US Supreme Court Impedes Suing Organizations for Torture

The nine justices on the U.S. Supreme Court decided unanimously that lawsuits for torture or murder can be filed against one or various people but never against an organization or institution. The court was considering the case of an American murdered in Gaza in 1995.

“An officer who gives an order to torture or kill is an ‘individual’ in that word’s ordinary usage; an organization is not,” writes Justice Sonia Sotomayor in the ruling.

In this legal case, the country’s highest judicial authority evaluated the limits of the word “individual” in the Torture Victim Protection Act, passed in 1991, after a lawsuit filed by the family of Azzam Rahim, who was arrested and tortured before dying in a Palestinian prison. The family members argued that this legislation protected their claim against the Palestine Liberation Organization, which they hold responsible for the death of Rahim.

“In the petitioners’ view, by permitting suit against ‘an individual,’ the TVPA contemplates liability against natural persons and non-sovereign organizations,” Sotomayor wrote, representing the nine justices. “The ordinary meaning of the word persuades us that the act authorizes suits against natural persons alone.”

Nevertheless, the judgment establishes that the meaning of the word “individual” in three official dictionaries corresponds to a human being or person and that this is the same meaning used in the legislation studied in the case. “’Individual’ is distinct from artificial entities,” explains the ruling, which justifies the distinction because, likewise, “only a natural person can be a victim of torture or extrajudicial killing.”

The Supreme Court’s judgment coincides with the announcement a few weeks ago about the acceptance of new arguments in a case concerning a 1791 law that recognizes the authority of U.S. courts to study any action committed by a foreigner that breaks laws or treaties signed by the United States. The justices will determine if a citizen can proceed with the suit that was filed against an international oil company for complicity in a torture case.

Various multinational corporations have been sued for human rights violations, labor abuses and breaking environmental laws, and next year — depending on what the Supreme Court decides — U.S. courts could be able to consider cases about human rights violations in foreign countries.