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Abdullahi: A Lost Opportunity To Clarify Alien Tort Statute Jurisprudence For Corporations, Benjamin P. Harbuck

Benjamin P Harbuck

The Supreme Court recently denied certiorari from the Second Circuit’s Abdullahi v. Pfizer, Inc, an Alien Tort Statute (ATS) case concerning Pfizer’s nonconsensual medical testing of the antibiotic Trovan after a meningitis epidemic in Nigeria. The seminal Supreme Court ATS case of Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, with its oft-quoted “vigilant doorkeeping” requirement, provided the basis for many of the arguments in Abdullahi. Yet the Second Circuit failed to act as a vigilant doorkeeper, extending ATS jurisdiction to situations that should not be considered to rise to the standard required by Sosa. This paper therefore advocates that the Supreme Court accept an …