This Response argues that as Alein Tort Statute jurisprudence “matures” or becomes more sophisticated, the legitimate limits of the law regress. The further expansion within the corporate defendant pool - attempting to pin liability on parent, great grandparent corporations and up to the top - raises the stakes and complexity of ATS litigation. The corporate social responsibility discussion raises three principal issues about how a moral corporation lives its life: how a corporation chooses its self-interest versus the interests of others, when and how it should help others if control decisions may harm the shareholder owners, and how far the corporation must affirmatively go to help right the perceived wrongs in the world in which they operate. Although these questions could be posed simply as ones of policy or morality, with the injection of the ATS into the discussion they become questions that must be answered by examining the dictates and limits of law. Every expansion of liability, whether it is in terms of the persons or entities who may be sued or the nature of claims recognized as creating legal obligations, should be viewed cautiously.

The Alien Tort Statute (also referred to as the Alien Tort Claims Act) is a US statute that provides a cause of action for violations of international law. While originally used against former dictators and military officials who fled to the U.S. after the respective governments in their home countries have been removed, human rights activists are now targeting transnational corporations or multinational enterprises for human rights violations in connection with their investments made outside the United States. This book examines and analyzes corporate liability under the Alien Tort Statute.

The ATCA could be a powerful tool to promote corporate CSR, especially in developing countries where local legal restraints are weak. But despite the good normative reasons why the ATCA should be used in this way, serious obstacles remain. The Supreme Court's ahistorical and incoherent formulation of the law of nations fails to promote the development of the ATCA in ways that would cover even serious environmental harm. Also, the federal courts' confused jurisprudence concerning aiding and abetting and state action creates too many loopholes through which egregious corporate behavior may slip unpunished. In order to overcome these obstacles, we argue that the law of nations should not be read so restrictively, that a purposive aiding and abetting standard should be adopted, and that the requirement of state action be minimized or eliminated altogether. These steps would go a long way toward promoting the very CSR considerations that many corporations involved in ATCA litigation have already espoused.

Can human rights be enforced against corporations? This work analyses different enforcement mechanisms. It examines one of the most powerful instruments: the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA) litigation in the United States. The ATCA has been used as one of the chief weapons in a 21st-century battle over corporate responsibility in the age of globalization. For instance, the ATCA has been invoked to seek compensation from German companies in respect of forced labor during the Holocaust. Further examples include claims relating to genocide against a Canadian company, forced labor claims against a US company and numerous others. The ATCA litigation often refers to the «law of nations», but do the US courts interpret this term consistently with other accepted interpretations of international law? The short answer to that question is 'no'. However, in the absence of enforceable international law mechanisms, this lacuna needs to be filled. Domestic litigation of matters that are inherently transnational in character, as occurs in ATCA human rights litigation, represents a viable mechanism to enforce human rights.

Western societies are witnessing an emerging socio-legal trend towards transnational civil litigation against multinational corporations in relation to harm caused toward people and the planet. These 'foreign direct liability cases' arise against the background of a global governance gap resulting from the rapid globalization of economic actors and activities with no global institutions to manage their worldwide impacts. The increasing reliance on private law mechanisms to realize corporate accountability for violations of human rights, health and safety, and environmental and labor norms perpetrated around the globe raises interesting and complex issues. This study sets out the legal and socio-political framework of this particular type of transnational civil litigation. The book traces the role that Western systems of tort law may play in promoting international corporate social responsibility/accountability. It focuses on the feasibility of bringing foreign direct liability claims before domestic courts in the EU Member States - the Netherlands in particular - and sets out a number of recommendations for European policymakers.

This book provides a thorough review of multinational human rights litigation in various countries where such litigation has been pursued, predominantly on behalf of victims in the Global South. It covers cases relating to environmental damage, occupational disease, human rights abuses involving complicity with state security, and in the context of supply chains. The volume is edited by Richard Meeran, who pioneered the first series of tort-based multinational parent company cases in the 1990s and whose firm, Leigh Day, has been at the forefront of this area for almost 30 years. Contributions come from highly experienced legal practitioners in the countries in question who have run many of the key ground-breaking cases, and who understand the opportunities and hurdles that arise in practice. They provide their perspectives and insights into the features of the relevant laws, procedures, and practical considerations in their respective legal systems. Chapters address the potential legal remedies that are available; the legal, procedural, and practical obstacles to justice including funding; as well as strategic issues. This developing area of corporate legal accountability has increasingly become an integral part of the field of business and human rights, which has grown significantly in recent decades. This collection is an essential guide to the field.

Written for the Chapman Law Review Symposium on “What Can Law & Economics Teach Us About the Corporate Social Responsibility Debate?,” this Article applies the lessons of public choice theory to examine corporate social responsibility. The Article adopts a broad definition of corporate social responsibility activism to include both (1) those efforts that seek to convince corporations to voluntarily take into account corporate social responsibility in their own decision-making, and (2) the efforts to alter the legal landscape and expand legal obligations of corporations beyond traditional notions of harm and duty so as to force corporations to invest in interests other than shareholders and profits because they must comply with these new laws.After surveying the corporate social responsibility debate, this Article examines public interest-labeled groups (including corporate social responsibility groups) under a public choice lens and determines that they seek to maximize their budgets, maximize influence, maximize membership, secure their jobs, and in the case of corporate social responsibility sometimes directly effectuate wealth transfers into their organizations or constituencies (e.g., from shareholders to stakeholders). When rent-seeking for legal change is the more efficient use of corporate social responsibility advocates' limited resources, those groups will invest in the creation of law.This Article pays special attention to a broad definition of rent-seeking that includes the investments made, through precedent-building litigation models, in the creation of legal liability regimes or realistic new threats of legal liability in an effort to obtain leverage over corporations in settlements or other negotiations designed to convince corporations to change behavior. According to studies on settlement dynamics, when novel new litigation theories start to survive motions to dismiss, corporate defendants have more incentives to settle to avoid harm to reputation or brand, in addition to avoiding adverse judgments. The Article concludes using the Alien Tort Statute (“ATS”) as a case study illustrating how the interest-group dynamic can play out in the development of a corporate social responsibility-driven liability regime.