Expect a series of blog postings in the next few weeks on developments which occurred a few weeks or even months back. I have been squirreling away a series of judgments and other developments, with a view to exam season. Some of them I did use in my exam papers – some of them I did not.
Update 24 January 2018 Imamura et al. v General Electric Company and ‘Does 1-100’ employs the same jurisdictional opening to forum shop in the US. See here for background. Update 14 May 2020 that case has now been decided on forum non conveniens grounds: stay granted in favour of the Japanese courts.
Update 5 June 2020 Cooper has been decided in favour of a stay on forum non conveniens grounds (U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upholding the District Court’s dismissal).
Cooper v. Tokyo Electric Power by the US Court of Appeals, ninth circuit, is a direct (and rare in its directness) example of how jurisdictional rules are used to help co-ordinate a country’s diplomatic efforts. In this particular case, the Court gives direct support to the State Department’s view that in order for others to be encouraged to accede to the Convention on Supplementary Compensation for Nuclear Damage (“CSC”), its main jurisdictional rule (granting exclusive jurisdiction to the country of the locus delicti commissi) must not be achievable via an application of comity in the US courts. For further background and overview see Elina Teplinsky, and Meghan Claire Hammond here.
Plaintiffs in the case are a group of service members in the U.S. Navy who were deployed to Operation Tomodachi, a relief effort in the immediate aftermath of the massive earthquake and tsunami; they allege they were exposed to radiation during the deployment.
That plaintiffs are US citisens plays a major role in the court ruling out forum non conveniens.
In some of the corporate social responsibility /alien tort statute cases that I have reported on in the blog (particularly, Rio Tinto), foreign policy openly plays a role, too, and in Kiobel itself, in the lower courts, the impact of jurisdiction on US foreign policy was debated, too. It is always refreshing to see courts highlight the issue openly. For in many jurisdictions, such obvious impacts are brushed under the carpet.
Geert.
gavc law - geert van calster 