The Supreme Court is set to hear a case that could give corporations the power to commit genocide with no consequences.

Notice how the headline is so slanted. It suggests “without trial” the supposition that corporations are being granted power to commit genocide.
Then it provides limited information about the complaint.
So I copied the briefs of the case so people could at least see a bit more than selective leftist sound bites.

By the way, does anyway know what this international law being spoken of is about? The Constitution and laws of the Untied States are sovereign, not subject to foreign interference.
Best as I can figure is this is a move to make the United States compliant with some international jurisdiction, AKA global government, global laws. Every fiber in my being tells me that global centralized power will usher in tyranny on scale never seen before on planet earth.

Anyway, I think this Supreme Court argument is less about whether the oil companies did right or wrong, but more about pushing America closer to surrendering its sovereign right to exclusively govern. Some countries would love to see America stripped of its unique freedoms then kick it into a ditch.

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Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum (Shell) is an Alien Tort Statute (ATS) case brought by Nigerians from the Ogoni community who suffered abuses in 1993-1995, when the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) and other Ogoni groups demanded an end to destructive oil development in their region and were meant with a violent military crackdown. Kiobel is a companion to Wiwa v. Royal Dutch Petroleum, which settled in 2009 and in which ERI served as counsel, and arises out of some of the same events.

In 2006, the trial court judge in the Kiobel case issued a decision finding that the plaintiffs could not bring claims for summary execution, but that Shell could be sued for aiding and abetting other human rights abuses. The judge authorized an unusual "interlocutory" appeal, in which issues are presented to the Court of Appeals before the case has concluded in the trial court. Both sides appealed; the plaintiffs challenged the summary execution ruling, and Shell challenged the aiding and abetting ruling. (The trial court judge subsequently reversed her views on summary execution in a ruling in the Wiwa case, allowing the Wiwaplaintiffs' claims to proceed.)

In 2007, ERI and its co-counsel in the Wiwa case filed two amicus briefs to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, supporting the plaintiffs' appeal on the summary execution issue, and opposing Shell's cross-appeal on the aiding and abetting issue. Two groups of international law scholars also filed amicus briefs in the cross-appeal, supporting the plaintiffs' claims of crimes against humanity, arbitrary detention, and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. The case was argued to the Second Circuit in January 2009.

In September 2010, the Second Circuit issued a surprising decision. Instead of ruling on any of the issues that had been briefed and argued, the Court of Appeals decided that the case had to be dismissed because, it found, corporations could not be sued for human rights violations under the ATS.

In October 2010, the plaintiffs submitted a petition for rehearing, and ERI submitted an amicus brief in support of rehearing. ERI's brief was submitted on behalf of major human rights and labor groups, including Human Rights Watch, the largest human rights organization in the U.S., and two of the largest unions in the U.S., the Service Employees International Union and the United Steel Workers, as well as the Center for Constitutional Rights, Global Witness, the International Labor Rights Forum, the World Organization for Human Rights USA, the Human Rights Law Foundation, and Accountability Counsel. The brief argues that the Kiobel decision wrongly relies on the fact that corporations cannot be brought before any international tribunal to conclude that corporations are not subject to international law. Because the ATS is a domestic remedy for violations of international law, and because international law has always primarily been enforced through domestic mechanisms, it makes no sense to limit the enforcement of international law to the few areas in which international tribunals have been created.

Six other amicus briefs have been filed supporting rehearing, including briefs on behalf of international law scholars, scholars of the Holocaust and the Nuremburg trials, legal historians, federal jurisdiction professors, victims of terrorism, and the Public Good Law Center. The judges that decided Kiobel rejected all of the amicus briefs, and ERI and the other amici then filed a motion asking the full court to reconsider whether the amicus briefs should be filed. The parties are now awaiting a decision from the Second Circuit on whether it will accept the amicus briefs, and whether it will ultimately rehear the case.

Village Idiot

RE Most liberties are

I think you missed my point. And I certainly understand the concept of pissing your neighbors off with blaring Death Metal music at 3am in the morning. “That’s an obvious given”
I am already aware people/companies etc. must not pollute the sovereign territories of the USA, or its waters within its national jurisdiction. “That’s an obvious given”

My question was, and still remains: "what is the implication of surrendering America’s sovereign laws and thus governance over to an international law cartel that is represented by foreign country(s)”
In other words; “let the international community make laws that apply to the sovereign people of United State”?

Currently if U.S. persons or companies do wrong on foreign soil they are subject to the laws of that country, not some international law cartel that can order the USA to take specific directed legal action against said defendant people or company. Nor can they extort compensation from the American people for any wrong doing by the defendants acting directly and solely under agreement with said foreign country outside United Stated sovereign jurisdiction.
If that were the case, such an international law cartel of participating nations (many of which hate America) would overrun America with frivolous law suits and bankrupt us with phony trumped up damages.

Mathew 7:12 probably didn't mean you should toss your common sense out with the morning coffee grounds. In other words he didn’t say drop your defenses and allow anyone from anywhere come into your lands and tell you what to do, much less dictate their laws to you.

I don’t care if you’re an atheist. That’s your business. But as such, why quote scripture? Makes you seem a hypocrite.

Here's another case in which Conservatives and Libertarians seem to be only interested in the freedoms of powerful ruling elites:

In the recent controversy over birth-control products being covered under insurance programs utilized by the Catholic church, Conservative and Libertarian propagandists characterized the issue as an assault on religious freedom.

Whose freedom?

The vast majority of Catholics support the freedom to use birth-control and Catholics use birth-control at the same rate as the general population in defiance of the doctrine espoused by the the ruling church elites.

It should be pointed out that the Catholic church is NOT a democracy, it is a dictatorship. Catholics do not vote on church doctrine.

Once again, it seems Conservatives and Libertarians are only interested in the freedom of the ruling elites of the Catholic church to impose their will on the vast majority of Catholics.

The Conservative and Libertarian view of freedom is not a democratic view, it is a view that is only concerned with the freedom of ruling elites to impose their will on the ruled.

Liberty-First still comes across like an internet addict -- killing time, typing wild. Really not on welfare? I just scrolled over it and laughed.... ludicrous :oD

The United States are a nation of largely Christianity fakers, used to skip the central messages of Jesus. Otherwise many had to hate Jesus. Aren't we already on the cultural level of nations like India and China in states like Florida? Mass misery, hate and violation of human rights is not to find in developed countries.

America will make to have a crucial decision in November. Obama -- or idiocy and decline. There's no third way, we have to decide. It's about our lives: Whether we want to live in a primitive land of misery, or like humans in dignity.

Liberty-First is probably on CIA contract.

I hope that the power elite over reach again and declare corporation immune from international law and and therefore our constitution if our nation is a signer of the international law.

As Thom pointed out, the court would be saying corporations are people to get constitutional rights but are also not people to be free from responsibility of international law. I pray the irony is so thick that a real third party candidate emerges to take adanvatage of the public outrage and disgust of our corrupt system.

Please keep in mind that Obama is the corporatocracy's candidate. The idiots on campaign are designed to make us feel good about what we have. We deserve better than Obama!

If it comes to pass, we might have to form a corperation to raise an army to legally attack such rouge corporations - a good social-science fiction writer could have a field day with this!!

Robert

Since the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision of Citizens United in 2010 in favor of the Corporations, I think that the corporate friendly Supreme Court will decide again in favor of the Corporations. I’m beginning to feel more like a victim than a Citizen in this quest for corporatocracy…

I think the radical right Supreme Court Justices will continue to use their offices to promote their political agenda, support of the wealthiest few at the expense of the rest of humanity.

A brokered convention is something I've worried about for a while now considering the clown show that has taken place. I agree with Thom, stay out of the way and let the republicans have their primary.

Buy the way are we picking up the Koch Bros. tab on political spending at the gas pumps?

http://www.youtube.com/user/CCProse

classic literature audio and read along....

Well, if what Thom says is true, I think it portends a dark and evil world. But didn't we know that we were heading down the corporate road more and more? It's in plain site but people are ignoring it.

And I have to respond to Liberty-First's statement: Nor can they extort compensation from the American people for any wrong doing by the defendants acting directly and solely under agreement with said foreign country outside United Stated sovereign jurisdiction.

But the American people DO pay. We pay in the form of millions/billions in corporate welfare and millions/billions in lost tax revenue through the write-off of business "losses." I am reminded of a case I heard about (through investigative journalism) several years ago when the railiroads were sued for some accident (tort) or incident in/by the state of Florida. The railroads lost the case, but the American taxpayer picked up the tab.

When the every day Joes and Jills pay the bulk of the taxes, are hit with higher consumer prices, and suffer as workers for companies that give miserly wages while recording record profits, Americans do pay. Business gets the free ride; they make us pay one way or another for THEIR losses and mistakes.They get the profit and we get the losses and pay for THEIR mistakes.

It makes me sick when I hear struggling people defend the "job creators." They've had the trickle down effects for the past 10-12 years but have not upheld their end of the bargain--where are the jobs?? Where are the results we are told would come if we let the rich and powerful keep more of their money (which was earned on the backs of the worker and the consumer)? It was a lie just like every thing else we hear from those greedy folk.

How about we do the trickle-up theory: the workers stop producing and the consumers stop buying and the profit stops for business--maybe they'll listen and stop acting like petulent spoiled children and realize that we are in this all together.

Well-paid workers are consumers with full pockets from which business reaps their "just" rewards. Their current hoarding-the-wealth behavior suggests to me that they are asking for trouble from a weary and fed-up population.

Too many people feel like "Wal-Mart is awesome and politics are dull." This makes corporations so powerful. Our actual work is fighting stupidity.

I think it could be a good rap song. I’m no musician, it has lyrical rhythm.

Nothing wrong with being creative. Go for it! Never know ...
:)