On December 21, 2011, ERI submitted an amicus brief to the United States Supreme Court in support of the plaintiffs in Mohamad v. Palestinian Authority, on behalf of ERI’s clients in Bowoto v. ChevronTexaco. The Mohamad case was brought by the son and estate of an American citizen who was allegedly tortured and murdered by security police of the Palestinian Authority. The case presents the question of whether a legal entity can be sued for its involvement in torture or summary execution under the Torture Victim Protection Act (TVPA). The lower courts are split on whether the term “individual” in the statute covers legal entities as well as natural persons. Read more »
On July 1, 2011, EarthRights International filed a friend of the court brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in support of corporate liability for complicity in violations of international law, in a case where children allege that they performed slave labor on cocoa plantations that supply chocolate to Nestle and other companies. Read more »
On September 29, 2011, ERI filed an amicus brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in Mamani, et al. v. Sánchez de Lozada and Sánchez Berzaín,, an Alien Tort Statute (ATS) suit on behalf of ten Bolivian plaintiffs against former Bolivian President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada and former Minister of Defense José Carlos Sánchez Berzaín. The Mamani plaintiffs allege that the defendants were complicit in a 2003 massacre (“Black October”) that involved targeted killings of civilians, including of their family members, in violation of international law prohibiting extrajudicial killing and crimes against humanity. Read more »
On September 28, 2010, ERI submitted an amicus brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, supporting the plaintiffs' claims in L-3 Services, Inc., v. Al-Quraishi. Plaintiffs allege that a U.S. military contractor, L-3 Services (formerly Titan Corp.), and one of its employees tortured and otherwise abused Plaintiffs, who were detained in military prisons in Iraq. Previously, a federal district court in Maryland held that the plaintiffs’ claims could proceed, but L-3 appealed. Read more »
On January 10, 2010, EarthRights International, along with more than twenty other human rights organizations, religious groups and torture survivors and their families, filed an amici curiae brief in the United States Supreme Court. The brief supported the plaintiffs in Samantar v. Yousuf, who bring claims against former Somali General Mohamed Ali Samantar for torture, rape, and mass executions committed against the civilian population of Somalia during the 1980s. The case presented the question of whether former foreign government officials who committed human rights abuses while in office are entitled to immunity in U.S courts under the Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act (FSIA). Amici argued that the FSIA does not immunize individual former officials from suit in U.S. Read more »
On September 13, 2010, ERI filed an amicus brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in Doe v. ExxonMobil Corp., a case alleging human rights abuses against Indonesian villagers by security forces working for ExxonMobil. The district court initially found that claims could not be brought for aiding and abetting human rights abuses under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), and in 2009 dismissed all claims in the case. Read more »
ERI has filed two amicus briefs in the appeal of Sarei v. Rio Tinto PLC, a case arising out of the Rio Tinto mining company's operations on the island of Bougainville, in Papua New Guinea (PNG). The plaintiffs allege that Rio Tinto abetted the PNG military forces in committing various abuses against local indigenous groups, including Alien Tort Statute (ATS) violations such as crimes against humanity, racial discrimination, and pollution in violation of the law of the sea. Read more »
On October 5, 2009, ERI filed an amicus brief in Von Saher v. Norton Simon Art Museum, a case in which the daughter-in-law of a Dutch art dealer sued a California art museum for restitution of two Renaissance masterpieces that were stolen by German occupying forces during the Second World War and eventually found their way into the museum's collections. Ms. von Saher sued under California's section 354.3, a law that revived restitution claims for Nazi-looted art that would have been prohibited by the statute of limitations. A three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit invalidated Section 354.3, reasoning that the state statute interfered with the federal government's constitutional powers to manage foreign affairs and resolve wars. The plaintiff filed a petition for rehearing to the Ninth Circuit, and ERI's brief supported that petition. Read more »
On September 21, 2009, EarthRights International filed an amicus brief on behalf of human rights organizations in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in the case Movsesian v. Victoria Versicherung, A.G. The case concerns a California statute allowing California courts to hear certain lawsuits arising out of insurance policies held by Armenian genocide victims, and extending the time to file such lawsuits. A three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit initially found that the California law was preempted by a federal policy against using the phrase "Armenian genocide." The plaintiffs then petitioned for rehearing. Read more »
Plaintiffs in Sinaltrainal v. Coca Cola alleged that defendant soft-drink companies were complicit in egregious human rights abuses committed against trade unionists by Colombian paramilitaries. The case was dismissed at the trial court level. Plaintiffs appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. In April 2008, ERI submitted an amicus brief to the Court of Appeals on behalf of ERI, the Colombian Institute of International Law, and George Washington University Law School International Human Rights Clinic. The brief described the legal standards that govern whether abuses committed during a civil war have a sufficient nexus to the conflict to be considered war crimes and the standards that are applicable to determine whether a nominally private party that is complicit in summary execution and torture can be held liable under the Alien Tort Statute and the Torture Victim Protection Act. Read more »
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ERI staff, February 2010
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