June 1, 2003	Sunday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 29, 1424

WASHINGTON: The Bush administration is pushing to limit the ability of foreign nationals to obtain judgments against despots and multinational corporations in US courts, arguing that such lawsuits have become a threat to American foreign policy and could undermine the war on terrorism.

For the past 23 years, federal courts have allowed victims of torture and other abuse to file claims under an obscure 1789 statute for violations of human rights norms, commonly known as the Alien Torts Claims Act.

Since a 1980 civil suit against a former Paraguayan police chief accused of torturing and killing a teen-age boy, lawsuits have been filed against Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, Osama bin Laden and banks and other companies alleged to have profited from Nazi war crimes.

But the Justice Department, reflecting an emerging view among conservative legal scholars, argues in a 30-page brief filed this month that such lawsuits frequently have no connection to the United States and may complicate foreign policy objectives by targeting allies, including nations helping in the war on terrorism.

Many US government officials also fear that the torts act will be used in claims against the US. The statute has been employed by a group of Guantanamo Bay detainees captured in Afghanistan and by a Mexican doctor who was kidnapped by bounty hunters and brought to the US to stand trial for the murder of a drug agent.

The government brief was filed in the San Francisco-based US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in a case involving a gas pipeline in Burma. It said the law “has been commandeered and transformed into a font of causes of action permitting aliens to bring human rights claims in US courts, even when the disputes are wholly between foreign nationals and when the alleged injuries were incurred in a foreign country, often with no connection whatsoever with the US.”

The filing has prompted an outcry from human-rights groups and some lawyers within the US State Department, who believe that such lawsuits should be encouraged. American University law professor Diane Orentlicher said the brief amounted to “a profound reversal” on the part of the US government, which has previously been supportive or remained neutral in many alien torts cases.

“There are legitimate questions to be raised about some of the interpretations by some of the courts,” Orentlicher said. “But what they’ve done with this brief is like treating a mosquito bite by cutting off your arm. ... It’s effectively trying to roll back decades of interpretation and the united views of Congress and the judicial branch.”

Last year, for example, the State Department’s top legal officer asked a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit under the alien torts claim law against Exxon Mobil Corp. in connection with operations in Indonesia, which has been cooperative in the fight against Islamic terrorists. Also, in the 1980s, the Reagan administration filed a brief opposing use of the statute in a lawsuit against Marcos.

The Justice Department brief was filed in the case of “Doe v. Unocal.” Burmese citizens say their human rights were violated during the construction of a $1.2 billion gas pipeline, a joint venture of the Burmese military regime, Unocal and two other private firms.

The plaintiffs argue that Unocal used forced labourers supplied by the government to build roads and heliports, a charge the company denies. Originally filed in 1996, the suit was dismissed by a federal district judge in 2000. But a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit reinstated it last year. The court then granted Unocal’s request for a rehearing by an expanded panel, and oral argument in the case is scheduled for June 17.

The intervention of the US government raises the possibility that the issue will ultimately reach the Supreme Court. If the 9th Circuit invalidates the claim, it will create a split in legal authority with another court, the New York-based US Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, that has upheld a right to sue under the torts act. If the 9th Circuit upholds the claim, Unocal can appeal with the support of the US government.

Supporters of the law said it enables people to enforce rights guaranteed them under international agreements such as the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which the US is a party. Scrapping or severely limiting such lawsuits would deprive victims of political torture and murder of one of their few legal remedies, advocates say.—Dawn/LAT-WP News Service (c) The Washington Post