The Supreme Court on Thursday, June 17, ruled in favor of two corporations accused of involvement in child slavery on Ivory Coast cocoa farms. The decision was the latest in a series of rulings imposing strict limits on lawsuits brought in federal court based on human rights abuses abroad.
Article by Nolan Barton from Natural News.
Six citizens of Mali sued Nestle USA and Cargill more than a decade ago, saying the two companies were complicit in child trafficking and profited when they were enslaved on the cocoa farms as children.
The plaintiffs filed their lawsuit under the Alien Tort Statute, a law enacted by the very first Congress in 1789 that allows federal courts to hear civil actions filed by foreigners regarding offenses “committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States.”
The high court in recent years has limited the use of that law. In 2018, the court ruled that foreign businesses cannot be sued under the law. Under that premise, the court rejected an attempt by Israeli victims of attacks in the West Bank and Gaza to use U.S. courts to sue Jordan-based Arab Bank, which they said helped finance the attacks.
Plaintiffs fail to tie companies’ activities in U.S. to child trafficking
The Supreme Court ruled 8-1 against the plaintiffs, saying they had not proven the companies’ activities in the U.S. were sufficiently tied to the alleged child trafficking.
Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the majority, said that the companies “did not own or operate farms in Ivory Coast. But they did buy cocoa from farms located there. They also provided those farms with technical and financial resources – such as training, fertilizer, tools and cash – in exchange for the exclusive right to purchase cocoa.”
Thomas wrote that the flaw in the plaintiffs’ case was its failure to tie the companies’ asserted conduct to their activities in the U.S. According to Thomas, that failure meant that they could not sue under the Alien Tort Statute.
In Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum in 2013, the high court rejected a suit against a foreign corporation accused of aiding and abetting atrocities by Nigerian military and police forces against Ogoni villagers.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., writing for the majority in that case, said that minimal contact with the U.S. would not be sufficient to overcome the presumption. “Even where the claims touch and concern the territory of the United States, they must do so with sufficient force to displace the presumption against extraterritorial application,” Roberts wrote.
Thomas wrote that the same kind of reasoning banned the suit against Nestle and Cargill. “Nearly all the conduct that they say aided and abetted forced labor – providing training, fertilizer, tools and cash to overseas farms – occurred in Ivory Coast,” Thomas wrote.
Nestle, Cargill have total control of cocoa production in Ivory Coast
Lawyers for the plaintiffs argued that Nestle and Cargill have total control over the production of cocoa in Ivory Coast, where child labor is widespread and where the men said they were forced to work long hours and to sleep in locked shacks at night. (Related: SHOCK: Amnesty International Blasts Kellogg’s for Using Child Labor-Produced Ingredients.)
The Department of Labor recently reported that the use of child labor on family farms in cocoa-growing areas of Ivory Coast and Ghana increased from 31 percent to 45 percent between 2008 and 2019.
The corporations “should be held accountable for abetting a system of child slavery,” said Paul Hoffman, a lawyer for the plaintiffs.
Neal Katyal, former acting solicitor general under the Obama administration, represented the two companies. He argued that the companies could not be sued for complicity in child trafficking because they are corporations, not individuals. He also argued that the companies could not be sued in the U.S. for activities that took place in West Africa.
Human rights advocates denounce Supreme Court decision
EarthRights International, which filed an amicus brief with the court on behalf of the plaintiffs, called the ruling “a giant step backward for U.S. leadership on international law and protecting human rights.”
“The ruling implies that U.S. corporations whose executives decide, from comfortable American boardrooms, to profit from murder, torture, and slavery abroad cannot be sued in U.S. federal courts for violating international law,” said Marco Simons, general counsel for the organization.
“This ruling has disturbing implications for future victims of human rights abuses seeking justice against businesses in U.S. courts. This ruling also sets a dangerous precedent, giving corporations impunity for profiting from human rights abuses.” (Related: Human rights alert: Coca-Cola suppliers buy materials from El Salvador companies that practice child labor.)
Celebrity activist Bree Newsome noted the irony of the ruling on the day the Congress passed legislation recognizing Juneteenth – the day Union soldiers arrived in Texas and informed Black people who had been enslaved that slavery had ended with the Civil War.
“We’re celebrating ‘the end of slavery’ but American companies are still profiting off of slave labor,” Newsome tweeted.
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Big Pharma’s Five Major Minions that Everyone, Vaxxed or Unvaxxed, Must Oppose
This is not an “anti-vaxxer” article, per se. It’s a call for everyone to wake up to the nefarious motives behind vaccine mandates, booster shots, and condemnation of freedom.
The worst kept secret in world history SHOULD be that the unquenchable push for universal vaccinations against Covid-19 has little if anything to do with healthcare and everything to do with Big Pharma’s influence over the narrative. Unfortunately, that secret has stayed firmly hidden from the vast majority of people because of the five major minions working on behalf of Big Pharma.
What’s even worse is the fact that Big Pharma’s greed is merely a smokescreen to hide an even darker secret. We’ll tackle that later. First, let’s look at the public-facing ringleaders behind the vaccine push, namely Big Pharma. But before we get into their five major minions, it’s important to understand one thing. This is NOT just an article that speaks to the unvaccinated. Even those who believe in the safety and effectiveness of the vaccines must be made aware of agenda that’s at play.
Let’s start with some facts. The unvaccinated do NOT spread Covid-19 more rampantly than the vaccinated. Even Anthony Fauci acknowledged the viral load present in vaccinated people is just as high as in the unvaccinated. This fact alone should demolish the vaccine mandates as it demonstrates they have absolutely no effect on the spread of the disease. But wait! There’s definitely more.
This unhinged push to vaccinate everyone defies science. Those with natural immunity may actually have their stronger defenses against Covid-19 hampered by the introduction of the injections which fool the body into creating less-effective antibodies. Moreover, the push to vaccinate young people is completely bonkers. The recovery rate for those under the age of 20 is astronomical. Children neither contract, spread, nor succumb to Covid-19 in a statistically meaningful way. What they DO succumb to more often than Covid-19 are the adverse reactions to the vaccines, particularly boys.
All of this is known and accepted by the medical community, yet most Americans are still following the vaccinate-everybody script. It requires pure cognitive dissonance and an overabundant need for confirmation bias to make doctors and scientists willingly go along with the program. Yet, here we are and that should tell you something.
Before I get to the five major minions of of Big Pharma, I must make the plea for help. Between cancel culture, lockdowns, and diminishing ad revenue, we need financial assistance in order to continue to spread the truth. We ask all who have the means, please donate through our GivingFuel page or via PayPal. Your generosity is what keeps these sites running and allows us to expand our reach so the truth can get to the masses. We’ve had great success in growing but we know we can do more with your assistance.
Who does Big Pharma control? It starts with the obvious people, the ones who most Americans believe are actually behind this push. Our governments at all levels as well as governments around the world are not working with Big Pharma. They are working for Big Pharma. Some are proactive as direct recipients of cash. Others may oppose Big Pharma in spirit but would never speak out because they know anyone who does has no future in DC.
This may come as a shock to some, but it’s Big Pharma that drives the narrative and sets the agenda for the “experts” at the CDC, FDA, WHO, NIH, NIAID, and even non-medical government organizations.
Most believe it’s the other way around. They think that Big Pharma is beholden to the FDA for approval, but that’s not exactly the case. They need approval for a majority of their projects, but when it comes to the important ones such as the Covid injections, Big Pharma is calling the shots. They have the right people in the right places to push their machinations forward.
That’s not to say that everyone at the FDA is in on it. Big Pharma only needs a handful of friendlies planted in leadership in order to have their big wishes met. We have seen people quitting the FDA in recent weeks for this very reason. The same can be said about the other three- and five-letter agencies. Too many people in leadership have been bribed, bullied, or blackmailed into becoming occasional shills for the various Big Pharma corporations. Some have even been directly planted by Big Pharma. That’s the politics of healthcare and science that drives such things as Covid-19 “vaccines.”
Read the rest of this story, but please be sure to donate first if you can.
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