{"id":8417,"date":"2012-02-29T02:41:28","date_gmt":"2012-02-29T00:41:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/02\/us-top-court-hears-corporate-human-rights-case\/"},"modified":"2012-02-29T02:41:28","modified_gmt":"2012-02-29T00:41:28","slug":"us-top-court-hears-corporate-human-rights-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/us-top-court-hears-corporate-human-rights-case\/","title":{"rendered":"US top court hears corporate human rights case"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Shell accused of aiding Nigerian human rights abuses<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Reach of 1789 law used to sue corporations<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Supreme Court&#8217;s ruling expected by the end of June<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>By James Vicini<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>WASHINGTON, Feb 28 (Reuters) &#8211; A number of Supreme<br \/>\nCourt justices expressed skepticism on Tuesday that corporations<br \/>\ncan be sued in the United States for alleged complicity in human<br \/>\nrights abuses abroad, a case with important financial, legal and<br \/>\ninternational implications.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The high court during arguments considered limiting the<br \/>\nreach of a 1789 U.S. law that was largely dormant for nearly two<br \/>\ncenturies, but used in the past 20 years by foreign victims to<br \/>\nsue multinational corporations for abuses committed overseas.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The court&#8217;s conservatives voiced concern that allowing such<br \/>\nlawsuits violated international law, that it created tensions<br \/>\nwith foreign nations and that the U.S. law only applied to acts<br \/>\nby individuals, not to corporations.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The case before the court involved a lawsuit by 12 Nigerians<br \/>\nwho alleged that Royal Dutch Shell Plc helped the<br \/>\nNigerian government crack down on oil exploration protests<br \/>\nbetween 1992 and 1995 through torture, executions and crimes<br \/>\nagainst humanity.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;What business does a case like that have in the United<br \/>\nStates?&#8221; Justice Samuel Alito asked Paul Hoffman, the California<br \/>\nattorney who argued for the plaintiffs.<br \/>\n\u00a0 <span class=\"label\"><strong>Continued&#8230;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>* Shell accused of aiding Nigerian human rights abuses * Reach of 1789 law used to sue corporations * Supreme Court&#8217;s ruling expected by the end of June By James Vicini WASHINGTON, Feb 28 (Reuters) &#8211; A number of Supreme Court justices expressed skepticism on Tuesday that corporations can be sued in the United States [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-8417","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8417\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}