A U.S. federal court has ruled Rio Tinto, an international mining corporation, must face charges of genocide and war crimes for allegedly contributing to Papua New Guinea’s crackdown on indigenous workers.

 

A group of current and former residents of the island of Bougainville collectively sued the British-Australian mining corporation in California more than a decade ago. Since then the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has twice ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, clearing the way for their class action case that claims they were subjected to crimes against humanity, war crimes, murders and racial discrimination.

 

Rio Tinto operated the large Panguna copper mine on the island from the late 1960s through the 1990s. In 1988, worker protests forced a mine shutdown. The company, according to the lawsuit, caused major environmental damage and encouraged the Papua New Guinea government to attack the protesters by threatening to pull out of the country unless the demonstrations stopped. This led to a nine-year secessionist war that claimed the lives of 15,000-20,000 people.

 

Although it may seem strange that a case involving the actions of a foreign-based company in a foreign country should end up in the U.S. court system, the precedent actually has deep roots in American history. The basis of the case is the Alien Tort Statute, which was made part of federal law in 1789. The stature allows citizens of other countries to file suit in U.S. courts for crimes “committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States.”

 

A 2004 Supreme Court decision, Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, sought to limit the scope of the Alien Tort Statute to certain categories of crime, but left it to lower courts to sort out the specifics. In a mixed opinion, a majority of the Ninth Circuit panel ruled that genocide and war crimes do qualify, but racial discrimination and crimes against humanity do not.

-David Wallechinsky, Noel Brinkerhoff

 

Papua New Guineans Have Case for Genocide (by Tim Hull, Courthouse News Service)