The case of Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum will return on Monday to the U.S. Supreme Court where justices will be asked to decide whether a foreign plaintiff can sue a foreign defendant for a human rights abuse that occurred abroad.
The case comes from the 1994 detention, torture, conviction and eventual execution of Dr. Barinem Kiobel and a group of Nigerians from the Ogoni area of the Niger Delta.
The plaintiffs are seeking damages for “crimes against humanity, including torture and extrajudicial executions, and other international law violations committed with defendants’ assistance and complicity between 1992 and 1995 against the Ogoni people,” according to the Center for Constitutional Rights.
Host Carmen Russell-Sluchansky spoke with David Sloss, a professor at Santa Clara University Law School and director of the school’s Center for Global Law and Policy. Sloss wrote an amicus brief on behalf of the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights supporting those suing Royal Dutch Petroleum.
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