Malaysian Ponnusamy Waytha Moorthy Sues The UK For $4 Trillion Dollars
ALI notes:
A Malaysian Indian man has sued the UK for $4 trillion dollars in a class action lawsuit seeking to collect damages for UK’s creating indentured servants out of the world’s Indian population during British colonial rule. A page out of the holocaust and slavery reparations book.
My off the cuff legal evaluation of the case: If he wants to sue someone he needs to sue the corporations that were involved in making profits rather than the nation directly. I just don’t see him even managing to pull off a settlement with a nation-state (its been known to happen but only in very minor situations and usually only with a state’s own citizens). Now the question is was the East India Company involved in this Indian slave trade? The company, which was under the direct control of the British Parliament, does suggest that the country, UK, is the appropriate target. But, tactically, I would sue the corporate beneficiaries, the lords, dukes, ladies, of the indentured servant trade, and by putting their names, and the names of their estates in the complaint, force them to settle. At least, that is what I suspect a trial lawyer will do because his concern is not with the “win” but with a hefty settlement, and personalizing the case to individual lords and dukes is more likely to do that than taking on the entire UK.
Having said all that. I think the lawsuit is really worthless. I recommend the court throw it out. Also, the holocaust litigation was completely different because the Jewish individuals could show banks directly closing Jewish accounts and freezing Jewish assets. The economic coercion that led one to become an indentured servant is way, way more difficult to prove, and certainly so in a class action setting — where, for there to be a “class,” the factual circumstances of the people involved all have to be the same.
David Bowie and class action law all in one night. Where else but at the AE personal blog.
Oh, there is an interesting legal development in a Croatian war crimes case where the idea of “command responsibility” has been put forward. This is important as it could lead to people like Rumsfeld and Cheney for being tried for stuff like the Iraq War, Guantanamo, or Abu Ghraib. Had Cernig done more research on these issues he would have found that a Germany court threw out such a case against Rumsfeld. That case, though, was filed under German law. Obviously, this is under the authority of the International Criminal Court — a court to which the US is not an adherent EVEN THOUGH BILL CLINTON SIGNED THE TREATY.
Peace.
Posted: 10th, September 2007 | In: Twitterings Comment (1) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink
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September 10th, 2007 at 11:55 pm
Under US constitutional law, all treaties must be ratified by the U.S. Senate. Since the U.S. Senate has not ratified the treaty in question, Clinton’s signing of it (also required as I recall) doesn’t mean all that much. On the merits, the US tends to engage in some acts, such as the invasion of Iraq, which has (had?) little international support. As is well known, it has relatively little domestic support at this time. However, at the time of its initiation, it had a great deal of US public support. Because of that, even very liberal Americans are not keen to see the neoconservative cabal of Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld tried in a “foreign” court. Many Americans would believe that their leaders were being tried not for war crimes such as true genocide, but rather, for disagreeing with with an international consensus on an issue purportedly affecting US security.