The Banality of Corporate Evil

http://inthesetimes.com/article/12847/the_banality_of_corporate_evil

Were it not a matter of life and death, it would be amusing to watch the Supreme Court contort itself–and the Constitution–in slavish fealty to Corporate America.

In June, the Court’s Republican majority is expected to rule that, under international law, corporations are not people. And as such they cannot be held responsible for their complicity in the gross abuse of human rights.

On February 28, the Court heard arguments in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum. The case is brought by 12 Nigerians granted political asylum in the United States. All are Ogoni, an indigenous people who live in the Niger River delta, where Shell discovered oil in 1958.

In the early ’90s, the Ogoni began protesting the environmental devastation of their lands at the hands of Shell. In response, Nigeria’s military junta sent in troops and an estimated 2,000 Ogoni were killed. Charles Wiwa, one of the 12 now suing Shell, says that after he led a demonstration in his town, soldiers seized him and for two hours tortured him before a crowd of thousands. “They started beating me – horsewhipping me, clubbing me, [kicking me with their] boots,” he said in a deposition.