Supremes let Shell lawsuit proceed

[Nathan Newman]

Actually, I think the case is better than that.  There is an active strategy
to use the 18th century Alien Torts Act to challenge human rights violations
by US-based corporations in developing countries.  For the Court to allow
this case to go forward is a weakening of restrictive definitions of
jurisdiction that often require the case to go to the country where the harm
occurred.

Of course, such developing nations have no economic capability to extract
significant damages under threat of capital strike or just claims that there
are no assets available in the local subsidiary, so to kick the case to such
venues is to essentially allow them to die.

Corporations are the political creatures of developed nations and it is
appropriate for them to discipline them under international law.  That does
not prevent developing nations from disciplining them to the extent they
can, but that should be in addition to the responsibility of the states who
legally construct them and raise their capital under limited liability laws
and then let them loose on the world.

-- Nathan Newman

----- Original Message -----
From: "Justin Schwartz" <jkschw at hotmail.com>
To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com>
Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2001 11:36 AM
Subject: Re: Supremes let Shell lawsuit proceed

Right. The Supremes haven't repealed the normally restrictive law of
extraterritorial jurisdiction, or the sovereign immunity of foreign states.
I haven't read the case yet; I will do so and report what it actually holds,
as far as I can tell. --jks


>
>
>On Tue, 27 Mar 2001, Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:
>
> > This decision clears the way for the US courts becoming defacto world
> > courts - which is essentially a bad thing.  Next time we will hear a
>case
> > against Cuba brought by some right wing Florida schmuck.
>
>I don't think this case lays that sort of precedent.  I think the grounds
>for letting the case go forward against Shell's protest that the courts
>had no jursidction was that Shell had a big enough corporate footprint
>here to make this count as a legitimate jurisdiction.  I don't think that
>argument would hold against Cuba or any similarly anathematized state.
>
>Michael
>
>__________________________________________________________________________
>Michael Pollak................New York City..............mpollak at panix.com
>

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