Reprinted from The Washington Post by Robert Barnes and Peter Whoriskey on June 17, 2021.
The Supreme Court on Thursday said US chocolate companies cannot be sued for child slavery on the African farms from which they buy most of their cocoa.
But the court stopped short of saying such a lawsuit could never go forward.
The court’s splintered decision was written by Justice Clarence Thomas. Justice Samuel Alito Jr. dissented from the decision, saying it was premature to dismiss the suit. …
The plaintiffs sued under the Alien Tort Statute, a 1789 law that allows federal district courts to hear “any civil action by an alien for a tort only, committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States.” …
