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TechnoratiThe Supreme Court said Monday that it cannot intervene in an important dispute over the rights of apartheid victims to sue U.S. corporations in U.S. courts because four of the nine justices had to sit out the case over apparent conflicts.
The result is that a lawsuit accusing some prominent companies of violating international law by assisting South Africa's former apartheid government will go forward.
Apartheid was a system of legal and racial separation that dominated South Africa from 1984 to 1993.
The court's hands were tied by federal laws that require at least six justices to hear any case before them.
Short of the required number by one, the court took the only path available to it and upheld an appeals court ruling allowing the suit to proceed.
The justices have ties to Bank of America, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Colgate-Palmolive, Credit Suisse, Exxon Mobil, Hewlett-Packard, IBM and Nestle, among nearly three dozen companies that asked the high court to step in.
The justices' latest financial disclosures show:
- Chief Justice John Roberts owned Hewlett-Packard stock.
- Justice Stephen Breyer owned stock in Colgate-Palmolive, Bank of America, IBM and Nestle.
- Justice Samuel Alito holds shares in Exxon Mobil, which caused him to sit out the still-pending dispute over the $2.5 billion (€1.6 billion) punitive damages award for the Exxon Valdez disaster. Alito also owns Bristol-Myers Squibb.
Justice Anthony Kennedy does not hold stock in any affected company, but his son, Gregory, is a managing director at Credit Suisse. He sat out a case last term involving the investment bank.
Business groups, the Bush administration and the current South African government also sought the high court's intervention. They argued that the lawsuit is damaging international relations, threatening to hurt South Africa's economic development and punishing the companies using a fuzzy concept of aiding violations of international law.
Last year's ruling by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York "allows an unprecedented and sprawling lawsuit to move forward and represents a dramatic expansion of U.S. law," the administration said in court papers.
Lawyers for the South Africans bringing the complaint said it was premature for the Supreme Court to get involved. The lawyers said they plan to narrow their complaint, perhaps omitting some corporations and showing more clearly how the companies assisted the apartheid government.
The case involves the Alien Tort Claims Act, an 18th-century law that allows foreigners to sue in U.S. courts over international law violations. It was originally intended to allow foreigners to have a place to make claims against pirates, but the law has been increasingly used in the last 15 years to sue corporations for their alleged involvement in human rights abuses overseas.
The lawsuit raises sticky questions about U.S. policy toward governments accused of repression. For example, the administration said the government may impose targeted sanctions while still allowing commerce in order to encourage reform. The suit could undermine that policy.
© 2008 The Associated Press
22 Comments so far
Show AllOf course the Apartheid was despicable, let alone the complicity if our Government, and...Multi-National Corps.
But, the point here seems to be...How long before the Supreme Court won't be able to hear any cases at all? Especially against the Corporations who have brought us to ruin.
What of our own victims of American apartheid and the System of Segregation in the South which lasted 100 years?
Where are the damages and reparations for that?
While we have no way of atoning for genocide against the native American, we have brought this stolen continent to destruction by pollution in 500 years!
All while killing now most recently 2 million innocent Iraqi civilians. Did anyone think that the American-killing-machine had stopped working?
Meanwhile, the GOP is delivering their third world America --- we are crossing those bridges now!!!
Good job rtdrury, No one could say it better. Now why is the US and Capitalism falling apart?
So, the US Supreme Court is bought and paid for, eh? Nice!
1984/1948 — it was probably just a typo; hardly a capital crime.
You're right. Interesting to note, before they formalized the system, the first thing the Africaaners did was come to the United States and study our Jim Crow Laws and our system of Death Camp/Reservations for the First Peoples. They were the South African foundation for Apartheid and the Bantus.
They couldn't ask for a more successful model of racialized slavery and genocide. They learned from the Master and took the lessons home. When they were here, nobody ever asked them if they'd heard of Custer. They just took their money.
And now our victims want our Corporations to pay for their complicity in crimes against humanity. Like running a mfging plant with slave labor for IG Farbin. Ooopps. Did I hear somebody say, "Little Eichmanns"? My my my my my ass.
To paraphrase the Great Schnozola, Jimmy Durante "God bless you Professor Ward Churchill, where ever you are." We weren't worthy of your efforts or Leonard's or Fred Hampton's. We are become a degraded and debased people without courage or honor as a direct results of decisions we have made in our lifetime.
Pieces of 8.
What is interesting to observe here that for this instance, affected Supreme Court justices actually recused themselves. Considering the prior conduct of some of the more conservative members of the court, this is a bit of surprise, though not completely. After all, the Alien Claims Tort Act dates from the era when the Constitution was written, and as Scalia spouted in his "60 Minutes" interview, he believes in strict interpretation that does not adjust to the passage of time.
"The justices have ties to Bank of America, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Colgate-Palmolive, Credit Suisse, Exxon Mobil, Hewlett-Packard, IBM and Nestle, among nearly three dozen companies that asked the high court to step in."
Well, of COURSE they do (our 'justices' enjoy profiting from other's-misery). [Not that Alito, for example, would recuse-himself -- as he's demonstrated twice-before...!]
CJM May 12th, 2008 5:59 pm -- "And if I mentioned another country whose weapons were not supplied to the military there I would be unjustly accused of being anti-semitic."
And that percevied threat works as a prior constraint on your honest commentary?! If so, it is even more successful as an inhibitor than it is as an illegitimate debating tactic. Good work, AIPAC!
The posting just above says it all very well....
Hilarious! The Super-court can't operate because the Super-heros are entrenched in the Super-rackets causing all of the Super-turmoil! Super-mission accomplished!
I notice no arms manufacturers are listed there; or perhaps they were just not mentioned. Of course there was an arms embargo, so there were no US arms there. Were there? Well, were there?
And if I mentioned another country whose weapons were not supplied to the military there I would be unjustly accused of being anti-semitic.
Interesting because these companies operate in a number of countries that practice apartheid, commit crimes against people or have oppressive regimes.
1984/1948 -- it was probably just a typo; hardly a capital crime.
I agree, that was outrageously sloppy reporting. I believe 1984 was when the demand for sanctions was just starting to heat up. So perhaps what we have are some ignorant reporters being careless.
I have a new neighbor, a family man perhaps in his 30s who has never heard of HUAC or Senator Joe McCarthy and he's liberal in his politics. At least, he fully approves of my "IMPEACH CHENEY FIRST" bumper sticker.
We need to educate about our history, or famously, it will repeat itself.
kathyodat
Maybe we should be bringing workers justice cases against these companies to the Supreme Court.
kathyodat
how about suing war contractors for reckless endangerment of the American people?
Not 1984.... 1948! Apartheid became law soon after the Nationalist Party took power in 1948 ... although racism was common from the moment the first Europeans stepped onto the beaches at the southern tip of Africa in the 15th century. All the trimmings were there, too: slavery, genocide of the indigenous people, war, appropiration of land, immigration of more Europeans, etc.
This is interesting. And how long has this lawsuit been around? Could the Alien Tort Claims Act be used to prosecute American corporations for the environmental damage they have caused around the world? That would be neat!
This is an informative article, however, I have a question concerning the third paragraph. Didn't South African apartheid start prior to 1984 ?
While this is sad for what it reveals about the US judiciary, the Bush Administration has been trying to undermine the Alien Tort Claims Act for years, precisely because it is a powerful tool in the hands of international human rights activists. Fantastic though a US Supreme Court decision affirming the Second Circuit would have been, that result was also unlikely given the present composition of the Court.
Interesting. I wonder if we'll ever get to see some similar actions against USA Incorporated for its support of Israel's apartheid.