Intro: "Foreign political organizations like the Palestinian Liberation Organization and multinational corporations cannot be sued for the torture or murder of persons abroad, including Americans, under the terms of a 1991 U.S. anti-torture law, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously Wednesday. Only individual perpetrators of such crimes can be held liable"
Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, shown delivering a speech at the University of Pennsylvania this month, spoke for the court in Wednesday's decision. (photo: Alex Brandon/AP)
Supreme Court: Organizations Can't Be Sued for Torture
19 April 12
oreign political organizations like the Palestinian Liberation Organization and multinational corporations cannot be sued for the torture or murder of persons abroad, including Americans, under the terms of a 1991 U.S. anti-torture law, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously Wednesday.
Only individual perpetrators of such crimes can be held liable, the court said.
The decision is a setback for human rights activists who have sought to extend American law to target inhumane conduct aboard.
The justices said their decision was based on the words of the Torture Victims Protection Act of 1991. That law authorized damage suits against "an individual" acting under the authority of a foreign nation who inflicts torture or murder.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, speaking for the court, said the "text of the TVPA convinces us that Congress did not extend liability to organizations, sovereign or not. There are no doubt valid arguments for such an extension. But Congress has seen fit to proceed in more modest steps in the Act, and it is not the province of this branch to do otherwise."
The PLO and the Palestinian Authority had been sued by the family of Azzam Rahim, a U.S. citizen of Palestinian origin, who was arrested in the West Bank while visiting there in 1995. He was allegedly tortured and killed by intelligence officers of the Palestinian Authority, according to the U.S. State Department.
Even if those charges are true, the suit cannot proceed, the high court said, because it does not mention an individual.
Several lower courts have allowed lawsuits that target multinational corporations for allegedly aiding foreign tyrants who tortured or killed. The high court's opinion cited those decisions and repeated its conclusion that only "natural persons" can be sued under the anti-torture law.
Wednesday's ruling does not concern a separate law, the Alien Tort Statute, which has opened the door for suits against multinational corporations for other overseas violations of human rights.
The justices heard arguments earlier in a case involving Nigerian plaintiffs who had sued the Royal Dutch Petroleum Co. under that statute. But rather than rule this term on that issue, the justices said they will hear a new round of arguments in the fall.
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Comments
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Instead of running up debts of trillions, invading Afghan homes and droning weddings, maybe the U.S. should draft a battalion of lawyers, to sue, sue, sue for violations of human rights.
One of the saddest things about modern life in the USA is that while "justice for all" may be the promise, it has to be paid for big-time, and most of the truly injured have not even a DREAM of doing that.
Above all, NEVER let the killers and torturers off the hook.
You can't wish -- or talk -- facts away, despite the effort you're putting into it.
Bush and Cheney ruined this country, and now your hanging all their blunders on Obama, how convenient for you.
Six months "futzing around?" Do you hear yourself? You sound just like the neocons who had already decided to invade, regardless of the evidence. Don't you get it? There was no need for an invasion at all, whether it met the neocon's timetable or not. If we had waited 7 months, maybe we could have stopped the unnecessary eight-year war, and over 100,000 deaths and the displacement of two million people.
Hans Blix was right and YOUR right wingers vilified him, because in their lethal arrogance, they could not conceive of anyone — especially from the UN — being smarter than they are.
"There were about 700 inspections, and in no case did we find weapons of mass destruction." Hans Blix.
Thank you for your post.
Please folks -ignore it and it might not go away but just flap about in frustration in whatever world it lives in. It's not worth y'r goodness and is rattlin' it's empty skeletal structure in vague hope of some recognition. "Dem bones, dem bones dem -dry bones---etc!"
We who lived through the tragedy of the Iraq fiasco, its lack of real planning for post 'shock & awe', the ridiculous policies, starting with firing the army and alienating the Baathist bureaucracy, allowing the looting of Tehran for sheer lack of imagination about what to do about it (Rumsfeld's remarkable 'Stuff happens...').
We know about the lies, the torture, the lies about the lies, Cheney's wars on truth-tellers. We'll have to wait for 'history' before we know about this? I don't think so.
Oh and BTW, President Obama owns one title that cant be taken from him, and that is according to the US Treasury and the CBO/OMB; President Obama has spent more in one term and increased the national deficit, then any other president in American history including Bush Jr. At last count he added over 6 trillion dollars in 4 years. According to the US Treasury, Bush Jr only added 4.9 trillion in eight years. You can't wish -- or talk -- facts away, despite the effort you're putting into it.
" Obama has continued those things that Bush and Cheney set up after 9/11/2001 and you know why? They worked!!!
Bullshit! The Bush/Cheney policies on torture are being continued because they have become embedded in the culture---the institutional memory--- of the USA's professional, career bureaucracy. Only an idiot---no offense intended---can believe that Obama or any other Chief Executive of the USA can quickly (if ever) reverse policies instituted and encouraged by his predecessors--- UNLESS THE WARLORDS WHO CONTROL THE VARIOUS FIEFDOMS THAT COMPRISE THE CAREER BUREAUCRACY ARE IN COMPLETE AGREEMENT.
ALSO -- as Dan Rather's truth gains standing, about Baby Bush's AWOL and de facto desertion, during the Vietnam war, why don't we go THERE, too? Desertion used to be a pretty serious, i.e. capital, offense.... Has the court changed that too?
I believe we should put people back in shackles and yokes in the town square. Let people see what it is like to be the Yolk of the Week!
A corporation is a "juristic person" for various purposes, including those of the freedom of speech and freedom of press provisions of the federal constitution's 1st amendment. Those 1st amendment provisions were the premise of the Citizens United decision.
The free speech and free press provisions' terms are not limited to "an individual" or "individuals" or even limited to "a person" or "persons" or "the People." Those terms provide merely that Congress shall not pass any law the limits free speech or free press, so that those terms apply to anyone or anything that can "speak" or conduct or use "the press."
A corporation is a "juristic person" also for purposes like suing and being sued and being guaranteed due process in litigation or having its property protected against the government's taking it without due process of law or not for public purpose or for public purpose but without just compensation.
Though a corporation is a "juristic person," it is not an "individual," which equals only "natural person." If the Torture Victims Protection Act of 1991 had imposed liability on "any person" acting under the authority of a foreign nation, the Act might have applied to any "natural or juristic person."
The statute COULD NOT apply to a corporation. Its terms made it applicable only to "an individual."
How convenient for them!
The conflation of juristic rights and individual rights is antithetical to centuries of American jurisprudence. As with ALL rights, freedom of speech and freedom of the press have no absolute exemption from any regulation. In fact, they already HAVE had limits applied to them for centuries.
Activists bring about change to the Constitution. Always have. Always will.
Rebels from the American Revolution gave us Amendments I to X. Jeffersonian Democrats: Amendment XI and XII. Abolitionists: Amendments XIII to XIV. Woman's rights pioneers: Amendment XIX. The New Deal: XX and XXI. The "Movement" of the '60s: XXIII to XXVI.
Only 3 times has the Right Wing amended it: XVIII [prohibition], XXII [no 3rd term], and XXVII ["budget cutters", limiting pay increases for 535 people].
The Score over the course of two and half centuries:
Progressives: 24
Right Wing: 3 (one rescinded)
Don't worry. We'll amend it some more. Occupy the Constitution!
If individuals, persons, organizations or corporations have rights they also have responsibilitie s.
If an individual commits a crime they can be brought to trial. They should not be able to hide behind a group affiliation to commit a crime with impunity.
But a distinction must be made between an individual who acts under orders to commit a crime (and with the threat of punishment for not acting so)and the individual who acts contrary to the policies of an organization.
terrorists riding their camels in our
shopping malls and We have not yet seen
real terrorists riding their camels into
our sporting arenas either.
It's well past time they make sure we never see them there,..so instead they may agree to affect these offending Corporate Citizens who have OKed these crimes against them and the rest of humanity.
That way the future sourcing of these crimes against humanity will quickly come to an end and the terrorists will know who to affect,
while leaving the rest of us alone.
at this point the only hope i see for repentance from this court is Justice Roberts seems to now be worried about the legacy that will be written about his - The Robert's Court - in the history books. so far it's pretty dastardly...
Len Hart is a guest at Op Ed News and Bluebloggin - among others. His home site The Existentialist Cowboy is not short of research and citations, condemnation of Bush and Corporate Personhood and much more. Fair note : Len is no intellectual lighweight and is full of outrage and rancour - a superlative Texas blogger.
Only the members who are to right. The members more to the left could not voted against this and still say corporations weren't people. This ruling only put the right into conflict with itself.
Some background to chew on
opitslinkfest.blogspot.com/2010/09/law.html
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