Article
Seeking Corporate Accountability for Crimes at Abu Ghraib
While some of the low-level soldiers involved in the [Abu Ghraib] abuses were punished, nine years after the notorious photos exposed these crimes to the world, the civilian interrogators who ordered the abuse have not been prosecuted…The only accountability that survivors of torture have been able to obtain against these private corporations has come through civil litigation…Al Shimari v. CACI…is currently proceeding in federal court…[and] may mark the first time a case against a private military contractor for torture goes to trial. Al Shimari has taken on special importance in the wake of the Supreme Court’s…ruling in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum, which limited the ability of US courts to address human rights abuses committed abroad…The trial in Al Shimari will be a powerful demonstration that, post-Kiobel, US corporations can still be held accountable in US courts for egregious human rights violations they commit abroad…