Supreme Court to Weigh if Firms Can Be Sued in Human Rights Cases -<br />By ADAM LIPTAKAPRIL 3, 2017<br />The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to decide whether corporations may be sued in American courts for complicity in human rights abuses abroad.<br />The case turns on the meaning of the Alien Tort Statute, a cryptic 1789 law<br />that allows federal district courts to hear “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.”<br />The law was largely ignored until the 1980s, when federal courts started to apply it in international human rights cases.<br />The plaintiffs in the case said the bank had “served as the ‘paymaster’ for Hamas<br />and other terrorist organizations, helping them identify and pay the families of suicide bombers and other terrorists.”<br />The bank responded that it had helped the United States in “the fight against terrorism financing<br />and money laundering” and was not accused by the plaintiffs of being “involved in the planning, financing or commission of the attacks that caused their injuries.”<br />Tell us what you think<br />After hearing arguments on the question in 2012, the Supreme Court asked the parties to brief<br />and argue a broader issue: whether American courts may ever hear disputes under the law for human rights abuses abroad, whether the defendant was a corporation or not.
