There are numerous ways in which international human rights norms are enforced, many of which already have been examined in this blog. Here is at least a partial list of such methods:
Countries like the U.S. that are parties to certain regional organizations like the Organization of American States can be sued for alleged violations of human rights treaties in bodies like the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.
Complaints about a country’s alleged violations can be reported to special rapportuers with specific subject-matter competence for an investigation and report.
Countries like the U.S. that are parties to certain human rights treaties like the Convention Against Torture submit reports to treaty bodies for review and recommendations for improving their compliance with the treaties.
All members of the U.N. are subject to Universal Periodic Review (UPR) by the U.N. Human Rights Council and obtain recommendations for ways they can improve their human rights records.
Victims of certain human rights violations can obtain protection through being recognized as a “refugee.”
Truth commissions can investigate and promulgate the results of those investigations as the “truth” of past violations which then can be used as evidence in the previously mentioned procedures.
These various institutions or mechanisms operate independently of one another. Other than the first two, they have limited power to force a recalcitrant government to change its behavior. Yet they also are all engaged in an interactive global struggle against impunity for violators of international human rights norms.
The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) has several unique provisions for victims. First, victims may participate in cases before the Court. Second, victims are entitled to reparations from those convicted by the Court, and the Court has a fund and procedures for victims to obtain reparations from the Court itself.
Victims’ Participation in Proceedings
Under the Statute’s Article 68(3), the Court “shall permit [victims’] views and concerns to be presented and considered at [various] stages of the proceedings . . .and in a manner which is not prejudicial to or inconsistent with the rights of the accused and a fair and impartial trial.” In doing so, the Court, under Article 68(1), “shall take appropriate measures to protect the safety, physical and psychological well-being, dignity and privacy of victims and witnesses . . . [having] regard to all relevant factors, including age, gender . . . and health, and the nature of the crime, in particular, but not limited to, where the crime involves sexual or gender violence or violence against children.”
To carry out these provisions, the Court has created the Office of Public Counsel for Victims that seeks to ensure effective participation of victims in the proceedings before the Court by providing legal support and assistance to the legal representatives of victims and to victims. Members of the Office also may be appointed as legal representatives of victims, providing their services free of charge.
Victims’ Right to Reparations
Article 75(1)-(2) of the Rome Statute provides that the Court “shall establish principles relating to reparations to, or in respect of, victims, including restitution, compensation and rehabilitation” and “may make an order directly against a convicted person specifying appropriate reparations to, or in respect of, victims, including restitution, compensation and rehabilitation.”
Pursuant to that provision, the Court’s Assembly of States Parties has adopted Rules of Procedure and Evidence. Its Rule 97 (1) provides that the Court ” may award reparations on an individualized basis or, where it deems it appropriate, on a collective basis or both” in light of ” the scope and extent of any damage, loss or injury.” In addition, Rule 97(2) allows the Court to ” appoint appropriate experts to assist it in determining the scope, extent of any damage, loss and injury to, or in respect of victims and to suggest various options concerning the appropriate types and modalities of reparations.
To assist in the reparations effort, the Statute’s Article 79(1) directs the Court’s Assembly of States Parties to establish a Trust Fund “for the benefit of victims of crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court, and of the families of such victims.”
Such a trust fund (Trust Fund for Victims (TFV)) has been created, the first of its kind in the global movement to end impunity and promote justice. The TFV addresses and responds to the physical, psychological, or material needs of the most vulnerable victims. It raises public awareness and mobilizes people, ideas and resources. It funds innovative projects through intermediaries to relieve the suffering of the often forgotten survivors. The TFV, for example, is providing a broad range of support in northern Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo – including access to reproductive health services, vocational training, trauma-based counseling, reconciliation workshops, reconstructive surgery and more – to over 80,000 victims of crimes under the ICC’s jurisdiction.
In light of the conviction of Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, the TFV Board of Directors recently decided to increase the Fund to 1.2 million Euros. The Board also called upon the Court and States Parties to intensify efforts to identify and freeze assets of persons accused before the ICC, for the eventual purpose of financing Court-ordered reparations.
With the U.S. Supreme Court arguments this week regarding the Affordable Health Care Act we are reading and hearing what seems like non-stop commentary on the constitutional arguments that are being made by the lawyers and questioned by the Justices.
As a retired lawyer who studied constitutional law in law school nearly 50 years ago and who was a lawyer in some constitutional cases, I should be enjoying this commentary. But I am not.
I increasingly am coming to the conclusion that the U.S. Constitution is antiquated and needs radical changes.
We in the U.S. have developed a cult of worshipping the Founding Fathers as if they were demigods. Yes, they were wise in many ways, especially on the need for checks and balances in any governmental system. But if they were as wise as we often think they were, then do we really think that these men of the late 18th century would want their descendants in the early 21st century to obsess over what we think they intended in the late 18th century? Especially over terms like “due process” and “cruel and unusual punishment” that appear on their face to invite evolving meaning as circumstances change?
The U.S., in my opinion, is one nation, and the national government needs to be able to address problems facing the nation, like the problem of providing affordable health care to its citizens. The so-called “individual mandate” is one way to address that problem and should be permissible.
There are so many other problems that the U.S. is not addressing today. Our governmental system–our Constitution–is not working, in my opinion.
I have no grand alternative constitutional schema in mind, but as previously noted, I think the U.S. Senate in particular needs radical reform if we are to retain a bicameral national legislature.
To require 60% of the Senators to agree in order to do almost anything for me is outrageous. It should only be 51% for most issues. This deficiency is exacerbated by the fact that each state has two and only two Senators regardless of the state’s population. Yes, this was part of the original grand and anti-democratic compromise in the late 18th century when there were 13 states. But the expansion of the union to 50 states has made the Senate even more anti-democratic.
Since I believe that it would not be wise to increase the size of the Senate to reflect the population of the states (like the allocation of seats in the U.S. House of Representatives) and that each state should continue to have two Senators in a bicameral upper house, I suggest for discussion that there be weighted voting in the Senate. Each Senator from Wyoming (the least populous state in 2010 with 564,000) would have 1 vote, for example, but each Senator from California (the most populous state in 2010 with 37,254,000) would have 66 votes (37254/564 = 66.05). This approach would produce a total Senate vote of 1,094 (total U.S. population in 2010 of 308,746,000 divided by 564,000 (population of Wyoming) = 547 x 2 = 1094). The weightings would be changed every 10 years with the new census population figures.
As I suggested in a 1996 virtual constitutional convention, I would also change the term of office of members of the House of Representatives from two years to four years to coincide with the presidential election. This should result in less divided and stalemated government.
I also recommend that we have direct election of the U.S. President by the national popular vote and abolish the electoral college. This would eliminate the possibility of a repeat of the outrageous Bush v. Gore decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in 2000.
This new constitutional framework would permit the national legislature to enact laws regulating guns and political contributions, now virtually forbidden by the Supreme Court’s interpretations of the existing Constitution.
The process of amending our current Constitution is appropriately difficult. Probably a new constitutional convention would be the most appropriate way to make the kind of changes I think should be considered and adopted. I despair, however, when I speculate of how such a convention could be held today.
The U.N. Human Rights Council since 2006 has been an important arm of the United Nations in recognizing and helping to enforce international human rights norms in the world. One of the ways it does this is its “Universal Periodic Review” (UPR) of individual U.N. member states.
The UPR is universal in that all 193 U.N. members and all human rights norms are reviewed once every four years. Such Review is to be “based on objective and reliable information, of the fulfillment by each State of its human rights obligations and commitments in a manner which ensures universality of coverage and equal treatment with respect to all States.” This is to be done with “a cooperative mechanism, based on an interactive dialogue, with the full involvement of the country concerned.”
The UPR process involves (a) the state’s submission of a report to the Council, (b) submission of written questions and recommendations to the state from other states and stakeholders (human rights NGO’s, etc.), (c) a hearing by the Council, (d) the preparation of a draft report on the state by a Council working group, (e) the state’s comments on that report, (f) another hearing before the Council and (g) the Council’s adoption of a report on the outcome of the UPR.
In August 2010 the U.S. submitted its first UPR report to the Council. Three months later the Council considered this report and other documentation. The hearing for this UPR was held on November 5th in Geneva, Switzerland, and on November 9th, the Council debated the outcome of this UPR. The U.S. was represented at these meetings by high-level officials of the State Department and of other departments.
On January 4, 2011, the Council’s Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review of the U.S. issued its final report on this UPR. It set forth a compilation of all the 228 recommendations of the states, many of which were repetitive and some of which related to very specific issues with individual countries. These recommendations were not endorsed by the Working Group as a whole. The following is a summary of the major recommendations:
ratify or accede to (without reservations) the many multilateral human rights treaties that the U.S. has not joined, including the International Criminal Court’s Rome Statute;
revoke the reservations and declarations the U.S. has made to those human rights treaties it has ratified or acceded to;
abolish or reduce the use of capital punishment (the death penalty);
close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility;
prosecute and punish U.S. personnel who commit torture and other human rights violations and take measures to eliminate torture and compensate victims of past torture;
improve conditions for inmates in U.S. prisons;
improve U.S. laws and practices regarding immigrants;
recognize and implement the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples;
increase efforts to combat racial discrimination and inequalities; and
establish an independent national human rights institute.
On March 8, 2011, the U.S. submitted its written response to this final report. Ten days later (March 18th), the Council held its final hearing [paragraphs 721-56, 772] on the UPR of the U.S.
The U.S. representatives opened the hearing by stating that the UPR “has been a useful tool to assess how the USA can continue to improve in achieving its own human rights goals” and that the U.S. had carefully reviewed all 228 recommendations and made detailed written comments on the recommendations. The U.S. then summarized its detailed responses to the following nine major groups of recommendations:
The U.S. supports recommendations concerning improving civil rights and anti-discrimination. It noted that the U.S. had adopted the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Repeal Act and that the Department of Justice had established a Fair Lending Unit and had increased its enforcement of laws prohibiting discrimination in voting, employment, public accommodations and education and hate crimes.
With respect to recommendations about criminal justice, the U.S. continued to work to ensure protection of the rights of detainees and inmates in its jails and prisons, and the State of Illinois had abolished the death penalty.
With respect to the rights of indigenous peoples, the U.S. committed itself to improve tribal consultations, and in December 2010 President Obama announced U.S. support for the U.N. Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
With respect to national security, the U.S. stated that it abides by all applicable law, including those respecting humane treatment, detention and use of force and will not tolerate torture or inhumane treatment of detainees wherever they are held. The U.S. also has reiterated its intention to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility and its commitment to not treat entire communities as a threat to national security based upon their race, religion or ethnicity. The U.S. also announced the Administration’s intent to adhere to the humane treatment and fair trial standards of the Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions and to seek the advice and consent of the U.S. Senate to U.S. ratification of the Additional Protocol II to the Geneva Conventions.
With respect to immigration, the U.S. was accepting many of the recommendations, was reviewing its handling of “emergent” immigration cases and was improving immigration detainee access to medical care.
With respect to economic, social, cultural and environmental rights, the U.S. noted that it had established a commission to examine disparities in educational opportunities and address children’s needs in distressed communities and that it had made grants to support health centers and improve access to health care by the uninsured.
The U.S. has long been a leader in fighting against human trafficking and recently had launched a media campaign in Mexico and Central America with information on the dangers of human trafficking and how to avoid becoming a victim. The U.S. also was a leader in workplace protections and was strengthening efforts to respond to gender wage differences and to educate the public about the civil rights of immigrant workers.
The U.S. was committed to a robust domestic implementation of its international human rights obligations.
The U.S. also had “pushed” for Senate advice and consent to ratification of a number of human rights and other treaties, including Protocol II to the Geneva Conventions.[1] But in its written comments on the recommendations the U.S. specifically rejected the recommendations that the U.S. ratify the ICC’s Rome Statute.
The hearing then was opened for comments by the Council’s members and other states. Ten states did so: Cuba, Iran, Venezuela, Algeria, China, Russia, Egypt, Bolivia, Morocco and Botswana. Thereafter 10 other relevant stakeholders, including Human Rights Watch, made comments. The U.S. then made a brief closing comment, saying that the “UPR process is an opportunity to shape an agenda for future work. Human rights are American core values and interests . . . [and] the U.S. focuses on the substance of a process of continuing self-examination and dialogue.”
The Council then adopted without a vote its working group’s report on the outcome of the UPR of the U.S. Note that the Council did not make any factual findings or determinations of violations or recommendations. It merely facilitated the process.
In addition to the final Working Group report and the U.S. response thereto, the written record for the UPR of the U.S. included (a) a report by the U.S. itself; (b) the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights’ compilation of information about the U.S. from the reports of human rights treaty bodies, special procedures and other U.N. documents; and (c) submissions from 103 “stakeholders,” including human rights NGOs. The submission by a coalition of U.S. human rights NGOs on the subject of immigration and asylum was prepared by Minnesota’s Advocates for Human Rights.
Finally it should be noted that from 2006 through 2008 during the George W. Bush Administration, the U.S. did not participate in the Council’s activities, but since then in the Obama Administration it has done so. This includes the U.S. seeking membership on the Council in 2009 and being elected to such status for a term that ends on December 31, 2012.
[1] Protocol II to the Geneva Conventions was submitted to the U.S. Senate on January 29, 1987, by President Reagan, and on March 7, 2011, President Obama urged “the Senate to act as soon as practicable on . . . Protocol [II], to which 165 States are a party. An extensive interagency review concluded that United States military practice is already consistent with the Protocol’s provisions. Joining the treaty would not only assist us in continuing to exercise leadership in the international community in developing the law of armed conflict, but would also allow us to reaffirm our commitment to humane treatment in, and compliance with legal standards for, the conduct of armed conflict.” Nevertheless, there has been no actionwhatsoever on this treaty by the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations or the Senate itself in the 25 years after its submission to that body. This is not surprising given the political composition of the Senate and the constitutional requirement for a two-thirds (67) vote for the Senate to give its advice and consent to ratification of a treaty.
The U.N. Human Rights Council was created in 2006 by the U.N. General Assembly. It is “responsible for promoting universal respect for the protection of all human rights and fundamental freedoms for all, without distinction of any kind and in a fair and equal manner.” To that end, it is also responsible for addressing “situations of violations of human rights, including gross and systematic violations” and making “recommendations on them.” The Council is guided by “the principles of universality, impartiality, objectivity and non-selectivity, constructive international dialogue and cooperation, with a view to enhancing the promotion and protection of all human rights, civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to development.”
To fulfill its mission, the Council has adopted at least four procedures or mechanisms.
One set of procedures is known as “Special Procedures,” which include special rapporteurs, special representatives, independent experts and working groups that monitor, examine, advise and publicly report on thematic issues or human rights situations in specific countries. One example is the Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers that was discussed in a prior post.
Another is a Complaint Procedure, which allow individuals and organizations to bring human rights violations to the attention of the Council.
Yet another is the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) mechanism which serves to assess the human rights situations in all 193 U.N. members. (The UPR process will be reviewed in a subsequent post about the Council’s UPR of the U.S.)
The Council also has established an Advisory Committee, which serves as the Council’s “think tank” providing it with expertise and advice on thematic human rights issues. In February 2012 this Committee adopted recommendations to the Council regarding (1) the rights of peasants, (2) the right to food, (3) human rights and international solidarity, (4) the right of peoples to peace, (5) terrorist hostage-taking, (6) promotion of human rights and fundamental freedoms through traditional values of humankind, and (7) enhancement of international cooperation in the field of human rights.
In May 2011, pursuant to the General Assembly resolution establishing the Council, a special working group reported on its review of the Council’s first five years. The report made modest proposed changes to the Council’s procedures and mechanisms. The U.S. expressed its disappointment in the report, with the U.S. stating the report resulted from “a process designed to be a race to the bottom.” According to the U.S., there needed to be “greater scrutiny of the human rights record of countries that offer themselves for election to the Council” and enhancement of the Council’s ability to take on country situations in a variety of formats, not limited to resolutions. Moreover, said the U.S., the Council’s most egregious flaw was its criticism of only one country, Israel.
The Council, whose office and meetings are in Geneva, Switzerland, has 47 member states that are chosen from U.N. member states for three-year terms by the U.N. General Assembly. (From 2006 through 2008 the U.S. in the George W. Bush Administration did not participate in the Council’s activities. Since then, however, the Obama Administration has done so, and the U.S. was elected to the Council in 2009 for a term ending at the end of 2012.)
The Council replaced the U.N. Commission on Human Rights that was established by the U.N. Economic and Social Council in 1946. The Commission’s first major task, under the Chairmanship of Eleanor Roosevelt, was the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that was adopted by the U.N. General Assembly in 1948. During its first 20 years the Commission focused on establishing international human rights standards in various multilateral treaties. The Commission eventually had similar responsibilities and functions as the Council, but became subject to severe criticism for being too friendly with regimes that were violators of human rights.
We recently have reviewed the taking of office of five new judges of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the Court’s first conviction in the case of Thomas Lubanga Diyalo from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Now we look at some other recent ICC developments.
Central African Republic. The only case from the Central African Republic involves one defendant, Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo, who is now on trial.
Darfur/Sudan. There are five cases involving seven defendants. Two are in ICC custody at The Hague and await trial. One had the charges dismissed. The other four, including Sudanese President Bashir, are at large.
Another of the at-large defendants is Abdel Raheem Muhammad, whose arrest warrant was just issued on March 1, 2012, for 41 counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes allegedly committed in the context of the situation in Darfur (Sudan). Mr. Hussein is currently Minister of National Defense of the Sudanese Government and former Minister of the Interior and former Sudanese President’s Special Representative in Darfur.
Democratic Republic of the Congo. There are four cases involving five defendants. One, Mr. Lubanga, was recently convicted. A case involving two other defendants is now on trial. The charges against another defendant were not confirmed by the Pre-Trial Chamber while the fifth defendant is at large.
After the conviction of Mr. Lubanga, the ICC Prosecutor said he plans to demand that DRC President Joseph Kabila hand over the defendant still at large. He is Bosco Ntaganda, who was promoted to DRC army general after being indicted with Lubanga by the ICC and who now faces new charges of mass rape and murder.
Ivory Coast (Côte d’Ivoire). There is only one case involving one defendant, Laurent Gbagbo (the former President of the country) for whom the hearing on the confirmation of charges is scheduled to start on 18 June 2012. He is in ICC custody at The Hague.
On February 22, 2012, the Pre-Trial Chamber decided to expand its authorization for the investigation in Côte d’Ivoire to include crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court allegedly committed between September 19, 2002 and November 28, 2010. (The prior authorization only covered alleged crimes committed since November 28, 2010.)
The Chamber considered that the violent events in Côte d’Ivoire in this period (including the events since 28 November 2010) are to be treated as a single situation, in which an ongoing crisis involving a prolonged political dispute and power-struggle culminated in the events in relation to which the Chamber earlier authorized an investigation. Concentrating on the most significant of the samples of incidents, the Chamber concluded that there is reasonable basis to believe that, in the course of these events, acts of murder and rape that could amount to war crimes or crimes against humanity were committed.
In the country lawlessness and violence continues, and an U.N. agency recently determined that its security forces that have been accused of killings, arbitrary arrests and other human rights violations are acting alone and not under government orders.
Kenya. There are two Kenyan cases involving six defendants. On January 23, 2012, the Pre-Trial Chamber confirmed the charges against four of the defendants and committed them to trial while declining to confirm the charges against the other two.
The reaction to this decision in Kenya is reviewed elsewhere.
Libya. There is one case involving three defendants. One defendant, Muammar Mohammed Abu Minyar Gaddafi, is deceased, and his case has been terminated. The other two- Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi and Abdullah Al-Senussi–are charged with crimes against humanity (murder and persecution) allegedly committed across Libya from February 15, 2011 until at least 28 February 2011, through the State apparatus and Security Forces.
Al-Islam Gaddafi is in detention in Libya, which has been resisting ICC demands for his being surrendered to the Court. Al-Senussi recently was captured in Mauritania, and Libya is pressing that country to turn him over to Libyan authorities, rather than the ICC. The legal issue at the heart of this dispute over where these two men will be tried is whether Libya has a functioning judicial system that can provide a due-process criminal proceeding.
Uganda. There isone case involving four defendant leaders of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), including Joseph Kony. All four are at large.
The major recent development regarding the ICC’s case has happened outside the legal process. Earlier this month a 30-minute YouTube video “Kony 2012” portrayed Mr. Kony’s involvement with child soldiers and called for his arrest and surrender to the ICC for trial. This video became a world-wide phenomenon (“it went viral”) and the subject of much controversy.
This increased attention to Kony has caused the Ugandan military to intensify its efforts to find Kony and other LRA leaders.
In the meantime, the U.S., although not a member of the ICC, has reiterated its commitment of military resources to locate the LRA leaders. The Department of State recently declared that the U.S. has a “comprehensive, multi-year strategy [that] seeks to help the Governments of Uganda, CAR, the DRC, and South Sudan as well as the African Union and United Nations to mitigate and end the threat posed to civilians and regional stability by the LRA. The strategy outlines four key objectives for U.S. support: (1) the increased protection of civilians, (2) the apprehension or removal of Joseph Kony and senior LRA commanders from the battlefield, (3) the promotion of defections and support of disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration of remaining LRA fighters, and (4) the provision of continued humanitarian relief to affected communities.”
Conclusion
As evident from the above, all of the ICC’s current investigations and cases come from Africa, which has produced tension between the Court and the continent’s leaders. Following the recent elections of an African (Fatou Bensouda) as the Court’s new Prosecutor and another African (Chile Eboe Osuji) as one of its new judges, nearly 36 NGOs from 19 African countries recently sent a joint letter to the foreign ministers of the African countries that are parties to the ICC’s Rome Statute urging them to seek to improve African relations with the ICC. The letter’s specific recommendations to this end included the following:
more meetings and “exchange of views” between officials of the African Union and the ICC;
establishment by the African Union of an ICC liaison office in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia;
fulfillment by states parties of their obligations under the ICC treaty to implement warrants and decisions of the court; and
improvement of national justice systems so that they might pursue persons accused of the core crimes that the ICC now prosecutes – genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes – domestically, as envisaged by the ICC Statute’s complementarity principle.
On February 17th this was the topic of a talk at the 7th annual San Miguel de Allende (Mexico) Writers Conference. The speaker was Kristen Iversen, Director of the MFA Program in Creative Writing at The University of Memphis.
She said setting your personal story in a broader historical context makes it more interesting and more meaningful. You should identify moments in your own life that are important for you and develop them in writing as fully as possible. Then think about what was going on in the world at the same time and research local, national or world events that appear connected to your story and weave those facts into your story. Consider writing your story in the present tense to make it more immediate.
Iversen then talked about how she did this herself.
As a young girl, she and her family lived in Arvada, Colorado, which was close to the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant, which secretly produced more than 70,000 plutonium triggers for nuclear bombs and contaminated the environment with toxic and radioactive materials. Over the last 10 years or so, she conducted research into what happened at Rocky Flats. She read hundreds of pages of documentation, including oral history interview transcripts at the University of Colorado, newspaper articles, photographs and previously classified information. She also conducted extensive interviews of some of the workers at the facility.
In late February 2011, after the prior year’s San Miguel writers’ conference, she finished her book about growing up near this facility.
She read a section of her book about the “Mother’s Day Fire” at the facility in 1969. While she and her family were having brunch at a restaurant, a fire broke out in the production line at the facility, and only two guards were on duty with limited knowledge about how to fight such a plutonium fire. Her present-tense account of fighting the fire was gripping. After the reading, she added that the roof of the facility almost exploded in this fire. If it had, it would have been a Chernobyl-like disaster for the entire Denver metropolitan area.
Iversen hired an agent to get the book published. Then on March 11, 2011, Japan was hit with an earthquake and tsunami that created the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant with radiation leaks into the air and contaminated water spilling into the sea. Now there was intense interest around the world in nuclear disasters.
Her book was now a “hot item.” it was auctioned in New York City by her agent with publishers’ representatives calling Iversen with questions at her office in Memphis. It was eventually sold to Crown Publishers and is to be published on June 5, 2012. A subsequent auction in London sold the rights to another publisher for the U.K. Iversen added that Angelina Jolie had expressed interest in the movie rights to the book.
The tentative title of the book is “Full Body Burden: Growing Up in the Nuclear Shadow of Rocky Flats.” I told the author that I did not think it was a good title because most people and I did not know what “Full Body Burden” meant. (I found out later it means the burden on a human body of nuclear radiation or other toxic chemicals.) Nor did I think most people would recognize the term ‘Rocky Flats.” In addition, I thought the tentative cover of the U.S. edition of the book did not help to sell the book.
Naomi Wolf, the noted author and public commentator, was another speaker at the San Miguel Writers’ Conference and afterwards published an article in The Guardian in London titled “From Rocky Flats to Fukushima: this nuclear folly.” Wolf reported that as Iversen grew up, she became aware of the growing incidence of bizarre cancers being diagnosed in local children. Thirty years later, cancer rates remain elevated in neighborhoods around Rocky Flats (plutonium has a half-life of 24,000 years), and recent tests confirm there is still contamination in the soil. Yet purportedly to “save” the high costs of cleaning up the site, most of the Rocky Flats has been designated a “wildlife refuge” to be open to the public in 2013. Wolf uses these facts to argue that it is folly to plan any expansion of nuclear power as the U.S. is planning to do.
Iversen discussed many of these same issues as well as her new book in last Sunday’s New York Times‘ “Sunday Review.”
“Full Body Burden” will hit the book market at about the same time as a new book by physicist and historian Spencer Weart. His book, “The Rise of Nuclear Fear,” is reported to argue that scientists do not know about the physical impact of radiation. On the other hand, the psychological impact of radiation exposure is evident. Precisely because physical damage from very-low-level radiation cannot be detected, exposure leaves people in great uncertainty. Many believe they have been fundamentally contaminated for life. They may refuse to have children for fear of birth defects. They may be shunned by others who fear a sort of mysterious contagion.
I recommend Iversen’s forthcoming book on what should be a fascinating approach to an important public policy issue.
On December 10 and 11, 1981, the Salvadoran military (Atlacatl Battalion) detained and systematically executed virtually all of the men, women and children in the small northern village of El Mozote. The men first were tortured and then executed. Then the women were killed. Finally the children were killed. Over 200 of the victims subsequently were identified plus many others who were not so identified. This happened as part of the military’s “Operacion Rescate” that sought to eliminate the guerrilla presence in the area and that also committed massacres in other villages at the same time.[1]
In late January 1982 information about the massacres started to become publicly available, and protests began. The Salvadoran government, however, “categorically denied” that a massacre had taken place and did not conduct any judicial investigations of the events.
Over eight years later (1990) criminal proceedings were commenced in El Salvador, and in November 1992 court-ordered exhumations started. By September 1993, however, there were no identifications of the alleged perpetrators of the massacre, and the trial court, therefore, dismissed the case. Thereafter there was no appeal of that dismissal. Thus, no one was ever convicted for this crime.
These horrible crimes have reverberated ever since then. The Truth Commission for El Salvador in 1993 delivered its report on the massacre. In 2006 the Inter-American Commission on Human rights (IACHR) made a preliminary decision in a case about the massacre, and in 2011 it referred the case to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (the Court). And this year, 2012, the Salvador President made an important statement about the crime.
Truth Commission
The Truth Commission for El Salvador in its April 2003 report found “full proof” that Atlacatl Battalion soldiers “deliberately and systematically killed . . . more than 200 men, women and children, constituting the entire civilian population” of the village. There was “sufficient evidence” that these troops committed other massacres at the same time in nearby other villages. Names of the officers in charge were given. The Commission’s findings on what happened at El Mozote were aided by its retention of an international forensic team that conducted exhumations at the village and by its interviewing eyewitnesses. These efforts constituted a major advance in establishing the truth of the most egregious crimes.
In addition, the Truth Commission found that the Armed Forces High Command “repeatedly denied” that a massacre had occurred and that Minister of Defense General Jose Guillermo Garcia (“full evidence) and Chief of the Armed Forces Joint Staff General Rafael Florez Lima (“sufficient evidence”) had initiated no investigation of the matter. Finally, the Commission found that the President of the Supreme Court “had interfered unduly and prejudicially, for biased political reasons, in the ongoing judicial proceedings on the case.”
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights
In October 1990 the Oficina de Tutela Legal of the San Salvador Archbishop’s Office filed a petition with the IACHR alleging various human rights violations by the State of El Salvador in connection with the massacres in El Mozote and five other nearby villages.[2]
The government did not seriously challenge the allegations as to what happened in the villages. Instead, it asserted that (a) the case was not admissible to the IACHR because the petitioners had not exhausted their remedies in the country; (b) there was a criminal investigation precipitated by a complaint that was not made until 1990; (c ) the investigation proceeded properly despite great external difficulties caused by the war; (d) the case properly was dismissed in accordance with the General Amnesty Law; and (e) and the petitioners had failed to appeal that dismissal.
In March 2006 (16 years after the filing of the petition), the IACHR issued a report determining that the petition was admissible, i.e., eligible for further proceedings. The parties (petitioners and the government) were proper parties under the American Convention on Human Rights. The petition alleged violations of the Convention occurring within the territory of a party to the Convention after it had become such a party. Most importantly for admissibility, the exception to the requirement for exhaustion of domestic remedies was satisfied: the systematic violations of human rights in the country made it impossible to file a complaint prior to 1990, appeals of dismissals based on the General Amnesty Law were not necessary, and the state had the responsibility to initiate criminal proceedings based on the Supreme Court’s recognition or creation in 2000 of possible exceptions to that Law and had not exercised that option. In reaching these conclusions, the IACHR relied, in part, on the Truth Commission Report.
Apparently sometime before March 2011, the IACHR issued its decision on the merits apparently concluding that El Salvador had violated various provisions of the American Convention on Human rights, but this decision is not available on its website.
Inter-American Court of Human Rights
On March 11, 2011, the Commission referred this case to the Court. The Commission’s press release about this referral stated:
“Due to the application of the General Amnesty Law for Consolidation of the Peace, as well as repeated omissions on the part of the Salvadoran State, these grave acts [at El Mozote and other surrounding villages] remain in impunity. To this day, the massacres have not been clarified judicially, nor have appropriate sanctions been imposed, despite the fact that a significant number of the persons responsible have been identified through various sources. Some exhumations were performed in subsequent years, but these did not lead to a reopening of the investigations, despite repeated requests made to the relevant authorities. The case was sent to the Inter-American Court . . . because the Commission deemed that the State had not complied with the recommendations contained in the report on the merits.”
Presumably the Court will be holding a hearing in this case and thereafter rendering a decision on the merits.
Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes’ Statement About El Mozote
El Mozote MemorialPresident Funes @ El Mozote
January 16, 2012, was the 20th anniversary of the signing of the Salvadoran Peace Accords. On that date President Funes went to El Mozote where he made an important speech about the massacre, He publicly acknowledged that Atlactal Battalion soldiers committed the massacre and apologized on behalf of the State for this atrocity. He asked for forgiveness for what he called “the biggest massacre of civilians in the contemporary history of Latin America.” (A video of the speech in the original Spanish is on the web.)
Funes said there could be no true peace until there is justice to provide compensation to victims and penalties for perpetrators. He also announced the following in response to the massacre:
He asked the Attorney General to review existing legislation and propose amendments or new laws to allow criminal sanctions to be imposed on those who participated in the worst human rights violations. Funes also noted that the Salvadoran Supreme Court already had decided that the General Amnesty Law did not protect those guilty of war crimes and could not be used to self-amnesty those who were in charge of the military during the period 1989-1994 (government officials from the Arena political party).
Funes instructed the Armed Forces to stop honoring former officers who were linked to this massacre, including Domingo Monterrosa Barrios, who was the commander of the Brigade involved.
Funes also requested political parties and others to stop honoring people who could be linked to such violations, which was interpreted as a message to the ARENA political party to stop honoring its founder, Roberto D’Aubuisson, and to the FMLN party to do likewise with Shafik Handal.
The government will conduct an investigation to identify all victims of the massacre.
The government will create a National Reparations Program for Victims of massacres and other human rights violations.
The government will declare El Mozote a cultural center.
The government will establish a community health clinic for El Mozote.
The government will assist agricultural production in the area, construct paved roads and improve potable water service, build a lodging house for elderly people without families and provide computers to the local school.
This presidential statement at El Mozote went far beyond the previous apology Funes had made for the assassination of Archbishop Romero and the one for the murders of the Jesuit priests and their housekeeper and her daughter.
As discussed in a prior post, on February 28th the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum (Shell) (Sup. Ct. No. 10-1491) on the issue of whether or not corporations could be held liable under the U.S. Alien Tort Statute (ATS), and a decision in the case was expected by the end of this June.
The Kiobel Rehearing Order
Less than a week later (on March 5th) all of that changed when the Court ordered new briefs and a rehearing this Fall on a different issue that previously had not been considered in this case by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit or by the Supreme Court itself. That new issue of extraterritorial application of the ATS was expressed by the Supreme Court as follows:
Whether and under what circumstances the Alien Tort Statute, 28 U.S.C. §1350, allows courts to recognize a cause of action for violations of the law of nations occurring within the territory of a sovereign other than the United States.”
This surprising development appears to have been triggered by that very issue having been raised in another ATS case in a pending petition for a writ of certiorari to the Supreme Court in Rio Tinto vs. Saari (Sup. Ct. No. 11-649) brought by a corporationthat had lost an ATS case in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco, California. The Rio Tinto cert. petition was considered by the Court at its private conference on Friday, March 2nd, and the order for rehearing in Kiobel was issued the following Monday (March 5th) without any announced action on the Rio Tinto cert. petition.
This apparent connection between the two cases calls for seeing what additional light may be shed on this new issue in Kiobel by examining that same issue in the Rio Tinto case. Rio Tinto, by the way, submitted an amicus curiae brief in Kiobel, but that brief did not discuss the extraterritoriality issue presumably because it was not germane to the two issues previously specified by the Supreme Court for the first Kiobel argument.
The Rio Tinto Case
This case under the ATS was brought by current or former residents of an island (Bougainville) in Papua New Guinea in the South Pacific Ocean. In the late 1980’s many residents of the island protested the mining activities on the island by Rio Tinto PLC and Rio Tinto Ltd., and the country’s military stopped the protests by killing many of the protesters. Their ATS case alleged that the military’s human rights violations were aided and abetted by Rio Tinto PLC, a public company headquartered in the U.K., and Riot Tinto Ltd., an affiliated public company headquartered in Australia.
The case started before 2002 and has a long complicated history.
The decision leading to the pending petition for a writ of certiorari in the Supreme Court was the October 25, 2011, en banc decision of the Ninth Circuit issued more than a year after the oral arguments. That decision partially sustained an ATS complaint against the two corporations and remanded the case to the federal district court in California for further proceedings. This decision by the 11 judges of the Ninth Circuit consisted of seven opinions spanning 170 pages covering many issues with different splits on different issues.
On the issue of extraterritoriality of the ATS, seven of the judges held that the statute had such application while the other four judges disagreed.
1. Majority opinion on extraterritoriality
The author of the 49-page majority opinion that sustained the ATS complaint was Chief Judge Mary Schroeder, who was joined on the issue of extraterritoriality by Judges Silverman, Berzon, Reinhardt, Pregerson, Rawlinson and McKeon. This section of the majority opinion is found on pages 19334-39 of the slip opinion.
The majority opinion first noted that the Ninth Circuit itself previously had decided that the ATS had extraterritorial application in In re Estate of Ferdinand Marcos, Human Rights Litig. (Marcos I), 978 F.2d 493, 499-501 (9th Cir. 1992), which involved torture that took place in the Philippines. In categorically rejecting the argument that the ATS applies only to torts committed in the U.S., the court had stated, “we are constrained by what [the ATS] . . . shows on its face: no limitations as to the citizenship of the defendant, or the locus of the injury.” (Id. at 500.) By implication, as a matter of stare decisis, the Ninth Circuit should reach the same conclusion in the current case.The majority opinion buttressed this point by citing cases in other circuits that had reached the same conclusion.
The majority opinion then observed that the U.S. Supreme Court’s only opinion on the ATS in the Sosa case in 2004 had recognized that the First Congress in 1789 had overseas conduct in mind when the Court in Sosa explained that in 1789, piracy was one of the paradigmatic classes of cases recognized under the ATS.
Next in the majority opinion was its analysis of the dissenting opinion’s principal authority, Morrison v. National Australian Bank Ltd., 130 S. Ct. 2869, 2877 (2010), which held that section 10(b) of the U.S. Securities Exchange Act of 1934 did not apply to securities transactions conducted in other nations. In so doing, the Ninth Circuit’s majority opinion correctly acknowledged that the Supreme Court in Morrison employed a “presumption against extraterritoriality” and stated that “[w]hen a statute gives no clear indication of an extraterritorial application, it has none.” (130 S. Ct. at 2878.)
The Ninth Circuit’s majority opinion said, however, there was no indication in Morrison or elsewhere, that a “presumption against extraterritoriality” existed and could have been invoked by Congress in 1789. Moreover, according to the majority opinion, Morrison “did not require that Congress use the precise word ‘extraterritorial’ in a statute to establish such applicability. It [Morrison] required only that there be a ‘clear indication,’ stating that such an indication may come from either the text or the context of the statute. Id. at 2883.”
Such “clear indications” of extraterritorial applicability of the ATS were found by the majority opinion in both the statute’s text and its context. The text of the ATS provides for jurisdiction “of any civil action by an alien . . . committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States.” 28 U.S.C. § 1350. This text expressly creates jurisdiction for claims brought by persons who are not U.S. citizens. The text’s explicit reference to the “law of nations” indicates that one must look beyond U.S. law to international law in order to decide what torts fall under its jurisdictional grant. Moreover, the ATS was enacted in 1789 in the context of piracy occurring outside the U.S. as one of the paradigmatic classes of cases covered by the ATS.
Finally, according to the majority opinion, the ATS is a jurisdictional statute, and federal courts frequently exercise jurisdiction with regard to matters occurring outside the U.S., subject to the courts having personal jurisdiction over the defendants and to the principles of forum non conveniens and conflict of law principles that may call for dismissal of specific cases based upon their facts. In short, says the majority of the Ninth Circuit,the ATS provides a domestic forum for claims based on conduct that is illegal everywhere, including the place where that conduct took place. It is no infringement on the sovereign authority of other nations, therefore, to adjudicate claims cognizable under the ATS.
2. Dissenting opinion on extraterritoriality
Dissenting on this issue was a 36-page opinion by Judge Kleinfeld, which was joined by Judges Bea and Ikuta. (Slip Opinion at 19429-65.) I consider Judge Callahan to be the fourth dissenting judge on this issue by his joining the separate dissenting opinion of Judge Ikuta, which expressed agreement with the Kleinfeld opinion. (Slip. Op. at 19491 n.12.)
These dissenters’ concluded that the ATS was limited to torts in the U.S. to foreigners who were in the U.S. or who were outside any foreign state’s territory (i.e., on the high seas). There were four points or arguments advanced to support this conclusion.
First, they say, the previously discussed Morrison v. National Australian Bank Ltd. case reaffirms a long-standing canon of construction against implied extraterritoriality: “When a statute gives no clear indication of an extraterritorial application, it has none.”
Second, the ATS, they state, does not expressly authorize extraterritorial application, and its reference to the “law of nations” does not imply that it does. In addition, while the ATS does cover piracy on the high seas, that fact does not imply jurisdiction over wrongs committed within the territory of a foreign state.
Third, the dissenting opinion says the historical context of the adoption of the ATS in 1789 shows that its purpose was to afford a remedy for wrongs committed within the United States, not to enact a statute with extraterritorial effect. The dissenters say that the statute was enacted “to enable foreigners to sue for violations in America of a narrow set of norms, where failure to vindicate the wrongs might embroil our weak, new nation in diplomatic or military disputes. The wrongs were to ambassadorial officials in the United States, and piracy, sometimes by Americans.” Indeed, they say, with detailed support, “We had just signed a peace treaty with Great Britain after a War of Independence we barely won. We could ill afford diplomatic problems with the British, who bordered us on the north, the Spanish, who then bordered us on the south and west, or the French, whose support had been essential to our independence. Given our precariousness, the First Congress was concerned that American, not foreign, violations of the law of nations might ‘afford just causes of war,’ a war we likely could not win.”
Fourth, according to these dissenters, extraterritorial application of the ATS to so-called “Foreign-Cubed” tort cases (lawsuits by foreigners against foreigners over something that happened in foreign countries) would itself violate the law of nations. According to these dissenters, “The most fundamental principle of the law of nations . . . [is] ‘equality of sovereignty.’ Equality of sovereignty requires that every sovereign is to be treated as the equal of every other in its entitlement to govern persons within its own territory. ‘Under international law, a state has . . . sovereignty over its territory,’ which ‘implies a state’s lawful control over its territory generally to the exclusion of other states, authority to govern in that territory, and authority to apply law there.’”
Conclusion
I concur with commentators in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal that the order for rehearing is not a good sign for maintaining the ATS as a means of enforcing international human rights and for upholding corporate liability under the ATS.
Another commentator speculates that the new issue specified by the Court for rehearing in Kiobeleven encompasses the serious issues of (a) defining the elements for the tort of aiding and abetting a government’s human rights violations; and (b) the constitutionality of extraterritorial application of the ATS, both of which were addressed in the previously mentioned en banc opinions in Rio Tinto.
In the meantime, the U.S. is adjudicating so-called “Foreign-Cubed” cases in other contexts. An U.S. immigration judge, after trial, has found that a former Salvadoran military officer participated in torture and extrajudicial killing of Salvadorans in El Salvador as a predicate for revocation of his U.S. legal residency and removal or deportation from the U.S. Another Salvadoran military officer, who is subject to a Spanish arrest warrant for his alleged participation in the 1989 killing in El Salvador of the six Jesuit priests (five Spanish and one Salvadoran) and their Salvadoran housekeeper and her daughter, recently has been indicted by a U.S. district court for alleged lying on U.S. immigration forms and thereby potentially leading to revocation of his U.S. legal residency status and removal or deportation from the U.S. (The latter was discussed in a Comment to a prior post.)
Finally, there is a bill in Congress with respect to other “Foreign-Cubed” matters. The bill would punish foreigners linked to foreign human rights abuses of foreigners (or presumably U.S. citizens) by denying them U.S. travel visas and freezing their financial assets in the U.S. Similar legislation has been proposed in the U.K. and eight other European countries.
On February 28th the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum (Sup. Ct. No. 10-1491). The transcript of that hearing is available online.
This case involved claims by a putative class of Nigerians against a corporation (Royal Dutch Petroleum Co. (Shell)) for allegedly assisting in certain human rights violations in Nigeria in 1993-95. Prior posts reviewed the procedural background of this case and the Second Circuit decision rejecting such liability.
The claims in this case were asserted under the U.S. Alien Tort Statute (ATS) that provides that U.S. federal district courts have “jurisdiction of 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.” (Earlier posts have reviewed the history of the ATS for the periods 1789-1979, 1980, 1980-2004, the U.S. Supreme Court decision in 2004 and 2004-present.)
Merits Issue: Are Corporations Liable Under the ATS?
A review of the transcript of the hearing reveals that the entire hour was devoted to only one of thetwo issues previously identified by the Court as being raised by this case:
Whether corporations are immune from tort liability for violations of the law of nations such as torture, extrajudicial executions or genocide, as the court of appeals decisions provides, or if corporations may be sued in the same manner as any other private party defendant under the ATS for such egregious violations, as the [U.S.] Eleventh Circuit [Court of Appeals] has explicitly held.
All of the Justices (except Justice Thomas) actively participated in this argument with comments and questions that make it difficult to make any prediction of the ultimate decision in the case, except that it probably will be a decision by a divided Court. Here are samples of some of the comments and questions.
Justice Samuel Alito asked, “What business does a case like [this alleging human rights violations in Nigeria] have in the courts of the United States? There’s no connection to the United States whatsoever.”
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg tried to focus the discussion on the precise issue raised by the case, whether it is only individual defendants [who are liable under ATS] or are corporate defendants also liable?”
Justice Stephen Breyer apparently had difficulty with the Second Circuit’s categorical rule in this case that corporations could never be liable under the ATS. He said he could think of instances where that should not be the case. One he cited was “Pirates Incorporated.”
Justice Elena Kagan also expressed skepticism about an assertion by the attorney for the defendant-respondent that international human rights treaties excluded corporations from liability. Justice Kagan said she thought “the international sources are simply silent as to this question [of corporate liability].” She also observed that such treaties were silent on this issue “mostly because all of these are written to prohibit certain acts,” rather than focusing on who commits such acts.
Justice Anthony Kennedy, who often is seen as the swing vote when the Court is divided, asked the first question almost before the attorney for the plaintiffs-petitioners could open his mouth. Justice Kennedy said, “For me, the case turns in large part on this,” (quoting from the defendant-respondent’s brief), ‘International law does not recognize corporate responsibility for the alleged offenses here.’ Justice Kennedy immediately followed with this quotation from an amicus brief by Chevron Corporation, which is a defendant in another ATS case, “No other nation in the world permits its courts to exercise universal civil jurisdiction over alleged extraterritorial human rights abuses to which the nation has no connection.”
Justice Anthony Kennedy also noted that international criminal law made a distinction between individuals and corporations with only the former being subject to criminal sanctions. Yet later he mentioned the legal principle of respondeat superior (that a corporation or other principal is legally responsible for the wrongs of its employee or agent under certain conditions) and said that it was a very simple proposition of U.S. law and perhaps implicitly suggested it was applicable in this case.
Subject Matter Jurisdiction Issue
The second issue raised by this case was not discussed at the February 28th hearing. It was the following: Whether the issue of corporate civil tort liability under the Alien Tort Statute (“ATS”), 28 U.S.C. § 1350, is a merits question, as it has been treated by all courts prior to the decision below, or an issue of subject matter jurisdiction, as the court of appeals held for the first time.
The Second Circuit in an opinion by Judge Cabranes held, without much discussion, that the ATS incorporates any limitation arising from customary international law on whom may properly be sued as a defendant under the statute and that this was a requirement for subject-matter jurisdiction of the federal courts that was not met in this case.
In my opinion, the Second Circuit was clearly wrong on this conclusion on subject-matter jurisdiction. The ATS states that federal courts have “jurisdiction of 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.” Thus, to establish subject-matter jurisdiction, (i) the plaintiff must be an “alien” (a non-citizen of the U.S.); (ii) the lawsuit must be for a tort; and (iii) the tort must allegedly be set forth in “the law of nations” (customary international law) or a treaty of the U.S. All of these requirements are met in this case. It then becomes an issue on the merits as to whether the alleged conduct in fact violates the “law of nations” or a treaty of the U.S.
Moreover, the ATS does not specify as to whom the defendant must be, unlike the Torture Victims Protection Act (TVPA) which states the defendant has to be an “individual.” If the ATS did specify in some fashion what kind of defendant was permissible, then that would make the nature of the defendant an issue for subject-matter jurisdiction. (Whether the word “individual” in the TVPA includes corporations was the issue presented in the other case heard by the Supreme Court on February 28th.)
The procedural posture of this case makes my opinion, if it is correct, an important one for The Supreme Court’s disposition of this case. Federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction requiring such courts always to determine if they have such jurisdiction and prohibiting the litigating parties from conferring such jurisdiction on the courts by not themselves raising problems over such jurisdiction. This basic principle enabled Judge Cabranes in the Second Circuit to raise, discuss and decide the issue of corporate liability under the ATS in this case even though that issue had not been briefed or argued by the parties themselves.
The failure of the defendant Shell to raise the merits issue of corporate liability at the trial court and at the Second Circuit should mean that it is deemed to have waived the issue.
Under this analysis the Supreme Court should reverse the Second Circuit on procedural grounds and not reach the substantive issue of corporate liability.
Conclusion
A Supreme Court decision in this case is expected by the end of June. I reiterate that this is a case of statutory interpretation and the Court’s development of federal common law, and at any time the Congress with a presidential signature could amend the statute to make corporate liability express or to exclude such liability explicitly.
Under the infamous Citizens United decision the Court treats corporations as individual human beings for purposes of the Free Speech clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the right to make unlimited political contributions. If the Court were to decide that corporations, unlike individual human beings, are not liable under the ATS, this would and should present the Court with at least a public relations problem.
