WASHINGTON – For anyone who doubts that oral arguments matter in the U.S. Supreme Court, consider Justice Samuel Alito Jr.’s question last term in a case about corporate liability for human rights violations under the 1789 Alien Tort Statute.
Right out of the gate, Alito asked the lawyer advocating such liability: “The first sentence in your brief in the statement of the case is really striking: ‘This case was filed in 2002 by 12 Nigerian plaintiffs who alleged that Respondents aided and abetted the human rights violations committed against them by the Abacha dictatorship in Nigeria between 1992 and 1995.’ What business does a case like that have in the courts of the United States?”
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