By Mark Sherman
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court opened its new term Monday and appeared ready to impose new limits on lawsuits brought in U.S. courts over human rights violations abroad.
The nine justices heard arguments over whether businesses and individuals can be sued in the United States for conduct that takes place overseas and has foreign victims.
The dispute involves a lawsuit filed against Royal Dutch Petroleum over claims that the oil company was complicit in abuses committed by the Nigerian government against its citizens in the oil-rich Niger Delta.
Justice Samuel Alito said the case has no connection to the U.S. and wondered why it should “belong in the courts of the United States.”
The Obama administration is partly on the oil company’s side. “There just isn’t any meaningful connection to the United States,” the government’s top lawyer, Donald Verrilli Jr., said.
But Verrilli said the court should not issue a broad ruling that would foreclose all similar lawsuits, even when the corporation being sued is American.
The administration is not endorsing such lawsuits but argues that question should wait for an appropriate case.
Human rights groups have said that the law, the 223-year-old Alien Tort Statute, has been an important tool in establishing accountability for human rights abuses abroad.
Business interests argue they are being subjected to claims over the bad behavior of foreign regimes, which are shielded from lawsuits under U.S. law.
A decision is expected by spring.
The new Supreme Court term also offers the prospect of major rulings about affirmative action, gay marriage and voting rights.
A fight over the affirmative action program at the University of Texas, one of the country’s largest universities, is the first blockbuster case on the court’s calendar, with argument scheduled for Oct. 10.
The outcome could further limit or even end the use of racial preferences in college admissions.
The court also is expected to confront gay marriage. Several cases seek to guarantee federal benefits for same-sex couples who are legally married.
A provision of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act deprives same-sex couples of a range of federal benefits available to heterosexual couples.
Several federal courts have agreed that the provision of the law is unconstitutional, a situation that practically ensures that the high court will step in.
A separate appeal asks the justices to sustain California’s Proposition 8, the amendment to the state constitution that outlawed gay marriage in the nation’s largest state.
Federal courts in California have struck down the amendment.
The justices may not even consider whether to hear the gay marriage issue until November.
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