Impunity Forever: US Supreme Court Shields Multinationals from Liability for Human Rights Violations

[unhappycamper]

http://watchingamerica.com/News/205899/impunity-forever-us-supreme-court-shields-multinationals-from-liability-for-human-rights-violations/

Impunity Forever: US Supreme Court Shields Multinationals from Liability for Human Rights Violations
Argenpress, Argentina
By Gaby Weber
Translated By Alice Corr
26 April 2013
Edited by Kyrstie Lane

On April 17, the United States Supreme Court made a critical decision, with the result that in the future it will be impossible to hold multinational companies responsible for their crimes.

On that day, the chief judges in Washington, D.C. delivered a verdict on the question of whether the Alien Tort Statute is applicable to companies or only to individuals. The ATS was passed by the United States Congress in 1789 and remains in force, offering foreigners the right to turn to U.S. courts when an international law is violated. The statute was necessary at the time it was passed since cases such as piracy could not be prosecuted in the criminals’ country of origin due to those “failed states” protecting them: the Bahamas, Cuba, the Cayman Islands and so on. In the centuries that followed, international agreements were drawn up and the ATS remained forgotten until it was rediscovered by the human rights movement and used against South American torturers who, owing to amnesty laws, went unpunished in their countries of origin. Several sentences were levied against torturers, but such prosecutions invoking the ATS are not the subject of the present debate.

In April, the Supreme Court debated whether the ATS applies to multinational companies with foreign headquarters, given that American companies (at least for now) can always be prosecuted in U.S. courts. Although in reality this entails a competitive disadvantage for U.S. industry, class solidarity won out.

According to the opinion of the majority of the nine Supreme Court judges, the ATS should not apply to multinationals, so as not to hinder international trade. This is to prevent multi-million dollar claims being heard by a judge in a lower court against a foreign company, which should be prosecuted in the country of origin, either where the company is based or where the events took place. In such a situation, a judge could take on executive rights that are not his to assume, and thus create a conflict between two governments. The Supreme Court judges argue that the mechanism of a trial should not be used to conduct foreign policy. Moreover, the ATS was drawn up more than 200 years ago to combat piracy. According to the judges, piracy takes place at sea, in an international space and in a legal vacuum, and trying pirates will not give rise to bilateral disputes, as there will be no interference with the sovereign rights of another state (“and therefore carries less direct foreign policy consequences”).

[SamKnause]

1. Court

The U.S. Supreme Court are the enablers of corporate pillage and criminal activity.

All branches of the U.S. government are corrupt beyond repair.

[annabanana]

2. And our most "esteemed" court falls with a thud

into the slime forever.

[bemildred]

3. The USSC is one of the linchpins of the problems in this country.

Corrupt, illegitimate, and debased in it's reasoning.