WASHINGTON (CN) - A group of refugees living in the United States cannot sue the foreign oil companies that allegedly conspired with the Nigerian government to torture them, the mostly unanimous Supreme Court ruled Wednesday.
After surviving rape, imprisonment and other brutality at the hands of Nigerian military and police in the 1990s, residents of the country's Ogoniland won political asylum in the United States.
Prior to the violence, the Ogoni residents had allege*dly protested the oil exploration of their land being carried out by Shell Petroleum Development Co. of Nigeria, a joint subsidiary of Royal Dutch Petroleum, based in the Netherlands, and Shell Transport and Trading, based in England.
In a federal complaint they filed in New York, the refugees led by Esther Kiobel claimed that the oil giants had orchestrated the atrocities to suppress their protests. They claimed that the court had jurisdiction under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), which covers "any civil action by an alien for a tort only, committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States."
Before the case could be argued on its merits, however, Royal Dutch got the case tossed on procedural grounds, saying that U.S. courts had no business examining the case.
The 2nd Circuit went one step further in September 2010, holding that corporations could not be sued under the Alien Torts Statute.
The Supreme Court seemed divided on traditional lines at a hearing on Feb. 28, 2012, but it called for additional arguments and briefs a week later to address "whether and under what circumstances the Alien Tort Statute, 28 U.S.C. §1350, allows courts to recognize a cause of action for violations of the law of nations occurring within the territory of a sovereign other than the United States."
A year and a half after taking up the case, the court affirmed dismissal on narrow grounds Wednesday, highlighting the presumption against extraterritorial application, which ensures "that United States law governs domestically but does not rule the world."
Looking at roots of the Alien Torts Statute since its passage in 1789, the ruling notes that plaintiffs had invoked it twice in the late 18th century, and then just once more over the next 167 years.
"There is no indication that the ATS was passed to make the United States a uniquely hospitable forum for the enforcement of international norms," Roberts wrote.
He noted that the United States had actually been "embarrassed" that its fledgling republic would have no way of providing judicial relief to foreign officials injured in the United States."
"The ATS ensured that the United States could provide a forum for adjudicating such incidents" so that they could not lead to a war, according to the ruling.
"Nothing about this historical context suggests that Congress also intended federal common law under the ATS to provide a cause of action for conduct occurring in the territory of another sovereign," Roberts added.
"Indeed, far from avoiding diplomatic strife, providing such a cause of action could have generated it. Recent experience bears this out."