Transnational Mass Tort Litigation: A Proposal for an International Court of Civil Justice

This chapter will present an argument for the creation of an International Court of Civil Justice to hear transnational mass tort cases. It will consider some of the challenges of adjudicating cross-border mass torts, along with the incentives and feasibility of a new international court to adjudicate these claims.

Drawing upon a number of case studies, including the Bhopal disaster, litigation surrounding the devastation of the Ecuadorian Rain Forest, and the attempts to sue over human rights abuses in Nigeria, the chapter will show that the world's legal systems were not designed to solve these kinds of complex transnational disputes, and the absence of mechanisms to ensure coordination means that victims try, but fail, to find justice in country after country, court after court.

The chapter also explains how an ICCJ would provide victims with access to justice and corporate defendants with a non-corrupt forum and an end to the cost and uncertainty of unending litigation-more efficiently resolving the most complicated types of civil litigation.

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