181–190 of 343 posts
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> A lot of Iraqi's were a big fan of toppling Saddam. The real problem with statements like that is that we can say it about literally any leader.
That already encountered a coup? That barely happens in a democracy.
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> Because of this, it is in the sights of the conservative legal movement I suspect the problem is more that the statute gives U.S. courts jurisdiction over conduct that happens in foreign countries, and applies incomprehensibly vague standards such as “the law of nations.” It’s a statute that made sense in 1789 when it was enacted by a bunch of people that thought God made universal law applicable to the whole world…
> It’s a statute that made sense in 1789 when it was enacted by a bunch of people that thought God made universal law applicable to the whole world. Yet the same people who are likely to be responsible if this law does get thrown out are totally fine with plenty of other laws that make a lot less sense today than in 1789. Let's not pretend that the same court who ruled that all firearm regulations need to be interpre…
This law, by contrast, was enacted in 1789 but only invoked exactly twice until 1980. [1] Since then it seems to have been regularly enacted with very little in the way of jurisprudence to guide its purpose, limits, and overall meaning. It also suffers from an issue that it appeals to "international law" which is a term more subject to political than legal interpretation. Contemporary examples abounds.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_Tort_Statute#History
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So basically every corporation operating in the US has to follow US law at all times, regardless of the economic/legal circumstances in other countries? I can see why that is controversial and almost certainly will be extremely selectively enforced.
>So basically every corporation operating in the US has to follow US law at all times, regardless of the economic/legal circumstances in other countries? wait - was the argument that the laws of these other countries they were operating in required them to fund paramilitary death squads? I must have missed that part. I'm thinking the slope is not as slippery as feared here. on edit: Ok I read your Mexican cartel exam…
I mean actually this is probably the rule for most countries regarding some laws at least - EU companies as I understand the law need to follow GDPR when outside EU, there are laws against bribery and money laundering that work across nations despite what the economic/legal circumstances are in play in other countries.
Luckily though I believe every country in the world that is not a fictional dystopia actually has laws against corporations paying to have people killed so it probably doesn't matter much in this case anyway.
The Alien Tort Statue [1], the reason this case [2] is in the US at all has sometimes been used for significant environmental and social justice global legal activism. Because of this, it is in the sights of the conservative legal movement. Sadly I suspect this case may end up at the supreme court and end up another victim of the removal of redress for the evil of the powerful. [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/ali…
Notable claim from part of that link: corporations are persons, but cannot be sued like a person can.
I assume the portion of the first link you're referring to is the section that starts
> Courts have also split on whether corporations may be held liable under the ATS.
This is a question about the ATS and its scope specifically; the source is not discussing the nature of corporations generally.
It sounds like the scope of the ATS is fairly ill-defined, and that at various points courts have looked for whatever reasons they could to limit its scope, and whether a corporation was involved has just been one of those reasons.
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> seems like a blatant abuse of the term person Fictitious personhood is older than childhood personhood (or universal natural personhood, for that matter). To the degree we need a better term, it’s for natural persons. It’s a logical consequence of assembly, tracing back thousands of years to trade guilds and municipalities needing the ability to stand in court as a collective. Anyone who thinks we should end it sho…
Strangely enough, we've ignored that "find-and-replace across the body of law" in the past. Even the new gender laws ignore existing laws. I sometimes wish that we had written a compiler for law. And a statically typed language designed for compiling policy (think Rego + Rust). Politicians and Law makers would have to test their new proposals in code before wasting anyone else's time on it. Lawyers would have to lear…
Thinking about the law in this way actually made realize how the number of bugs there is actually low for what a clusterfuck it is.
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>So basically every corporation operating in the US has to follow US law at all times, regardless of the economic/legal circumstances in other countries? wait - was the argument that the laws of these other countries they were operating in required them to fund paramilitary death squads? I must have missed that part. I'm thinking the slope is not as slippery as feared here. on edit: Ok I read your Mexican cartel exam…
continuing instead of editing: I mean actually this is probably the rule for most countries regarding some laws at least - EU companies as I understand the law need to follow GDPR when outside EU, there are laws against bribery and money laundering that work across nations despite what the economic/legal circumstances are in play in other countries. Luckily though I believe every country in the world that is not a fi…
But the EU only enforces that for transactions involving EU citizens. If you want to grab all the data from US visitors, go for it, the EU will not complain (as long as you don't do it to EU visitors).
I think the difference here is that the US is enforcing US law on an operation in a foreign country by a company that operates in the US. The equivalent would be the EU enforcing GDPR for all site transactions, regardless of the visitor's nationality.
The point of making this distinction is that there are countries that have laws that we don't want to follow (e.g. various Middle East countries having drastic punishments for atheism and apostasy), and that should not be applied to people (or organisations) who don't reside there. If the USA makes the precedent that it can enforce its domestic law on actions happening in other countries, then it's possible that (e.g.) Australia could enforce its ridiculous anti-online-bullying laws on US citizens who have never left the USA.
It's about time one of these Chiquita (ex United Fruit Company, Cuyamel Fruit Company, and others) / Dole (ex Standard Fruit Company) are held liable. [1]: https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/food-drink/story-bananas-ban... [2]: https://growjungles.com/united-fruit-company-in-costa-rica/ [3]: https://www.biggerlifeadventures.com/chiquita-bananas-cia-fu... [4]: https://history.wsu.edu/rci/sample-research-project/ Edit: fo…
I'll add this to the list
The term banana republic comes from Chiquita history in various countries, in case you didn't know. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_republic
It's so sad that it's used to disparage these smaller countries that were just bullied by the US. Victim blaming.
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continuing instead of editing: I mean actually this is probably the rule for most countries regarding some laws at least - EU companies as I understand the law need to follow GDPR when outside EU, there are laws against bribery and money laundering that work across nations despite what the economic/legal circumstances are in play in other countries. Luckily though I believe every country in the world that is not a fi…
Non-EU companies need to follow GDPR when serving EU customers, yes. There are many websites that geoblock EU visitors because they don't want to comply with GDPR. But the EU only enforces that for transactions involving EU citizens. If you want to grab all the data from US visitors, go for it, the EU will not complain (as long as you don't do it to EU visitors). I think the difference here is that the US is enforcin…
https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/dealing-with-customers...
>The GDPR applies if:
>your company processes personal data and is based in the EU, regardless of where the actual data processing takes place
>your company is established outside the EU but processes personal data in relation to the offering of goods or services to individuals in the EU, or monitors the behaviour of individuals within the EU
Notice how they emphasized EU citizens? Yeah, neither did I.
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> So basically every corporation operating in the US has to follow US law at all times, regardless of the economic/legal circumstances in other countries? It is wild to me how some people can throw something like this out as this like, unreasonable and clearly sarcastic question like, what you expect a corporation to follow the law everywhere? And I'm just over here like... yeah? Yeah. I... always did, really, I neve…
The issue has nothing to do with conservatism versus liberalism, but sovereignty. Why should the US get to make law for the whole world, and then enforce that law in US courts? The funny thing about the leftist children of Reaganites is that they maintain their parents’ universalism and lack of respect for foreign sovereignty. “Maybe America should fuck off and mind its own business” is never part of the political co…
I guess it's a good thing, wish I had it. Makes for persuasive and effective writing, that's for sure.