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Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum

US Supreme court decides on Shell torture case

Sep 30th, 2012
by John Donovan.
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Published on Sunday September 30, 2012

“The Kiobel case was part of a broader set of legal complaints by Nigeria’s Ogoni people, who argued that Royal Dutch Shell was complicit in murder, torture and other abuses committed by the former military government.”

The US Supreme Court is back in session tomorrow to tackle major social issues such as same-sex marriage and affirmative action, as well as a high-profile international human rights case involving the Dutch oil giant Shell in Nigeria..

Twelve Nigerians accuse Shell of becoming an accomplice to torture, extrajudicial executions and crimes against humanity in the Niger Delta region.

The nine justices will decide whether to hold major companies liable for crimes committed outside US borders by virtue of the Alien Tort Statute, a law passed two centuries ago. read more

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Kiobel vs. Royal Dutch Petroleum Company, Monday, Oct. 1

Sep 26th, 2012
by John Donovan.
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Published: September 25, 2012 8:13 PM
By EMILY BAZELON, Slate  

Next Monday, the Supreme Court will begin what promises to be an action-packed fall. I’m looking forward to three cases in the first half of October.

Here they are, in the order they’ll be argued:

Kiobel vs. Royal Dutch Petroleum Company, Monday, Oct. 1: The term opens with a case held over from last year — in a way that doesn’t bode well for Esther Kiobel. She sued Royal Dutch Shell in 2002 on behalf of her late husband and 11 other Nigerians, saying that the company colluded with the Nigerian military in the 1990s to silence protesters — going so far as torturing and killing them — who were trying to halt oil exploration. Last term, when the court first heard the case, the question was whether corporations could be sued for human rights abuses. Cue lots of bitterness on the left about how the court could treat companies as people for the purposes of campaign donations, but not when it comes to accusations of murder. read more

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Arrrr! Shell Tries to Plunder Human Rights

Sep 20th, 2012
by John Donovan.
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[embedplusvideo height=”281″ width=”450″ standard=”http://www.youtube.com/v/mWGmCjNMyys?fs=1″ vars=”ytid=mWGmCjNMyys&width=450&height=281&start=&stop=&rs=w&hd=0&autoplay=0&react=1&chapters=&notes=” id=”ep2908″ /]

Posted: 09/19/2012 11:50 am

In case you hadn’t heard, today is International Talk Like A Pirate Day. Don’t worry if you’re feeling out of the loop; I didn’t know this day existed until recently. From what I have learned, the day is all in good fun, celebrating pirate culture and Johnny Depp movies, which is why we don’t associate things like slavery and genocide with this kind of lighthearted stuff.  But oil giant Royal Dutch Shell puts a different spin on it. They’re actually talking like a pirate, and to the U.S. Supreme Court no less. read more

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Shell defense in Nigeria raises eyebrows

Aug 6th, 2012
by John Donovan.
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Published: Aug. 6, 2012 at 8:44 AM

WASHINGTON, Aug. 6 (UPI) — A U.S. Supreme Court brief filed by Shell in a case involving alleged rights violations in Nigeria contains “offensive” arguments, an advocacy group said.

Shell, in Kiobel vs. Royal Dutch Petroleum, is accused of working with the Nigerian government to ensure resistance to operations in the oil-rich Niger Delta was protected by military force.

In a 71-page brief filed with the U.S. Supreme Court, the company argues the Alien Tort Statute doesn’t apply in a case in Nigeria because that law doesn’t extend to activity conducted on foreign soil. read more

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Kiobel vs. Royal Dutch Petroleum: Obama Administration now supports Shell

Jun 24th, 2012
by John Donovan.
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FROM A REGULAR CONTRIBUTOR 

John,

I found this article and thought your readers might find it interesting. Politics does indeed make for strange bedfellows. Marvin Odum’s 12 plus visits to the White House have obviously ‘paid off’, although one wonders who got paid off, no pun intended. It is amazing how far politicians will go to get elected.

If you doubt the significance of the political influence that Royal Dutch Shell has then this should cast away any and all doubts. Recall that the British and Dutch governments went to bat on behalf of Royal Dutch Shell.
 
Lawfare › Kiobel: Obama Administration Supports Shell, Argues ATS … read more

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British Prime Minister David Cameron Acting Dangerously Against Nigeria

May 28th, 2012
by John Donovan.
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MOSOP STATEMENT ISSUED 28 May 2012

British Prime Minister David Cameron Acting Dangerously Against Nigeria

MOSOP President/Spokesman, Dr. Goodluck Diigbo has described British Prime David Cameron’s government amicus brief in the Ogoni case of Kiobel v Shell in the United States of America as an ill-advised and short-sighted colonial tactics.

Diigbo said the prime minister’s action has deeper implications for destabilizing Nigeria. “What it means is that victims of oil operations that have no way of seeking equity and justice should take the law into their hands instead to use the legitimate judicial process available in the United States for requisite redress against violations by multinational oil companies in which Cameron’s government has vested interest,” Diigbo explained. read more

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Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum

May 24th, 2012
by John Donovan.
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By a Guest Contributor

I have been following this sorry saga of the British and Dutch governments filing a brief with the US courts claiming that a ‘corporation’ could not be held liable for human rights violations and was therefore not subject to human rights laws.

Excuse me, but I think it may be time to revisit the legal proceedings that we commonly refer to as the ‘Nuremberg Trials’ that were held shortly after the Second World War. As I recall a number of German industrialists were in fact placed on the list of wanted ‘war criminals’ for their complicity with the Nazi government in the commission of what we (the civilized Western World) considered to be ‘war crimes’ and ‘crimes against humanity’. As I recall German industrialists were also prosecuted for those acts. However, it has been many years since I have gone through those proceedings (I studied them in my college history classes), so my memory is a bit fuzzy. read more

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What Does Shell Have in Common With General Ratko Mladic?

May 24th, 2012
by John Donovan.
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That does Royal Dutch Shell have in common with General Ratko Mladic, former commander of the Bosnian Serb army? More than you’d think…

First off, they’ve both appeared in the Hague in the past week. Shell was there Tuesday for its Annual General Meeting with shareholders, and Mladic just days earlier for the opening of his trial before the International Criminal Court.

More importantly, Shell and Mladic are both facing court proceedings for allegations of “aiding and abetting” egregious human rights abuses. Shell is accused of complicity in torture and killings of Nigerian environmentalists in the Kiobel vs. Shell case, which the U.S. Supreme Court will re-hear in the fall, and Mladic is accused of 11 counts of crimes against humanity, including the massacre of more than 7,000 Muslims in Srebrenica. read more

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Activists intervene in Shell lawsuit

May 21st, 2012
by John Donovan.
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FINANCIAL TIMES May 21, 2012 By Jane Croft, Law Courts Correspondent

The UK government is facing pressure from human rights activists about why it has chosen to intervene in a US court case connected to oil major Royal Dutch Shell.

The UK government and the Dutch government have jointly filed a so-called “amicus brief” to the US Supreme Court on the side of Shell…

FULL ARTICLE (SUBSCRIPTION MAY BE REQUIRED)

Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum

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Human rights and U.S. courts

Mar 1st, 2012
by John Donovan.
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latimes.com

The U.S. Supreme Court shouldn’t give corporations a pass in human rights cases involving foreign victims.

March 1, 2012

If foreign victims of human rights abuses can use U.S. courts to seek justice from their tormentors, it shouldn’t matter whether they were mistreated by an individual or a corporation. But the Supreme Court was urged this week by an international oil company to insulate it from a law against torture and other violations of the “law of nations.”

In 1789, Congress enacted the Alien Tort Statute, which gave federal district courts jurisdiction over “any civil action by an alien for a tort committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States.” Apparently Congress had in mind a small number of torts — or civil wrongs — including piracy and attacks on ambassadors. The law gathered dust for almost 200 years until it was rediscovered by lawyers for victims of human rights abuses. read more

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Preview-US top court to hear corporate human rights case

Feb 25th, 2012
by John Donovan.
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Fri Feb 24, 2012 6:12pm EST

* At issue is reach of 1789 US law used to sue corps

* Lawsuit accuses Shell of aiding Nigerian rights abuses

* Ruling expected by the end of June

By James Vicini

WASHINGTON, Feb 24 (Reuters) – The Supreme Court will weigh next week whether corporations can be sued in the United States for suspected complicity in human rights abuses abroad, in a case being closely watched by businesses concerned about long and costly litigation.

The high court on Tuesday will consider the reach of a 1789 U.S. law that had been largely dormant until 1980, when human rights lawyers started using it, at first to sue foreign government officials. Then, over the next 20 years, the lawyers used the law to target multinational corporations. read more

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Supreme Court To Decide If 1789 Law Applies To Shell Today

Dec 20th, 2011
by John Donovan.
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Daniel Fisher

Daniel Fisher, Forbes Staff

12/20/2011

For nearly 200 years, the Alien Tort Claims Act lay dormant, a one-sentence law passed by the first Congress that gave federal courts jurisdiction to hear any lawsuit brought by “an alien” for torts committed “in violation of the law of nations.” Then around 1980 inventive lawyers rediscovered it as a tool for international human-rights enforcement. One judge dubbed the long-neglected law a “legal Lohengrin,” after the knight in the Richard Wagner opera who magically appears in a boat drawn by a swan. read more

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Huffingtonpost.com: Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum

Dec 16th, 2011
by John Donovan.
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Mike Sacks

Mike Sacks [email protected]

First Posted: 12/15/11 12:53 PM ET Updated: 12/15/11 01:25 PM ET

WASHINGTON — A multinational oil company will be coming to the Supreme Court this winter to argue that corporations are not “natural persons” and therefore cannot be held liable for committing international human rights violations such as torture, extrajudicial killings and crimes against humanity.

The case, Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum, began far from Washington in the Ogoni region of the Niger Delta. About a dozen Nigerians contend that Shell Oil’s parent company aided and abetted the Nigerian government in its violent suppression of environmental and human rights protesters resisting Shell’s operations there in the 1990s. In September 2010, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit accepted the oil company’s argument that as a corporation it’s immune from being sued in the United States for the overseas conduct. Since then, three other appeals courts, looking at the same law, have held otherwise — in cases brought against Exxon, Firestone and Rio Tinto for similar alleged atrocities. read more

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Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co

Feb 19th, 2011
by John Donovan.
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“Second Circuit Leaves Intact Ruling Limiting Jurisdiction of Alien Tort Statute Over Corporations”
Fulbright Briefing
Judith A. Archer and Sarah E. O’Connell
February 16, 2011

On February 4, 2011, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit denied en banc reconsideration of a September ruling in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., holding that the jurisdiction granted by the Alien Tort Statute (“ATS”) does not extend to civil actions brought against corporations. The vote of the full 10-judge panel of the Second Circuit was split 5-5, leaving intact the original ruling from September. The initial panel voted separately not to rehear the case. Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., No. 06-4800-cv, 06-4876-cv, 2011 U.S. App. LEXIS 2200 (2d Cir. Feb. 4, 2011) read more

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