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After the civil war in Papua New Guinea, which led to Bougainville obtaining a more autonomous position, several inhabitants of that island sued the mining company Rio Tinto, basically for its role in the war and the process leading up to it. The plaintiffs claimed that Rio Tinto’s mining activities had harmed their health and the environment, and that they had helped the Papua New Guinea government in, among other things, setting up a blockade with disastrous results for the population. They relied on the Alien Tort Claims Act, a US Act which permits aliens to present a claim in a US court when, allegedly, the law of nations has been breached.

The Court stated that it had jurisdiction to hear the majority of the claims. However, it dismissed the claim in entirety, based on the political question doctrine. If the judiciary would rule on the merits of the case, the Court stated, it would judge the policy of Papua New Guinea during the civil war and thereby tread on the exclusive domain of the executive branch of the government, which has the prerogative to decide on foreign policy. 

The Indonesian occupation of East Timor from 1975 until 2002 gave rise to a number of attacks on the Timorese civilian population, particularly against those suspected of being independence supporters.

The Accused, Jose Cardoso, was the Deputy Commander and subsequently the Commander of the pro-autonomy militia group Kaer Metin Merah Putih (KMMP). From May until September 1999, he issued a number of orders to attack both known and suspected independence supporters. These individuals were arrested, beaten and detained for months in cramped and extremely unhygienic conditions without regular access to food or water. One victim had his eat cut off and force fed to him on orders of the Accused. Two women were raped by the Accused. Two other individuals were murdered as a result of the Accused’s orders.

Cardoso was convicted for 9 counts of crimes against humanity by the Special Panels for Serious Crimes and sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment.

Maurice Papon was a civil servant in Occupied France during World War II holding the position of Secretary-General of the Gironde prefecture.

The Assize Court of Gironde – a criminal trial court hearing cases of defendants accused with the most serious crimes – convicted Papon of crimes against humanity and sentenced him to 10 years’ imprisonment for having aided and abetted the unlawful arrest and detention of hundreds of Jewish persons from 1942 until 1944, who were eventually deported and exterminated at Auschwitz.

Papon appealed the conviction but the Court of Cassation held that Papon had forfeited his rights to appeal when, instead of surrendering himself to the custody of the Court as he was legally obliged to do, he fled to Switzerland. Following a decision of the European Court of Human Rights condemning France for having breached Papon’s right of access to a court by holding that he had forfeited such right, Papon sought and obtained the re-examination of his appeal by the Court of Cassation, the highest judicial body in France. The Court dismissed the appeal and confirmed the decision of the Assize Court, rendering irreversible Papon’s conviction. Papon died three years later.

Who can be held responsible in a Court of law for human rights violations? In this case, victims and relatives of victims of the South African apartheid regime sued several corporations for their involvement in South Africa in the period between 1948 and 1994. They were liable, the plaintiffs reasoned, because the police shot demonstrators “from cars driven by Daimler-Benz engines”, “the regime tracked the whereabouts of African individuals on IBM computers”, “the military kept its machines in working order with oil supplied by Shell”, and so forth. The main legal issue to be solved by the District Court was whether it had jurisdiction over this case under the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA), which allows non-Americans to sue in federal Court for a violation of a small group of international norms. The District Court ruled that this case did not fall within the scope of the ATCA for several reasons. They could not be qualified as state agents carrying out illegal state actions, business activities in South Africa during the apartheid era could not be defined as a breach of the ‘law of nations’ under the ATCA and neither could aiding and abetting to an international norm violation. 

Between 1931 and 1945, some 200,000 women were forced into sexual slaverty by the Japenese Army. These women, referred to as “comfort women” were recruited through forcible abductions, deception and coercion. Once captured, they were taken by the Japanese military to “comfort stations”, that is, facilities seized or built by the military near the front lines for express purpose of housing these women. Once there, the women would be repeatedly raped, tortured, beaten, mutilated and sometimes murdered. They were denied proper medical attention, shelter and nutrition.

The present lawsuit was brought by fifteen former “comfort women” against Japan. Having been unsuccessful before the United States District Court for the District of Columbia and the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, the Supreme Court vacated the decision of the Court of Appeals and remanded the case. By its decision of 28 June 2005, the Court of Appeals once again dismissed the appeal on the grounds that the Appellant’s claims were non-justiciable under the political question doctrine as they would require the Courts to interpret treaties concluded between foreign States.