Description:

This paper examines four avenues of accountability seeking to hold multinational corporations (MNCs) and their subsidiaries and suppliers liable for mass torts, and proposes a fifth solution. The four pathways are: human rights tribunals; the self-regulation of firm activity through the promulgation of private standards; tort or delict liability in domestic courts; and a novel proposal to establish an International Court of Civil Justice (ICCJ). This paper synthesizes the literature on all four and assess the remedies’ strengths and weaknesses vis-à-vis international accountability. While each pathway offers unique advantages, all four are unable to deliver accountability as currently constructed or envisioned. This article uses comparative legal analysis to argue that home states, especially the United States, should empower domestic courts to adjudicateworkplace injury claims that arise abroad. While the Supreme Court’s decision in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co.shuttered the window for federal courts’ exercise of extraterritorial jurisdiction under the Alien Tort Claims Act (ACTA), accountability for U.S.-based MNCs could still be imposed by other branches of government. A special tribunal under the executive branch (Article II) could circumvent the constraints imposed by Kiobel and offer a promising pathway for holding U.S. firms accountable for workplace human rights violations committed abroad. By tying this proposal to a growing body of legal scholarship focused on Article II courts, this paper proposes a novel accountability mechanism that is both practical and aspirational.

Jake Goodman-Palmer is a Ph.D. student in Political Science at Northwestern University. His research focuses on the intersection of international and comparative legal theory. Before coming to Chicago, Jake obtained his J.D. from Boston University School of Law and worked as a legal fellow at REDRESS, an anti-torture NGO based in London.