United States Ninth Circuit

In a case brought under the Alien Tort Statute regarding use of a sterility inducing pesticide in the Ivory Coast, summary judgment for defendants on a genocide claim and dismissal of a crimes against humanity claim are affirmed where: 1) genocide requires intent, not the lower knowledge standard within the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (Rome Statute), because the U.S. has not signed or ratified the Rome Statute; and 2) plaintiffs claim of crimes against humanity did not allege state or state-like organizational action.

Appellate Information

• Argued 07/18/2008
• Decided 09/24/2008
• Published 09/24/2008

Judges

• McNAMEE, District Judge:, Before:  CYNTHIA HOLCOMB HALL and PAMELA ANN RYMER, Circuit Judges, and STEPHEN M. McNAMEE, District Judge.

Court

• United States Ninth Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Raphael Metzger, Metzger Law Group, Long Beach, CA, for the plaintiffs-appellants.


• For Appellees:
  
• Edwin V. Woodsome, Jr., Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, Los Angeles, CA, for defendant-appellee The Dow Chemical Company;  Lawrence P. Riff, Steptoe & Johnson, Los Angeles, CA, for defendant-appellee Shell Oil Company;  Robert G. Crow, Boornazian, Jensen & Garthe, Oakland, CA, for defendant-appellee AMVAC Chemical Corporation;  Frederick L. McKnight, Jones Day, Los Angeles, CA, for defendants-appellees Dole Food Company, et al.