is currently hosting an on-line discussion of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co. in concert with the Journal‘s print-based Agora on that same case in its October 2013 issue. I look forward to reading these posts and also to seeing...
28.01.14 | |

25 Jul

...schools of thought and legal and non-legal disciplines, geographically disparate and often specializing in sub-fields that can no longer be defined as covering only “foreign affairs.” While Benedict and I are attempting to make the Journal ever more reflective of the increasingly diverse “invisible college” (or should we say “invisible colleges”?) from around the world –as through our recent effort to solicit public submissions for an Agora on the Supreme Court’s Kiobel decision—inevitably, prospective AJIL authors will continue to receive more polite rejections than acceptances from us. Web-based symposia such...
25.07.13 | |

17 Sep

[I posted this about the same time that Ken posted his discussion of the same case below, which is definitely worth reading. Please forgive any repetitions. But we are both on the same page.] In a blockbuster opinion that could spell the end of the vast bulk of Alien Tort Statute litigation, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has held that corporations cannot be liable for violations of customary international law under the Alien Tort Statute. The decision, Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum, dismisses an ATS lawsuit...
17.09.10 | |

15 Jun

...the ICTY’s new “specific direction” standard for aiding and abetting. Finally, Elizabeth Wilson returned to the discussion of Kiobel to refute Samuel Moyn’s argument in his Foreign Affairs post, by delving into the historical background of anti-Shell protests in Ogoniland. In other posts, Duncan pointed to a recent article by Jean Galbraith on the treaty-implementing power of Congress in historical practice, and Kristen reported back from a conference in Leiden on privileges and immunities of international organizations. If this inspires you to write or to attend a conference, check out...
15.06.13 | |

22 Oct

...carefully how it tries to manage the sharply opposed interests of commercially valuable information flows and restraining a huge population undergoing extraordinary economic and social change. Next, what is the instrument for inducing businesses to do no evil? Chander alludes to Alien Tort Statute litigation, but after Kiobel that prospect seems dim. Incidentally, I could find no reference to that litigation in the book, although the Second Circuit decision would have come out long before his book went off to the publisher. I remain a skeptic about the efficacy of...
22.10.13 | |

03 Apr

...School of Law and featuring Judge Bruno Simma of the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal, Judge Xue Hanqin of the International Court of Justice and Joel P. Trachtman of the Fletcher School of Dipomacy at Tufts University (Saturday, April 6). Our own Julian Ku will be moderating a panel on China and International Law featuring Jacques DeLisle, University of Pennsylvania School of Law; Bing Bing Jia, Tsinghua University Law School; and Stephanie Klein-Ahlbrandt, International Crisis Group (Friday, April 5) Our own Roger Alford will moderate a panel on Kiobel, the ATS and...
03.04.13 | |

17 Sep

I’ve now had a chance to read a little more closely the decision, majority and concurrence, in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum (issued today by a 2nd Circuit panel of Judge Cabranes writing for himself and Judge Wood, and a concurrence in the judgment by Judge Leval). On second reading, it still looks to me like a blockbuster opinion, both because of the ringing tone of the Cabranes decision and the equally strong language of a concurrence that, on the key point of corporate liability, amounts to a dissent. With...
17.09.10 | |

17 Sep

I have just now been forwarded a copy of the 2nd Circuit opinion released today in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum. I say “apparently” because I have hastily read it in the last couple of minutes; see also Julian’s post above. But unless I am greatly mistaken, it is a blockbuster opinion on the basics of ATS litigation. However, the most provocative and important holding seems to be that the ATS does not embrace corporate liability … at all: Plaintiffs assert claims for aiding and abetting violations of the law...
17.09.10 | |

04 May

This week on Opinio Juris, the debate on Kiobel continued. Katherine Florey pointed out how the decision will deepen the divide between state and federal approaches to extraterritoriality issues. Ken Anderson argued that the ATS should be understood as the “law of the hegemon”. Peter agreed with Samuel Moyn that more attention to corporate social responsibility regulation could potentially have a broader impact in improving human rights than high profile ATS cases. Corporate social responsibility was also central to Peter’s post on the impact of recent tragedies in the Bangladesh...
04.05.13 | |