Royal Dutch Shell, Nigerian Villagers Dispute: Supreme Court To Hear Bid To Sue Shell For Abuses

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court said Monday it will use a dispute between Nigerian villagers and oil giant Royal Dutch Shell to decide whether corporations may be held liable in U.S. courts for alleged human rights abuses overseas.

The justices said they will review a federal appeals court ruling in favor of Shell. The case centers on the 222-year-old Alien Tort Statute that has been increasingly used in recent years to sue corporations for alleged abuses abroad.

Other cases pending in U.S. courts seek to hold accountable Chiquita Brands International for its relationship with paramilitary groups in Colombia; Exxon and Chevron for abuses in Indonesia and Nigeria, respectively, and several companies for their role in apartheid in South Africa.

The Nigerians argue Shell was complicit in torture and other crimes against humanity in the country's oil-rich Ogoni region in the Niger Delta.

A divided panel of federal appeals court judges in New York said the 18th century law may not be used against corporations. More recently, appellate judges in Washington said it could.

In a second case the court agreed to hear, the justices will weigh whether the Torture Victims Protection Act of 1992 can be invoked against organizations, or only individuals.

The sons and widow of Azzam Rahim have filed a civil lawsuit against the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization. The Palestinian-born Rahim was a naturalized U.S. citizen who was beaten and died in the custody of Palestinian intelligence officers in Jericho in 1995. Three officers were jailed for their role in the case, according to a State Department report.

But when Rahim's relatives sought money damages for his death, the federal appeals court in Washington said they could not use the 1992 law to go after the Palestinian organizations. The law may be applied only to "natural persons," the appeals court said.

The Nigerians' lawsuit stems from alleged human rights violations between 1992 and 1995. The suit claims that Shell was eager to stop protests about continuing oil exploration in the area and was complicit in Nigerian government actions that included fatal shootings, rapes, beatings, arrests and property destruction.

Specifically, the villagers claim Shell gave soldiers money, food and transportation, and allowed its facilities to be used as staging grounds.

A divided panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York voted 2-1 to throw out the suit, saying corporations cannot be held liable under the Alien Tort Statute. The full appeals court split 5-5 on whether to rehear the case. The tie vote left the panel ruling in place.

The cases will be argued early next year.

The cases are Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum, 10-1491, and Mohamad v. Rajoub, 11-88.

Comments

[icwhite02]

04:29 PM on 10/17/2011

But I thought that "corporations" WERE PEOPLE NOW! SO, THE STATUTE SHOULD APPLY! They can't have it BOTH WAYS! And unless they were having ROBOTS do the torturing & raping, there were NATURAL PERSONS INVOLVED WHO USED THEIR OWN NATURAL BODY PARTS TO COMMIT THOSE CRIMES! I'd like to hear some guy in a court of law claim that somehow his PENIS is CORPORATION PROPERTY!

[Oladipo Omole]

03:18 PM on 10/17/2011

@HuffingtonPost Ateke Tom and other morons in MEND can't fault SPDC , Chevron et al on community development. Okonedo and Omole have details.
Yes, Tony Okonedo(Shell),Shola Omole& Adedeji Haastrup(Chevron), and their Mobil and Totalfinaelf counterparts will provide details of community development efforts including in education i.e Scholarships for eligible youngsters.You should have noticed that Shell is always the culprit though the prosperity all are celebrating now started with Shell in 1947 at Oloibiri.Ledum Mitee and other fools in that unwinnable war of theirs have not told the world why nothing comes out of all the ritual monetary allocations first to OMPADEC and now NDDC except AK 47s,Kalashnikovs, explosives and rocket launchers.It's not reasonable to conclude by any stretch of the imagination that Shell or any other Oil giant is involved in gun-runing.Is it? Neither should it be reasonable to expect these oil giants to look the other way when they're hurting from provocations by these mutants from hell.You must remember that lots of money have been invested in oil exploration,production and supply mechanisms for ages. Not even pollution of any kind can rationalize, least of all justify, their destructiveness,because for Christ's sake the whole of Nigeria is polluted by whatever means.No part of Nigeria can boast of clean water or that it's safe from emissions and other pollutants. I'm a well-rounded and rational Nigerian and I disagree, because with all sense of modesty I'm well educated.

Yours faithfully,
Oladipo Akinyemi Omole

[Genders]

04:48 PM on 10/18/2011

Nice try. The reason it's always Shells fault, is because Shell is a criminal corporate person, that should have been broken up years ago.

http://www.ratical.org/corporations/REHW546.html

"But Shell's crimes are deeper still. When Ogoni activists organized to demand that Shell clean up spilled oil, and share oil profits more equitably with the Ogoni people, the Nigerian military dictatorship -- with financial assistance, logistical support, and guns provided by Shell[1,pgs.23,43,91-92] --conducted a campaign of terror in which at least 1800 Ogoni people were murdered, some of them tortured to death. [1,pg.95]"

http://archive.corporatewatch.org/publications/shell.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Dutch_Shell#Controversies