ATS and Extraterritoriality: A Point of View
Profs. Juan José Álvarez Rubio, Henry S. Dahl, José Luis Iriarte Ángel, Olga Martín-Ortega, Alberto Muñoz Fernández , Lorena Sales Pallarés, Nicolás Zambrana Tévar and Francisco Javier Zamora Cabot (Reporter), are members of the Grupo de Estudio Sobre el Derecho internacional privado y los Derechos Humanos (Group Of Study On Private International Law And Human Rights). The Group has recently produced some notes on Kiobel and the issue of extraterritoriality in response to several Amicus Curiae, especially those of Germany, the Netherlands and the UK. Main premise of the paper is that discussion of the ATS should steer clear of the debate on extraterritoriality – id. est., be kept apart from what the group consider a sterile, artificial inclusion in the debate, and go on being applied extraterritorial, as it has occured for many decades. Download here.
insightful paper.
I applaud all efforts to assure effectuation of justice and human dignity. In my opinion, the ATS is based on a competence under customary and treaty-based international law termed (for several hundred years) universal jurisdiction. Also, the ATS was facially meant to be extraterritorial. Please see http://www.jurist.org/forum/2012/03/jordan-paust-kiobel.php
Of course, for the last few hundred years, international law has never been merely state-to-state and the U.S. Supreme Court has already recognized in 20 cases that corporations and companies can have duties and rights under customary and treaty-based international law. Nonstate Actor Participation in International Law and the Pretense of Exclusion, 51 Va. J. Int’l L. 979 (2011), available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=1701992
Jordan Paust