Alien Tort Statute

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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

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, and sold cocoa derived from these farms while providing the farm owners with technical and financial resources in exchange for the exclusive right to purchase their cocoa. The Respondents sued the Petitioners under the Alien Tort Statute (“ATS”), which provides U.S. courts with jurisdiction to review “any civil action by an alien for a tort only, committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States.” The issues presented to the Court were twofold: (1) whether the Respondents sufficiently pled facts of domestic conduct to overcome the Court’s presumption against extraterritorial application of the ATS, and (2) if so, whether U.S. corporations such as the Petitioners are exempt from ATS lawsuits. Without deciding…

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

November 13, 2018

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…

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

October 31, 2017

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…

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

July 25, 2013

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…

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

June 26, 2012

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…

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