News roundup, 16 June 2025

- Israel launched a series of attacks on Iran starting Friday; Iran has responded in kind. Iran reports at least 224 fatalities, most of them civilians; Israel has experienced a number of fatalities as well. Donald Trump has hinted at the possibility of the US joining the conflict.

- A Democratic member of the Minnesota legislature was shot to death along with her husband in their home in the Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Park. The suspect is also accused of the attempted murders of another legislator and his wife; he was reportedly disguised as a police officer and left behind an SUV that had been equipped and painted like a police car. He remained at large until surrendering to police on Sunday. A hit list including several other politicians, as well as Planned Parenthood locations, was found in the vehicle; evidently this guy is so pro-life he'll kill you.

- A man showed up to a "No Kings" protest in Salt Lake City on Saturday and pointed an AR-15-type rifle at the protesters. It is believed that a member of the protesters' "peacekeeping team" opened fire with a handgun in response, wounding the attacker and killing a bystander. The attacker was only slightly wounded; he has been arrested on a murder charge. The person who opened fire has yet to be identified.

- The valedictorian at an Ottawa high school says that she was phoned by the principal and told not to come to school today after her speech made reference to the more than 17,000 children who have died in Gaza since the most recent conflict. Elizabeth Yao says that the principal told her that her statements had "caused harm"; the principal and the school board have declined a request for comment.

- Buzz Hargrove, who led the Canadian Auto Workers (now Unifor) from 1992 until his retirement in 2008, has died at the age of 81.

- An internal memo in Nigeria's agriculture ministry has called for all department staff to pray for food security. This has led some Nigerians to wonder how about the department's commitment to actually do something about the problem.

Corporations are persons... unless it's inconvenient for them

Basically, they get most of the rights of personhood, but don't get some key responsibilities:

Companies including Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s Nigerian unit aren’t subject to U.S. lawsuits by foreigners seeking damages for human rights violations, a federal appeals court in New York ruled.

A panel of the court ruled 2-1 today that the Alien Tort Statute gives U.S. courts jurisdiction over alleged violations of international law by individuals only, not by corporations.

The decision dismisses claims by a group of Nigerians that Shell aided in the torture and murder of dissidents in Nigeria in the 1990s, including the playwright Ken Saro-Wiwa.

“The principle of individual liability for violations of international law has been limited to natural persons -- not ‘juridical’ persons such as corporations -- because the moral responsibility for a crime so heinous and unbounded as to rise to the level of an ‘international crime’ has rested solely with the individual men and women who have perpetrated it,” Judge Jose Cabranes wrote on behalf of the two-judge majority.

Cabranes said that the Alien Tort Statute, enacted in 1789, allows U.S. courts to hear death and injury claims by non-U.S. citizens connected to violations of international law, including war crimes and crimes against humanity.

From Bloomberg. There's also a separate, partly dissenting opinion:

“The majority opinion deals a substantial blow to international law and its undertaking to protect fundamental human rights,” he wrote. “According to the rule my colleagues have created, one who earns profits by commercial exploitation of abuse of fundamental human rights can successfully shield those profits from victims’ claims for compensation simply by taking the precaution of conducting the heinous operation in the corporate form.”

He agreed that the case should be dismissed, saying the plaintiffs didn’t properly claim Shell intended to cause the Nigerian government to violate human rights.

Hmm. I can't comment on the strength of the plaintiffs' case, but I agree with the first paragraph; the majority ruling is a travesty.