Since the mid-1990s American lawyers have brought lawsuits under the Alien Tort Statute (“ATS”) against U.S. and foreign corporations for their complicity in human rights violations outside the United States…The statute…gave the newly established federal courts the authority to enforce the “law of nations” and treaties of the United States.  In 1980 the landmark case of Filártiga v Peña-Irala, a case involving the torture and murder of the son of an activist in Paraguay, established that the ATS could be used as a vehicle of enforcing customary international human rights norms in U.S. courts…Why have American lawyers turned to the courts and to the enforcement of international law under the ATS?...The starting point is the absence of effective accountability mechanisms in the countries where the defendants in these cases do business.  Bringing a lawsuit in Burma to vindicate human rights would be an absurdity.  Nor is there any effective international or regional mechanism for the vindication of these rights…No matter what the Supreme Court decides about the scope of corporate liability under the ATS it seems likely that corporate complicity cases will continue to be brought in the United States…