Mon Oct 1, 2012 3:47pm EDT
By Jonathan Stempel
WASHINGTON, Oct 1 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court (click here) seemed skeptical on Monday of allowing victims of human rights abuses to sue in American courts against the foreign corporations accused of aiding in the atrocities.
But in oral arguments in one of the court's biggest human rights cases in years, some justices suggested they might not close U.S. courts to similar claims against individuals, including those who take refuge in the United States, or to claims involving U.S. companies.
In the case, the first of the court's new term, 12 Nigerians accused Anglo-Dutch oil company Royal Dutch Shell Plc of complicity in a violent crackdown on protesters by military ruler Sani Abacha from 1992 to 1995.
Esther Kiobel filed her suit in 2002 on behalf of victims including her husband, Barinem, who was executed in 1995....
The petroleum industry is very, very interested in destroying USA law that would uphold the dignity of others within the jurisdiction of an old law. An old law that was used successfully in recent history. When countries are divided and people are oppressed and attacked by their own governments, the USA stands as a place where the truth can still be told and justice heard.
The Ogoni Crisis: A Case-Study of Military Repression in Southeastern Nigeria (click here)
The petroleum industry pollutes with abandon in countries where courts don't exist or exist in pandering corruption to the money. The governments hold power over the people with weapons and they use them against their own to enforce complaints by oil barrons about their rigs being attacked, when they are guilty as sin of killing people, women, children and the elderly are random victims unable to protect themselves from the pollution.
The shocking facts (click here) presented in the UNEP report on the Niger Delta oil disasters mean the conspiracy of silence between governments and oil companies has at last been broken
It's not often that 275 pages of bald facts and figures, measurements and dry data changes anything. But the UN environment programme (UNEP) report on Ogoniland published on Friday, has genuinely shocked people around the world and gives hope to impoverished communities on the delta that their struggle for human rights against pollution and poverty is at least being recognised...
The law to be destroyed by the Robert's Court is "The Alien Tort Statue and the Judiciary Act of 1789 (click here).
This assault on USA laws by the Right Wing of the Supreme Court only goes to prove they believe corporations are not only people, but, people without responsibility for their liability. All one has to do is look throughout the Southeastern USA and realize how limited ANY liability carries seriousness. Now, the Supreme Court is throwing in with them and destroying federal laws to hold corporations liable of any wrong doing.
The petroleum industry is very, very interested in destroying USA law that would uphold the dignity of others within the jurisdiction of an old law. An old law that was used successfully in recent history. When countries are divided and people are oppressed and attacked by their own governments, the USA stands as a place where the truth can still be told and justice heard.
The petroleum industry pollutes with abandon in countries where courts don't exist or exist in pandering corruption to the money. The governments hold power over the people with weapons and they use them against their own to enforce complaints by oil barrons about their rigs being attacked, when they are guilty as sin of killing people, women, children and the elderly are random victims unable to protect themselves from the pollution.
The shocking facts (click here) presented in the UNEP report on the Niger Delta oil disasters mean the conspiracy of silence between governments and oil companies has at last been broken
It's not often that 275 pages of bald facts and figures, measurements and dry data changes anything. But the UN environment programme (UNEP) report on Ogoniland published on Friday, has genuinely shocked people around the world and gives hope to impoverished communities on the delta that their struggle for human rights against pollution and poverty is at least being recognised...
The law to be destroyed by the Robert's Court is "The Alien Tort Statue and the Judiciary Act of 1789 (click here).
This assault on USA laws by the Right Wing of the Supreme Court only goes to prove they believe corporations are not only people, but, people without responsibility for their liability. All one has to do is look throughout the Southeastern USA and realize how limited ANY liability carries seriousness. Now, the Supreme Court is throwing in with them and destroying federal laws to hold corporations liable of any wrong doing.
