The growing movement to make multinational companies liable in U.S. courts for alleged human-rights abuses committed abroad has hit a snag -- the Bush administration.
Last week, the U.S. State Department's top lawyer urged a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit against Exxon Mobil Corp. that alleges the world's biggest energy company was complicit in the murder, torture and rape of villagers living near its natural-gas operations in northern Indonesia. The letter to the judge from William Taft IV marked at least the second time in a year that the State Department has formally weighed in on the side of a major corporation seeking to dismiss a human-rights suit brought against it by foreign plaintiffs.
Previously, under the Clinton administration, the State Department generally remained neutral in such cases, say lawyers with the International Labor Rights Fund, a nonprofit group based in Washington, D.C., that represents the Indonesian plaintiffs, as well as plaintiffs in other human-rights cases against corporations.
"We have an administration that is much closer to corporate interests," said Bama Athreya, the group's deputy director. Among oil and gas companies, Exxon Mobil was the second-largest campaign donor in the 2000 election cycle -- after Enron Corp. -- with 89% of its contributions going to Republicans, according to the Center for Responsive Politics in Washington.
In his letter to U.S. District Judge Louis Oberdorfer, Mr. Taft warned that allowing the case against Exxon Mobil to go forward could "impair [Indonesia's] cooperation with the U.S. across the full spectrum of diplomatic initiatives, including counterterrorism." He noted that Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, is viewed by Washington as a "focal point" in the war against al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations, and that Indonesia is highly sensitive to other countries meddling in its affairs.
"U.S. counterterrorist initiatives could be imperiled in numerous ways if Indonesia and its officials curtailed cooperation in response to perceived disrespect for its sovereign interests" in the court case, Mr. Taft argued in the letter. He also said the litigation threatened to chill desperately needed U.S. investment in Indonesia, particularly in the extractive industries on outer islands where security is dicey.
Judge Oberdorfer solicited the State Department's "nonbinding" opinion in response to a request this spring by Exxon Mobil's lawyers. His decision on whether to proceed to trial is pending.
The Exxon Mobil lawyers were following the successful legal strategy deployed recently by attorneys for London's Rio Tinto PLC, the world's largest mining company. In March, a U.S. District Court judge in Los Angeles declined to adjudicate a similar human-rights suit against Rio Tinto brought by plaintiffs on the island of Bougainville in Papua New Guinea. In that ruling, Judge Margaret Morrow based her decision on a letter from Mr. Taft in which the State Department lawyer said hearing the case "would risk a potentially serious adverse impact ... on the conduct of our foreign relations."
Some campaigners for human rights say the Bush administration is returning U.S. foreign policy to a Cold War footing, in which the U.S. tolerates misbehavior, no matter how egregious, by its allies. To these activists, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the "New World Order" proclaimed by the first President Bush, had opened a new era in which democracy and international law would flourish.
That spirit was still riding high in 1997, they say, when the State Department, under President Clinton, chose not to intervene in a human-rights case brought by some villagers in Myanmar, formerly called Burma, against Unocal Corp. That case is set to go to trial this fall in California state court in Los Angeles. Recently, Unocal lawyers asked the judge to solicit the Bush administration's State Department for another opinion of the case.
"Once again, we're risking expediency to protect our friends at the risk of undermining international law, which is indeed the foundation of stable democracies," said Sandra Coliver, executive director of the Center for Justice and Accountability in San Francisco.
The Exxon Mobil case is one of a dozen or so complaints filed against multinational companies in U.S. courts under the U.S. Alien Tort Claims Act of 1792. That law, originally written to prevent the U.S. from becoming a safe haven for seafaring pirates, has been successfully used since the late 1970s by victims of torture to sue individual torturers. None of the human-rights cases against companies, however, has yet to go to trial, with each of them mired in various states of motions and appeals.
A State Department spokesman said Mr. Taft's letter "speaks for itself." He denied the administration was helping a campaign donor, asserting the department merely responded to the judge's question.
In Indonesia, thousands of people have died in a brutal civil war that has raged since the 1970s in the province of Aceh, on the northern tip of Sumatra island, where Exxon Mobil has extensive oil and gas operations. Exxon Mobil has repeatedly denied any involvement with the alleged abuses by Indonesian soldiers protecting the company's property. An Exxon Mobil spokesman referred questions to the company's lawyers.
A lawyer for Exxon Mobil said the State Department opinion supports the company's view that the case involves security issues in a foreign nation that lie outside the purview of U.S. courts. "This type of question -- the conduct of a foreign nation -- does not belong in a U.S. district court," said the lawyer, Martin Weinstein, of the Milwaukee firm Foley & Lardner.
In June, 16 congressmen and two U.S. senators asked the State Department not to intervene in the case, warning that "intervention ... would send precisely the wrong message: that the United States supports the climate of impunity for human-rights abuses in Indonesia."
In June, 16 congressmen and two U.S. senators asked the State Department not to intervene in the case, warning that intervention would signal U.S. support for "the climate of impunity for human-rights abuses" in Indonesia.
"This is really sad," said Rufriadi, an Indonesian legal aid worker who goes by just one name in Banda Aceh, the provincial capital, "especially at a time when we are trying hard to really uphold the supremacy of law."
-- Rin Hindryati contributed to this article.
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