Will $21 Million Somalia Judgment Be the Last of Its Kind?

This week, a group of Somalians subjected to torture and other human rights abuses by the Somalian regime received a measure of justice before a U.S. federal district court. This year, will the U.S. Supreme Court allow such cases to continue?

In the historic case decided Tuesday, Samantar v. Yousuf, a judge awarded $21 million in compensatory and punitive damages against former Somali General Mohamed Ali Samantar for committing torture, extrajudicial killing, war crimes and other human rights abuses against the civilian population of Somalia. For those who suffered his abuses, this judgment is long overdue. Nevertheless, it marks the first time that a former Somali government official has been held accountable for gross human rights violations committed under the brutal Siad Barre regime, the military dictatorship that ruled the country from 1969 to 1991.

Represented by the Center for Justice & Accountability, the seven Somali plaintiffs sued under two U.S. laws: the 200-year-old American Alien Tort Statute (ATS), and the Torture Victims Protection Act (TVPA) of 1991. These laws are in place to protect individuals from the worst-of-the-worst human rights abuses. From a young Somali businessman abducted and subjected to electroshock treatment to a goat herder whose two brothers were ruthlessly executed, the Somali plaintiffs viewed our legal system, and the ATS, as a beacon of hope. After all, Samantar is living here, in Virginia, enjoying the benefits of residency in the U.S. Why should he -- or anyone, for that matter -- be able to avoid legal liability for murder?

But that's just what oil giant Shell will argue to the Supreme Court on October 1. The Nigerian plaintiffs allege that Shell hired the notorious Nigerian military to commit extrajudicial killing, torture, and crimes against humanity, against peaceful activists opposed to its oil drilling project. The case, Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum (Shell), involves allegations that Shell was complicit in the extrajudicial killing and torture of peaceful environmentalists in Nigeria, as well as crimes against humanity against villagers in the oil-rich Niger Delta. The issue before the Court is simple: whether the ATS can be used to hold human rights abusers liable for overseas violations, as it has been used for some 30 years. If Shell gets its way, survivors of human rights abuses will lose one of their few means of seeking justice. And the U.S. will become a safe haven for human rights abusers.

No person or entity present in the U.S. should be given a free pass for murder, torture, or crimes against humanity. The Supreme Court already decided, earlier this year, that the TVPA does not apply to corporations, but the threat posed to the ATS in Kiobel is even broader. The Supreme Court's decision in Kiobel will determine the future of one of our most important tools for human rights justice in this country. This Court has already given corporations unprecedented rights as "persons." Let's hope the justices keep their legal responsibilities intact.

 

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Comments

[Abbott999]

11:43 AM on 08/31/2012

The judgment against Samantar was largely based on the Torture Victim Protection Act (TVPA), a federal statute that is not at issue in the Kiobel case before the Supreme Court. Kiobel will decide whether federal judges are permitted to create "federal common law" that recognizes the right to sue in U,S, courts for overseas torture. So the clear answer to the tendentious question contained in the headline ("Will $21 Million Somali Judgment Be the Last of Its Kind?) is, "No, the Samantar judgment and similar judgments under the TVPA will not be undermined regardless how the Supreme Court rules in Kiobel." The Supreme Court has previously ruled that in general the decision on whether to create new federal causes of action should be made by Congress, not by the courts. If the Court abides by that previous ruling, it is likely to affirm the lower court's decision to dismiss the claims of the Kiobel plaintiffs. Congress is free to pass a law authorizing suits of thesort being pressed by the plaintiffs, but to date it has not done so.

[24b4Jeff]

08:36 AM on 08/31/2012

As the sign of an Occupy Wall Street protester said, "I will accept corporations as individuals as soon as the state of Texas sentences one to death." If one accepts the US constitution at face value, as several of the Supremes are wont to do, corporations could not possibly be accorded the rights of men. I use the word "men" deliberately, because our Constitution, unlike those of several other advanced nations, never mentions women. Moreover, as the principal writers of the Constitution were slave holders, we have to narrow even that definition to "white men of property".

Thus we see that the Roberts-Alito-Scalia-Thomas majority cannot really be strict interpretationalists as they claim, but rather reactionaries who would subvert even the narrowest interpretation of the Constitution.

Perhaps the only legitimate reason for voting for Obama is to prevent more of their ilk from being appointed.