A farmer prepares to collect a cocoa pod from a cocoa farm in Alepe, Ivory Coast, on December 7, 2020.
Luc Gnago | Reuters
The Supreme Court on Thursday overturned a lower court ruling that allowed six people to sue Nestle USA and Cargill over allegations that they were sold as child slaves on farms in the West African nation of Ivory Coast that the two giant food companies share Deliver cocoa.
Judge Clarence Thomas, who wrote for the majority, said the US 9th District Court of Appeals falsely admitted the lawsuit because Nestle and Cargill allegedly made “important operational decisions” in the United States.
Thomas said the six plaintiffs, who are from Mali, wrongly tried to sue under the Alien Tort Statute for conduct outside the United States. Thomas also said that plaintiffs had failed to demonstrate that the conduct relevant to the ATS “occurred in the United States … even if other conduct occurred overseas”.
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The six defendants alleged that Nestle and Cargill encouraged and supported child slavery because they “knew or should have known” that the farms were using enslaved children.
Although no company owns or operates farms in Ivory Coast, they bought cocoa from the farms and also provided the farms with technical and financial resources in exchange for exclusive rights to their products.
Plaintiffs alleged the companies had an economic impact on the farms “but failed to exercise it to end child slavery,” Thomas noted in his statement.
A US district court originally dismissed the lawsuit after the Supreme Court ruled that the Alien Tort Statute was not extraterritorial. While plaintiffs were appealing this dismissal, the Supreme Court ruled that courts under the ATS cannot create new pleas against foreign companies.
The 9th District Court of Appeals then ruled in the Nestle and Cargill cases that the Supreme Court ruling “does not preclude the judicial establishment of indictments against domestic companies.” The 9th Circuit also ruled that plaintiffs had properly relied on the ATS applied in the cases because funding decisions … originated in the United States
But, in his opinion, Thomas wrote that almost all of the behavior alleged in the lawsuit “occurred in Ivory Coast”.
He also wrote that a “general corporate activity” claim in the United States is insufficient to link to conduct abroad for a claim under the ATS.
“To assert facts sufficient to support domestic application of the ATS, plaintiffs must allege more domestic conduct than general corporate activities common to most companies,” the statement said.
A Nestlé spokesman said in a statement on the ruling: “Child labor is unacceptable. That is why we are working so hard to prevent it.”
“Nestlé has never participated in the outrageous child labor alleged in this lawsuit, and we remain steadfast in our commitment to combating child labor in the cocoa industry and to our ongoing collaboration with government partners [non-government organizations] and industry to address this complex, global problem, “the spokesman said.
“Access to education and improved farming practices and livelihoods are critical to tackling child labor in cocoa production. Addressing the root causes of child labor is part of the Nestlé Cocoa Plan and will continue to be at the heart of our efforts.”
Cargill did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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