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Several months ago, we reported on a case before the Supreme Court, Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum, in which nine activists from the Ogoni community in the Niger Delta (the ‘Ogoni Nine’) were executed for protesting against the devastating impact of Shell’s operations there. A case was filed under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS) in the US, and was decided in April.

The case hung on two points:

1. Can the Alien Tort Statute (ATS) be used to seek redress for victims of human rights abuses when foreigners carry out such abuses in foreign countries?
2. Can corporations, as opposed to individuals working for corporations, be held liable for human rights violations under the ATS?

On the first point, the Court found that the location of human rights abuses is the primary factor, and that the ATS applies only to defendants in the US or on the high seas. With this decision, the Supreme Court has done away with the most effective tool human rights activists have used to seek redress for the victims of global human rights abuse and have overturned thirty years of precedent.

On the second point, a US corporation could be sued under the ATS provided those abuses took place in the US or on the high seas. The Court has unanimously given to US corporations a free pass to go into business with any foreign despot or tyrant and to partake in human rights abuses with impunity in any foreign country in their endless pursuit of profits.

How this ruling affects the hearts and minds of the global community once American corporations, in cahoots with anti-democratic regimes, employ human rights abuses as a routine course of business, to run roughshod over the protest of local communities, is yet to be revealed.

Now is the time to get involved – we must reign in giant, multinational corporations run amok! We must start by getting them out of the US Constitution so we can put them in their place domestically and offer support to people of the world whose human rights, natural environments, and communities are being trampled.

If you’re not already involved in the Move to Amend campaign please take this opportunity to sign up to volunteer or become a monthly donor. We cannot win without your active support!

Yours in the struggle,

Ashley Sanders, Daniel Lee, David Cobb, Egberto Willies, George Friday, Jerome Scott, Kaitlin Sopoci-Belknap, Laura Bonham, Maria Agosto, Nancy Price, Pam Brown, Richard Monje

Move to Amend National Leadership Team

PS — Tune in this Thursday to Move to Amend Reports, our weekly internet radio show. Our guest will be Richard Monje, the newest member of the Move to Amend National Leadership Team. Richard is an experienced union organizer with a rich history of working for worker’s rights. We’re thrilled to have him on our team!

Get to know him better by tuning in on Thursday, June 6 at 5pm Pacific / 8pm Eastern to Move to Amend Reports. This is a call-in show so feel free to ask questions.

MOVE TO AMEND

PO Box 610, Eureka CA 95502 | (707) 269-0984 | www.MoveToAmend.org

We, the People of the United States of America, reject the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling, and move to amend our Constitution to firmly establish that money is not speech, and that human beings, not corporations, are persons entitled to constitutional rights.