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Banana giant Chiquita held liable by US court for funding paramilitaries

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Re: Banana giant Chiquita held liable by US court for funding paramilitaries

#261

Post by bryanrasmussen »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #250
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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). 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 comp…

Reading over the post I realize they meant that companies in the U.S need to handle EU citizens data properly but they can do what they want with U.S citizens data, which I misunderstood so my apologies on the misunderstanding.

which of course is not an exactly correct understanding - no American company without holdings in Europe needs to worry about what they do with their websites accessed by European citizens.

Re: Banana giant Chiquita held liable by US court for funding paramilitaries

#263

Post by raffraffraff »

verisimi wrote: post #213
raffraffraff wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Your mistake here, imo, is that you think law is something other than an instrument of control. You believe that it is about codifying a set of good behaviours or something. The compilation errors are intentional, rich people are able to get the coder/solicitor to express the law in terms they want. The reality is that anything written down is a metaphor for the internal moral awareness of right and wrong, and as suc…

Of course it's an instrument of control, but I'm happier with it than without. And if it exists, then let it make sense and be consistent.

Re: Banana giant Chiquita held liable by US court for funding paramilitaries

#264

Post by rayiner »

jazzyjackson wrote: post #160
rayiner wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

America is not enforcing its laws on some random people outside its borders, its regulating the behavior of people who are very much subject to our legal system. I am quite surprised to see there's a contingent of folks who think that leaving our borders means you can do whatever you want and expect to be welcomed back

The Alien Tort Statute applies specifically to "aliens" not Americans. It's about holding foreigners liable for conduct on foreign soil in U.S. courts.

Re: Banana giant Chiquita held liable by US court for funding paramilitaries

#265

Post by rayiner »

saghm wrote: post #163
rayiner wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

The Second Amendment imposes a clear textual standard that makes as much sense today as it did in 1789. It's not like anyone is confused about what "bear arms" means. You might think that standard is bad policy today in light of intervening changes, and maybe you would add more caveats, but plenty of people disagree about that.

The Alien Tort Statute, by contrast, literally doesn't make sense--talking about the "law of nations" is like talking about the "aether" or "faeries." It's not even an originalism issue. Even in 1789, the Founders likely didn't intend for the ATS to e.g. allow suits in U.S. courts against the British East India Company for violations of "human rights."

Re: Banana giant Chiquita held liable by US court for funding paramilitaries

#266

Post by barbazoo »

> Lawyers for Chiquita argued that the company had no choice but to pay the AUC to protect its Colombian employees from violence.

They had the choice between not doing business there and paying the criminals. They chose paying the criminals.

Re: Banana giant Chiquita held liable by US court for funding paramilitaries

#267

Post by soperj »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #9
sofixa wrote: post #4

I'm curious about why nobody from Chiquita went to prison for financing a terrorist group. Random Afghans and Iraqis were kidnapped for Guantanamo or outright murdered for less.

> curious about why nobody from Chiquita went to prison for financing a terrorist group It looks like the people who could be held individually criminally liable were in Colombia [1]. (I also imagine Chiquita gets points for notifying the DoJ versus getting caught.) > Random Afghans and Iraqis were kidnapped for Guantanamo or outright murdered for less To be fair, there is a world of difference between financing a fo…

Just to be clear, neither Afghanistan, nor Iraq were responsible for 9/11.

Re: Banana giant Chiquita held liable by US court for funding paramilitaries

#268

Post by hulitu »

sensanaty wrote: post #194

The punishment being fines is criminal in and of itself. Everyone involved needs to be locked away for a long, long time, not have to pay pennies as "punishment"

I think you missunderstand the "everybody is equal in front of law".

If i make a crime, i go to jail. If a company does it, it gets a pat on a back and an insignificant fine. (exceptions - Volkwagen - apply).

Re: Banana giant Chiquita held liable by US court for funding paramilitaries

#269

Post by jerojero »

whearyou wrote: post #249
simiones wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are clear, well documented, notorious cases, some of them even ruled on by international tribunals, of the USA causing direct harm in several South American countries (support and training of anti-government CONTRA torture squads, assassinations of El Salvador priests, mining Nicaragua's harbors, and there are many others). That others also caused harm, both in South America and in many other places, in no way…

Agreed. Other external actors (in particular the Soviets) and internal actors played mayor roles as well. Castigating only the US paints an inaccurate picture of the realities, leading the public and future policy makers to learn partial lessons which when applied will perform less than optimally for preventing the next incident of large scale sufferings

There's no accountability that can be had by the Soviets because the Soviet union doesn't exist anymore.

The American empire on the other hand is very much alive and well. So it makes sense to point fingers at them.

This also goes to internal actors, and a lot of Latin American countries (for example Chile) have failed at properly keeping their own players accountable.

But it doesn't in any way make the call for retribution for the USA any less valid.

Re: Banana giant Chiquita held liable by US court for funding paramilitaries

#270

Post by soperj »

refurb wrote: post #84
caycep wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

last 2? weren't they toppling latin American governments since Teddy Roosevelt?

Absolutely. The Monroe Doctrine was a clear statement that foreign influence in the Americas was a non-starter. The USSR was funding leftist rebels in several central and South American countries throughout its existence - Argentina, Grenada, Guatemala, the list goes on. Doesn’t seem odd to me for the US to come in and back the current government? Even if those governments weren’t democratic, I don’t think anyone can…

Soviet Union has been buried for over 3 decades... what's the excuse for the last 35 years?
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