"A guide: Using U.S. Courts to Obtain Information for Foreign Legal Cases", April 2020

While the post-Kiobel world has seen several disappointing decisions for victims seeking justice for corporate complicity in human rights abuses, there are still bright spots in the U.S. courts. EarthRights International has developed a strategy to use the U.S. Foreign Legal Assistance (FLA) statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1782, to assist public interest lawyers in other countries in obtaining information which may be useful for their proceedings against a corporation.

EarthRights has filed several FLA actions so far. The first was to obtain information from Chevron, for a case in Nigeria involving the negative impacts of gas flaring... 

...A second action was to obtain documents and testimony for an action in Tanzania against a high-end safari company for land grabbing and violence. There, the court ordered the discovery in favor of the Masai. A third action was to get documents and testimony from a U.S. mining company for an action in Peru involving violence against protestors committed by the mining company’s hired security...

...To spread the word about this potentially useful tool, EarthRights has created a guide informing communities, foreign lawyers, and other organizations about the existence, availability, and benefits of this strategy.