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| Volume 82 | July 2009 | Number 5 |
"[J]udicial [I]mperialism"? The South African Litigation, The Political Question Doctrine, and Whether the Courts Should Refuse to Yield to Executive Difference in Alien Tort Claims Act Cases
Marissa Renée Geannette
82 S. Cal. L. Rev. 1001
ABSTRACT
For decades, foreign nationals alleging human rights abuses were
frustrated by their inability to receive their idea of adequate redress in the
courts of their own countries. Beset by ills such as environmental pollution triggered by aerial drug eradication programs, the murder of union leaders
by right-wing paramilitary groups allegedly financed by multinational
corporations ("MNCs"), and torture and deprivation in countries like
South Africa, these plaintiffs were offered a glimmer of hope by a series of
rulings in U.S. courts, which had purportedly opened up to them relief
through a statute passed by the American Founding Fathers themselves.
But that relief has often proven elusive, as courts have hesitated to grant
redress for claims brought under what they see as an outdated statute.
Apartheid—a business, economic, and social system synonymous with
racism, murder, torture, and repression that has been universally
condemned by the United Nations, the United States, and the community of
nations—arose in South Africa in 1948. One representative plaintiff
provides a searing impression of the countless gross human rights abuses
committed by the South African National Party from 1948 to 1993.
Thirteen-year-old Hector Pieterson was shot and killed outside his school
after peacefully protesting the apartheid regime. Receiving almost no
relief from the current South African government, his mother, like so many
others, joined the currently ongoing class action In re South African
Apartheid Litigation in an effort to see justice brought against the thirty-four U.S. corporations known to have engaged in business with the South
African government during this tumultuous time. The plaintiffs represent
themselves, their deceased family members, and all victims of the apartheid
regime, and they allege that without the support of MNCs such as
Citigroup, Inc., JP Morgan Chase, Shell Oil, and Ford Motor Co.,
"apartheid would not have been possible."
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