Alien Tort Statute

Page 1 of 2

Feature post image

The Court That Built the Advisory Opinion It Refused to Complete: OC-30/25 on Arms Trafficking, Corporate Immunity, and the Reach of Advisory Jurisdiction

March 26, 2026

Thairi Nazareth Moya Sánchez

Mexico’s effort to hold the gun industry to account has now encountered an institutional setback in San José. Its request for an advisory opinion raised six questions before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR). This post examines, against a more expansive account of OC-30/25 offered here, whether laws granting public or private arms-industry companies procedural immunity against victims’ claims are compatible with Articles 8 and 25 of the American Convention on Human Rights. In its 2025 advisory opinion on illicit firearms trafficking, publicly notified on 5 March 2026, the Court addresses the broader human rights implications of such trafficking, but does not answer that question directly. That omission is central to the opinion. It leaves unresolved whether victims can access a court and obtain a remedy when domestic law bars claims against companies related to the arms industry from the outset. The opinion develops much of the normative framework needed to answer that question, yet stops short of doing so.

SCOTUS Further Narrows Parent Corporate Liability under the Alien Tort Statute: Ambiguities and Evidentiary Thresholds in the June 2021 Judgment in Nestle USA Inc. v. Doe et al.

June 25, 2021

Diane Desierto

Doori Song

Introduction On June 17, 2021, the Supreme Court of the United States issued its decision in Nestle USA, Inc. v. Doe, __ S. Ct. __ (2021), which involved six former child slaves (“Respondents”) who had been kidnapped and forced to work on cocoa farms in the Ivory Coast. Nestle USA, Inc. and Cargill, Inc. (together, “Petitioners”) purchased, processed,…

The Road Less Traveled: How Corporate Directors Could be Held Individually Liable in Sweden for Corporate Atrocity Crimes Abroad

November 13, 2018

Miriam Ingeson

Alexandra Lily Kather

On 18 October 2018, the Swedish Government authorized the Swedish Prosecution Authority to proceed to prosecution in a case regarding activities of two corporate directors within Swedish oil company Lundin Oil, and later within Lundin Petroleum, in Sudan (now South Sudan) between 1998 and 2003. The company’s chief executive and chairman could be charged with aiding and…

Access to Remedy Under the UNGPs: Vedanta and the Expansion of Parent Company Liability

October 31, 2017

Gabrielle Holly

On Friday, 13 October 2017 the UK Court of Appeal handed down its long anticipated decision in Lungowe and others v. Vedanta Resources Plc and Konkola Copper Mines Plc [2017] EWCA Civ 1528 (“Vedanta”). The appeal was brought by UK-based Vedanta Resources Plc (“Vedanta Resources”) and its Zambian subsidiary Konkola Copper Mines (“KCM”), against a decision dismissing…

The Role of the European Convention on Human Rights in the Wake of Kiobel

July 25, 2013

Jodie Kirshner

Jodie Adams Kirshner is the University Lecturer in Corporate Law at the University of Cambridge and a fellow of Peterhouse College, Cambridge. Her research concerns cross-border and comparative issues in corporate law. She contributed to an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in Kiobel in support of petitioners. The…

Page 1 of 2
Last

Popular in Alien Tort Statute

Kiobel: The US steals the headlines in first round of supplemental briefs on universal civil jurisdiction under the Alien Tort Statute

June 26, 2012

Barrie Sander

In an earlier post, I considered the US Supreme Court’s re-argument order in the case of Kiobel v Royal Dutch Petroleum (“Kiobel”). The order concerned whether US federal courts may rely on the Alien Tort Statute (“ATS”) to exercise jurisdiction over human rights abuses which have no connection to the US, i.e. abuses committed by non-US…

Canada’s Alien Tort Statute

March 29, 2012

René Provost

Professor René Provost, Faculty of Law and Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism, McGill University A few days ago, Canada moved to follow the Alien Tort Statute model found in the United States and open the door to file suits in damages against foreign states and others linked…

Access to Remedy Under the UNGPs: Vedanta and the Expansion of Parent Company Liability

October 31, 2017

Gabrielle Holly

On Friday, 13 October 2017 the UK Court of Appeal handed down its long anticipated decision in Lungowe and others v. Vedanta Resources Plc and Konkola Copper Mines Plc [2017] EWCA Civ 1528 (“Vedanta”). The appeal was brought by UK-based Vedanta Resources Plc (“Vedanta Resources”) and its Zambian subsidiary Konkola Copper Mines (“KCM”), against a decision dismissing…

Kiobel: Universal Civil Jurisdiction under international Law

April 26, 2012

Barrie Sander

Barrie Sander has law degrees from Cambridge and Leiden, and from September 2012 will be a PhD candidate in International Law at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. In an earlier post, I considered the question of corporate liability under international law in light of the case of Kiobel…