Abstract
The U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co. has ushered in a new era for human rights enforcement. Unanimously, the Court ended so–called foreigncubed human rights cases, that is, litigation where foreign plaintiffs sue foreign defendants for activity occurring abroad. The broadest form of universal civil jurisdiction that the Second Circuit's decision in Filártiga v.Pena–Irala once appeared to promise is over. Alien Tort Statute (ATS) litigation, while not foreclosed, has become more limited.
Highlights
Rejecting Global Legal PluralismThe approach that the Court most roundly rejected is one that has been in ascendance among legal scholars recently: global legal pluralism
The U.S Supreme Court’s decision in Kiobel v
The decision reflects a rejection of attempts to reconceive global governance, from both left-leaning and right-leaning academics
Summary
The approach that the Court most roundly rejected is one that has been in ascendance among legal scholars recently: global legal pluralism. As prescription, is no friend to international human rights It rejects the universal norms upon which human rights depend and instead relies on domestic courts as experimentation sites where norms will develop and later migrate to the international system. [e-19 find that those norms permitted a free-for-all, where each nation’s courts could claim authority to hear any case in the world Both opinions relied on a more traditional territorial understanding “where distinct American interests [would need be] at issue” for jurisdiction to attach.[27] Citing Justice Joseph Story, both the majority and Breyer’s concurrence noted that Congress adopted the ATS when it was clear that “[n]o nation ha[d] ever yet pretended to be the custos morum of the whole world.”[28]
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