We live in a world in which the victims of cross-border mass torts de facto (not de jure) have no court to turn to in order to pursue legal action against American multinational corporations when they are responsible for disasters. The only way to provide a fair and legitimate process for both victims and corporations is to create an International Court of Civil Justice (ICCJ). This Essay seeks to start a conversation about this novel institutional solution. It lays out both a justice case, from the plaintiffs’ viewpoint, and an efficiency case, from a corporate defendant’s viewpoint, for why a world with an ICCJ would be a better place. The Essay also provides an initial blueprint for such an ICCJ. In so doing, it explains why an ICCJ is politically viable and may, specifically, appeal to rather than repel the least likely constituency: corporate America. The Essay concludes with a call for action and a research agenda.

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.

The editors of this online symposium invited me to contribute to the subject of an argument I have recently advanced. This argument is that the world needs a permanent International Court of Civil Justice (ICCJ) to adjudicate cross-border mass torts. A common reaction to this proposal has been to suggest that the function of such an international court be assumed by one of the existing arbitration institutions or filled by a new one. I’d like to take this opportunity to argue against that idea.

In this Article we use game theory to argue that perceptions of widespread corruption in the judicial processes in developing countries create ex ante incentives to act corruptly. It is rational (though not moral) to preemptively act corruptly when litigating in the courts of many nations.

The upshot of this analysis is to highlight that, contrary to judicial narratives in individual cases—such as the (in)famous Chevron–Ecuador dispute used herein as an illustration—the problem of corruption in transnational litigation is structural and thus calls for structural solutions. The Article offers one such solution: the establishment of an international court of civil justice.