RAID joins 15 international human rights organisations to submit a brief to the United States Supreme Court in support of holding US corporations complicit in serious human rights violations liable in US courts. The case concerns Nestlé USA’s and Cargill’s alleged role in child slavery and forced labour in the Ivory Coast.
Our concerns centre on the risk that the US will be a safe haven for corporate human rights abusers by rendering American companies immune from liability in US courts when the injury is committed abroad.
“Our brief makes clear: international law recognises that companies can, and should, be held accountable for human rights violations like child slavery and forced labour,” said the Centre for Constitutional Rights’ Senior Staff Attorney Katherine Gallagher, who serves as counsel for all the human rights groups that joined the call. “Just like other countries that hold their own companies accountable for serious harms, the Supreme Court should find that these former enslaved children can sue US companies in US courts.”