Perspectives on the Development and Significance of Tort Litigation against Multinational Parent Companies

Richard Meeran explains the genesis of tort-based multinational human rights litigation in the United Kingdom, including some striking features, events, and judgments in original cases of Connelly v. Rio Tinto, Ngcobo v. Thor Chemical, and Lubbe v. Cape plc cases and their impact on the development of English law relating parent company liability leading to the precedents in the Chandler v. Cape, Vedanta, and Okpabi v. Shell cases. He offers insights on strategic litigation from these and other multinational cases. He outlines the key legal, procedural, and practical barriers to justice for victims, with particular emphasis on forum non conveniens, funding litigation, and the interrelationship of the barriers in deterring victims’ lawyers. He considers the concurrent development and integration of multinational human rights litigation and business and human rights including in the UN Guiding Principles. He outlines the potential for cross-border collaboration between lawyers to pursue cases in multinational host States.

Multinational Human Rights Litigation in the UK: A Retrospective

This article provides an overview of the key features of multinational human rights litigation in the United Kingdom, including the development of a tort-based parent company duty of care, the principles relating to forum non conveniens and applicable law and other key procedural and practical barriers to victims’ access to justice. The article highlights some of the actual and perceived limitations of litigation. It also considers the concurrent development of and mutually reinforcing relationship between MNC tort litigation and the field of Business & Human Rights.

The Future of Tort Litigation against Transnational Corporations in the English Courts: Is Forum [Non] Conveniens Back?

This article examines private international law issues raised by civil liability cases commenced in the courts of home states against transnational corporations concerning their alleged involvement in the overseas human rights violations. These claims have been particularly successful in the United Kingdom, where in the last several years the framework of Brussels I Regulation (recast) and English common law rules made it appropriate for the English courts to assert jurisdiction over corporate defendants without the possibility of subjecting claims against the parent companies to forum non conveniens control. In 2019, however, the Supreme Court in a high-profile case Lungowe v Vedanta Resources plc expressed doubts as to whether England should always constitute a proper forum for litigating overseas wrongs arising from the operations of British multinationals. The article aims to assess how the search of the most appropriate forum to litigate the dispute might impact victims of business-related human rights abuses in the post-Brexit environment and propose avenues for legal change.

About Some Measures for Autonomization and Optimization of Administrative and Tort Proceedings in the Russian Federation

The article reveals the problems that unite the judicial reform with the reform of the Institute of administrative responsibility and control and Supervisory activities, which are currently being carried out in the Russian Federation in parallel. In this regard, the research focuses on the key connecting element of these reforms, namely: administrative torts detected in the course of control and Supervisory activities. Presents the scientific analysis allows to understand the administrative-procedural content of control and supervision, to justify the separation of this state activities for centralized and decentralized types, to allocate the administrative and disposable administratrative punishable offences entailing the use of complex special administrative coercive measures extrajudicial and judicial administrative and procedural matters to make the conclusion about the necessity of separating judicial and administrative tort cases arising from the Supervisory relationship, among the total number of administrative cases assigned to the jurisdiction of the courts. In strict accordance with the principles and norms of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, autonomy is justified (separation in judicial administrative proceedings) administrative and tort proceedings. The ranking of administrative and tort proceedings on the main and derivative types is carried out, the consolidation is justified) punitive and restorative administrative and tort proceedings. Conducted a comprehensive review of administrative tort proceedings, enshrined in the APC, СAP and Administrative Code. The results of the analysis put forward evidence-based conceptual proposals on optimization of administrative-tort litigation, which can be implemented in the course of the country's judicial reform in conjunction with reform of legislation on administrative offences and regulatory activities.

What Practitioners can Teach Academics About Tort Litigation – The Plaintiff’s Perspective in Medical Malpractice Litigation

Although medical errors are a leading cause of injury and death in the United States, only a small fraction of claims result in litigation, and the number of paid claims continues to decline. There are many reasons for the relatively small number of medical errors that result in medical malpractice litigation, including the prohibitive cost of procuring medical experts, caps on recovery, the long timeline of a med mal case from intake to verdict or settlement, and the outsized success rate of defendant doctors at trial. This article explores all of these topics, as well as common causes of action and notable plaintiff types.

Defending Government Tort Litigation: Considerations for Scholars

I am honored by the invitation to participate in this symposium on “What Practitioners Can Teach Academics About Tort Litigation” and to share my views from the defense side of government tort litigation. I have a foot in each camp of the practitioner/academic divide. For three decades I defended the federal government in Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) litigation, serving for the last 15 of those years as Deputy Director of the FTCA Staff in the Civil Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. I worked with the FTCA and its jurisprudence on a daily basis—litigating cases, assessing and negotiating proposed settlements, advising agencies and Assistant U.S. Attorneys, and commenting on proposed legislation. I left Justice in 2006 to become an academic, a role in which I have had the pleasure of teaching Torts to first year law students and the time and freedom to write about sovereign immunity, the FTCA, and other things.