Search results

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.

In this instance, the District Court had to rule whether referring the plaintiffs back to the Papua New Guinean legal system should be considered. The District Court held that this would be inappropriate with regard to the plaintiffs’ claims of war crimes, crimes against humanity and racial discrimination, as these claims are of ‘universal concern’. However, regarding other claims (of environmental harm, of cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment and of consistent pattern of gross violations of human rights) the Court held that it could be assessed whether the plaintiffs should first exhaust legal remedies in Papua New Guinea. Therefore, it gave the plaintiffs one month to decide whether they wished to pursue these claims.  

The heirs of a Palestinian landowner and the council of a Palestinian town sue two Canadian companies in Québec, claiming that by carrying out Israeli construction orders, they are assisting Israel in war crimes.

The Superior Court of Québec dismissed the claim, stating that the Israeli High Court of Justice would be a more suitable place to argue this case. Still, the judge did recognise that a person committing a war crime could be liable under civil law, for example a person who ‘knowingly participates in a foreign country in the unlawful transfer by an occupying power of a portion of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies’.

Djamel Ameziane is an Algerian national who has been detained at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay (Cuba) since 2002. In 2005, he filed for a petition for a writ of habeas corpus (a legal action allowing the person to challenge the legality of his/her detention). In May 2009, the US Government filed a motion requesting the designation as ‘protected’ (meaning that it can be shared only with the counsel of the detainee and the Court) of the decision of the Guantanamo Review Task Force approving Ameziane for a transfer from Guantanamo Bay (Cuba).

On 30 June 2009, the District Court denied the request of the US Government since the Government failed to explain why the disclosure of “this one piece of information”, referring to the Task Force decision, would be harmful. 

On 8 January 2010, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit overturned this decision on the grounds that the District Court applied inappropriately the standard for determining whether the Task Force decision should be designated as ‘protected’.  The Court of Appeals considered that the US Government has met the required standard and, therefore, the District Court should have granted its motion for designation. Accordingly, the Court of Appeals reversed the District Court’s decision.

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. In this instance, the District Court had to rule whether referring the plaintiffs back to the Papua New Guinean legal system should be considered. The District Court held that this would be inappropriate with regard to the plaintiffs’ claims of war crimes, crimes against humanity and racial discrimination, as these claims are of ‘universal concern’.

With the case back at the Court of Appeals, the question to be determined was the scope of the jurisdiction of the ATCA with regard to genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity arising from a blockade and racial discrimination. The Court held that genocide and war crimes fall within the scope of the ATCA. These norms, according to the Court, are specific, universal and obligatory accepted and extend to corporations. However, the crimes against humanity arising from a blockade and the racial discrimination claims are not and, therefore, the case was remanded to the District Court for further proceedings on the claims of genocide and war crimes.