Nov 17 2011, 9:00 AM ET
International groups have long been using a 1789 tort to sue corporations for acts on foreign soil. An upcoming Supreme Court case might put an end to that.
REUTERS
This past October, a 15-year legal battle between Royal Dutch Petroleum and a Nigerian political movement finally went before the Supreme Court — of the United States, that is. On October 17, the Court decided to hear a lawsuit filed by Esther Kiobel, whose husband, Dr. Barinem Kiobel, was one of nine activists from the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People hanged by Sana Abacha’s military government on November 10, 1995. Kiobel alleges Shell was partly responsible for her husband’s death, and for other human rights violations committed in the oil-rich Ogoniland region.