Remarks by Beth Stephens

Mechanisms to hold corporations liable for human rights abuses are usually grossly inadequate. All too often, local remedies are not available because the host government and legal system are inadequate or captured by corporate interests. The subsidiary directly responsible for the abuses may not have the funds to provide an adequate remedy, and the parent corporation may not be subject to the jurisdiction of local courts. As a result, victims and survivors of abuses have attempted to follow corporate actors to their home states, through human rights litigation in U.S. and European courts. Although such litigation flourished in U.S. courts for two decades, recent Supreme Court decisions have slashed the number of U.S. human rights cases.