Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum (Oxy) has been one of the biggest oil producers in Latin America, and it is currently involved in oil production in Colombian, among other places. On December 13, 1998, the Colombian military bombed the village of Santo Domingo, guided by an airplane provided by Oxy and piloted by its security contractor. According to the plaintiffs, Oxy instigated the raid in a meeting with the military at its own offices. The bombing killed seventeen people, including three family members of Luis Galvis Mujica, who brought a lawsuit under the Alien Tort Statute against Oxy in California for its role in the bombings.

In 2005, the district court dismissed the case. The court found that the Alien Tort Statute claims were "political questions" that should not be considered by the court system, and that the state-law claims were precluded because they interfered with the federal government's foreign affairs powers. EarthRights International filed an amicus brief with the court of appeals to challenge the court's unprecedented view that any state-law claims that might have an effect on foreign policy were automatically preempted by the federal government's role in foreign affairs.

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