Over the objections of the US government, a federal appeals court on Friday reinstated some of the class-action claims of millions of people who accused roughly 50 American, Canadian and European companies of supporting apartheid in South Africa.
The US government has said the litigation would interfere with South Africa's reconciliation and redress efforts and would cause "significant tension between the US and South Africa." The South African government had said the cases interfered with its right to litigate such claims itself.
"Today's appeals court decision is a major victory," said Michael Hausfeld, a lawyer for the plaintiffs. "It enables victims of terrible human rights abuses to hold those who aided and abetted those abuses accountable."
Other lawyers on both sides of the dispute did not immediately return telephone messages for comment.
A lower court had tossed out the case, in part because of the vigorous objections by the US and its allies.
In its ruling Friday, the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan urged US District Judge John Sprizzo, who threw out the case in 2004, to consider prior rulings in deciding how much to let the US government's view of the case affect his decisions.
It directed him to note one case in particular. It said judges should not automatically dismiss every case that might negatively affect foreign relations "to avoid difficult and somewhat sensitive decisions in the context of human rights."
In a footnote, it added: "Indeed, to give dispositive weight to the executive branch's views would likely raise serious separation-of-powers concerns."
The claimants, people who have lived in South African after 1948, originally filed 10 separate actions in multiple federal courts. The cases were combined in New York.
The appeals court had heard arguments in January of last year. It reinstated claims brought under the Alien Tort Claims Act, an obscure 1789 law originally enacted to prosecute pirates.
The law has been used since 1980 by Holocaust survivors and relatives of people tortured or killed under despotic foreign regimes. Sprizzo had dismissed those claims, saying he did not have jurisdiction. The appeals court said he must analyze the subject further.
Sprizzo had said he must be "extremely cautious in permitting suits here based upon a corporation's doing business in countries with less than stellar human rights records, especially since the consequences of such an approach could have significant, if not disastrous, effects on international commerce."
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