Apartheid victims sue multinationals.As a lawyer, I was pleased to read Khadija Sharife's article on the class action in the US courts that will allow victims of SA apartheid to sue the many multinational corporations accused of aiding and abetting a·bet tr.v. a·bet·ted, a·bet·ting, a·bets 1. To approve, encourage, and support (an action or a plan of action); urge and help on. 2. the brutal, racist regime. This action through the Alien Tort Claims Act tort claims act n. a federal or state act which, under certain conditions, waives governmental immunity and allows lawsuits by people who claim they have been harmed by torts (wrongful acts), including negligence, by government agencies or their employees. is overdue but nevertheless very welcome. Such developments in human-rights law can only serve humanity as a whole, and we must hope they make the possibility of a similarly repugnant political philosophy never being permitted to rise again. It is also to be hoped that the class action will be allowed to proceed this time to trial stage and a judge's ruling. The case of Wiwa v Shell, while it may have financially benefited the complainants, regrettably allowed the multinationals to avoid acknowledging their wrongdoing wrong·do·er n. One who does wrong, especially morally or ethically. wrong  do by offering an out-of-court settlement An agreement reached between the parties in a pending lawsuit that resolves the dispute to their mutual satisfaction and occurs without judicial intervention, supervision, or approval. , rather than allowing
legal precedents to be set in case law.
Ari Rothstein New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of , USA |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion