Shell to face jury trial over Ogoni executions

摘要

UK oil and gas major Shell has failed to stop a lawsuit relating to the 1995 executions of activists in Nigeria from progressing to trial in the US under the US Alien Tort Claims Act and the Torture Victim Protection Act. The ATCA provides a private right of action to aliens for violations of international law.rnAccording to US law firm Littler, the ATCA, a federal statute enacted in 1789, lay unused until 1980, when two Paraguayan nationals successfully used it to sue a former Paraguayan official in the US for damages arising from the torture and murder of their son in Paraguay. Since then it has been used to little effect, but was supplemented in 1992 by the TVPA, which was an amendment that expressly created causes of action for torture or extrajudicial killing.