Supreme Court to Weigh if Firms Can Be Sued in Human Rights Cases -
By ADAM LIPTAKAPRIL 3, 2017
The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to decide whether corporations may be sued in American courts for complicity in human rights abuses abroad.
The case turns on the meaning of the Alien Tort Statute, a cryptic 1789 law
that allows federal district courts to hear “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.”
The law was largely ignored until the 1980s, when federal courts started to apply it in international human rights cases.
The plaintiffs in the case said the bank had “served as the ‘paymaster’ for Hamas
and other terrorist organizations, helping them identify and pay the families of suicide bombers and other terrorists.”
The bank responded that it had helped the United States in “the fight against terrorism financing
and money laundering” and was not accused by the plaintiffs of being “involved in the planning, financing or commission of the attacks that caused their injuries.”
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After hearing arguments on the question in 2012, the Supreme Court asked the parties to brief
and argue a broader issue: whether American courts may ever hear disputes under the law for human rights abuses abroad, whether the defendant was a corporation or not.
