Amicus Briefs in Galvis Mujica v. Occidental Petroleum Corp.

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.

Instead of deciding this issue, the appeal was sent back to the district court in 2009, to evaluate whether or not the plaintiffs should have exhausted all their legal options in the Colombian courts before coming to the U.S.  The district court sided with the plaintiffs on this question and sent the case back to the appellate court to review the remaining issues from the original dismissal, and in 2011 ERI filed a new updated amicus brief on the preemption issue.

In its updated brief, ERI argued that unilateral declarations of foreign policy by any executive official - up to and including the President - cannot displace state laws, unless they are authorized by the Constitution, a ratified treaty, a statute, or a longstanding executive practice to which Congress has customarily acquiesced.  ERI also argued that application of state tort laws would not conflict with federal foreign policy, and that California had strong interests in applying its laws in this case which should have been taken into account by the district court.