Corporate Accountability Lab

After the the Supreme Court’s 2013 ruling in Kiobel vs Royal Dutch Petroleum, human rights law in the U.S. was irrevocably changed. The court held that the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), a law allowing foreign citizens to seek remedies in U.S. courts for corporate human-rights violations, would no longer apply to human rights abuses occurring outside U.S borders.

Now, under the post-Kiobel legal regime, a U.S. company that participates in the torture or murder of activists, workers, and others in their global supply chains is likely to enjoy near total impunity in U.S. courts for their crimes.Victims of grave human rights violations who once had a forum in the U.S. to seek reparations are left with nowhere to turn.

Corporate Accountability Lab’s purpose is to challenge this impunity head on, through research, collaboration, and experimentation with new or under-utilized legal mechanisms. Corporate Accountability Lab endeavors to provide victims of overseas human rights abuses access to U.S. courts, deter human rights abuses, and to incentivize self-policing and supply chain transparency within corporations.

Corporate Accountability Lab is a brand new organization that is hosted in the offices of the 8th Day Center for Justice in downtown Chicago.