( 4 minutes read)
· The U.S. Supreme Court has given a verdict in favor of food giants Nestlé and Cargill in a lawsuit on child labor
· The US supreme court had to decide whether the 18th-century Alien Tort Claims Act, or Alien Tort Statute (ATS), can be used by foreigners to sue U.S. corporations for gross violations abroad, including ones that violate international law like child slavery.
The U.S. Supreme Court has given a verdict in favor of food giants Nestlé and Cargill in a lawsuit on child labor. The lawyers of
affected children -six Malian former child slaves, who were trafficked to Ivory Coast from Mali and forced to work up to 14 hours a day, six days a week, without pay, in the harvest of cocoa beans, argued that the appellants –Nestle, US and Cargill –are liable to pay compensation to the exploited children. According to the lawsuit brought on their behalf against the two companies.
Ivory Coast and Mali supply about 70% of the world’s cocoa beans, including large quantities to U.S. chocolate companies. Children are employed in the industry and are inhumanely treated by the US$100 billion industry. Despite being told to root out the exploitation, the practice of child labor has been continuing not alone in cocoa plantations but also in other areas like mining.
Yesterday (Thursday), judges ruled eight to one in favor of the two companies. The Supreme Court judges dismissing the decision of the appeals court said that the lower court was wrong to allow the group to pursue its case. Nestlé USA and Cargill—argued that they were not liable for human rights abuses committed on cocoa farms in Ivory Coast, the country that supplies much of the raw ingredient for their chocolates.
The US supreme court had to decide whether the 18th-century Alien Tort Claims Act, or Alien Tort Statute (ATS), can be used by foreigners to sue U.S. corporations for gross violations abroad, including ones that violate international law like child slavery. The
advocate representing children argued that both Nestle and Cargill knowingly purchased cocoa beans from African child slavery farms to rake in huge profits and were aware of the inhuman way the children working in the farms were treated. Therefore, they have to be made liable
That debate could have major implications for American businesses, whose labyrinthine global supply chains may reach into poor countries with patchy labor conditions far away from corporate headquarters Although the defendants’ injuries occurred entirely abroad, the Ninth (Judges) held that the defendants could sue in federal court because the defendant companies allegedly made “major business decisions” in the United States.
Lawyers of Nestlé and Cargill, as well as the U.S. Solicitor General, asked the Supreme Court justices to dismiss the case against them, while seeking any sort of corporate impunity. Their stand was that the Alien Tort Statutes should be used only when the actual wrongdoers are identified, thereby alluding that the wrong doers are not corporations but masters of farms who employed the child labor. The court also asked some searching questions to the lawyers of the appellant companies slave owners can form corporations to save themselves from liability from child slavery.
It was also pointed out to the court that the U.S. chocolate companies had long tolerated the use of child labor on African farms since it enabled them to gain a competitive advantage in the U.S. market. These corporations set up a supply chain where they know cocoa beans are being [farmed] by child labor, to cover their identities. While the case focuses only on the chocolate industry, the impact could extend to many other businesses.
