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2023 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

Maran Shipping: A Ray of Hope in a Darkening Landscape for Inter-state Civil Actions—Forum Non-conveniens Versus Duty of Care

Authors : Mohammad Zulfikar Ali, Prafula Pearce

Published in: Comparative Approaches in Law and Policy

Publisher: Springer Nature Singapore

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Abstract

The shipbreaking industry has become a matter of controversy in South Asia where ninety percent of the unseaworthy ships are sold and broken. It remains one of the main causes of environment pollution and violation of human rights as ships are broken by using dangerous manual methods that cause accidents and death and injuries to the workers. Imposing liability on foreign entities for their involvement in human harms remains problematic. In 2021, in the case of Hamida Begum (on behalf of MD Khalil Mollah) v Maran (UK) Limited (Maran Shipping), the England and Wales Court of Appeal has offered a much needed guidance on a victim’s right to receive adequate compensation from the foreign owner of a ship. Unlike the approach in the case of Re Union Carbide Corporation Gas Plant Disaster at Bhopal India (Bhopal) where an inter-State action was brought before the New York District Court in 1986, Maran Shipping demonstrates that allowing trial in this inter-State tort action is an important legal step from the perspective of a victim’s right to adequate remedy. Against this background, this chapter investigates the future policy implication of Maran Shipping in the context of inter-State tort actions. It seeks to answer the following question: Can Maran Shipping’s duty of care approach remove the doctrinal fossil established in Bhopal that inter-State harms are not compensable?

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Footnotes
1
Chambers and Berger-Walliser [1], pp. 579, 582.
 
2
Weissbrodt [2]; As international law has no binding authority on multinational companies, imposing liability on them is not possible by judicial action: see Kiobel v Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., 569 U.S. 108, 108 (2013) (hereinafter Kiobel); Jesner v Arab Bank, PLC 138 S. Ct. 1386, 1388–89 (2018) (hereinafter Jesner).
 
3
In re Union carbide Corporation Gas Plant Disaster at Bhopal India [3].
 
4
Hamida Begum (on behalf of MD Khalil Mollah) v Maran (UK) Ltd, [2021] EWCA Civ 326 (U.K.) (hereinafter Maran Shipping).
 
5
Kiobel, [2013] S. Ct. 569; Jesner, [2018] S. Ct. 138.
 
6
Brennan J in Oceanic Sun Line v Fay (1988) 79 ALR 9 (Austl.) cited in Cook [4].
 
7
Pryles [5].
 
8
Robertson [6].
 
9
Id. at 405.
 
10
For a discussion of why there is a governance gap, see Simons and Macklin [7].
 
11
Chambers and Berger‐Walliser [1], pp. 579, 581.
 
12
Piper Aircraft Co. v Reyno, 454 U.S. 235 (1981).
 
13
Int’l Commission of Jurists [8].
 
14
Kiobel, 569 U.S. 108 (2013).
 
15
Jesner, 138 S. Ct. 1386 (2018).
 
16
Stephens [9].
 
17
Broughton [10].
 
18
Cummins [11].
 
19
The original claim was 1023.5 million USD (equivalent to around 2000 USD in 2019); Broughton, supra note 17.
 
20
Bhopal [12], Prince [13].
 
21
See Prince, 47 int’l & compar. l.q. 573 at 586.
 
22
See Robertson [14].
 
23
Id. at 373.
 
24
See Baxi and Dhanda [15].
 
25
See Prince, 47 int’l & compar. l.q. 573 at 580.
 
26
Deane J in Oceanic Sun Line Special Shipping Co. Inc v Fay, 165 CLR 197, 248 (Austl.).
 
27
Peter Prince, Bhopal, Bougainville and Ok Tedi: Why Australian Forum Non Conveniens Approaches Is Better, 47 int’l & compar. l.q. 573, 584.
 
28
Maran Shipping, [2021] EWCA Civ 326 (U.K.), at [131].
 
29
Id. Maran Shipping, at [8]; See also Jamie Curle et al., Shipping Agent Potentially Responsible for Alleged Negligent Disposal of Ship in Bangladesh. lexology (Aug. 3, 2020), https://​www.​lexology.​com/​library/​detail.​aspx?​g=​84ba8284-3468-4d9b-82ec-6103bf4051cc.
 
30
Maran Shipping, [2021] EWCA Civ 326 (U.K.), at [6].
 
31
Id. at [8].
 
32
Id. at [13].
 
33
Id. at [132].
 
34
The Alien Tort Statute was passed as a part of the Judiciary Act of 1789, empowers US Federal Court an original jurisdiction of any civil action for a tort only, committed in violation of the law of the nation or a treaty of the US.
 
35
Kiobel, 569 U.S. 108 (2013); Jesner, 138 S. Ct. 1386 (2018).
 
36
Daimler AG v Bauman, 571 U.S. 117 (2014).
 
37
Silva [16].
 
38
Kiobel, 569 U.S. 108 (2013).
 
39
Jesner, 138 S. Ct. 1386 (2018) at 1393.
 
40
Id. at 1394.
 
41
Id.
 
42
Id. at 1402 (citing Sosa v Alvarez-Machain, 542 U.S. 692, 725 (2004)).
 
43
Bhopal, 634. F. Supp. 842, 865–867 (1986).
 
44
Kiobel, 569 U.S. 108 (2013).
 
45
Jesner, 138 S. Ct. 1386 (2018).
 
46
Nicholson et al. [18].
 
47
Under art. 1.5 ‘business relationship’ refers to any relationship to conduct business activities, including those activities conducted through affiliates, subsidiaries, agents, suppliers, partnerships, joint venture, beneficial proprietorship, or any structure or relationship as provided under the domestic law of the State, including activities undertaken by electronic means, U.N. OEIGWG, Legally Binding Instrument to Regulate, in International Human Rights Law, the Activities of Transnational Corporation and Other Business Enterprises (Draft Treaty, August 17, 2021), https://​www.​ohchr.​org/​Documents/​HRBodies/​HRCouncil/​WGTransCorp/​Session6/​LBI3rdDRAFT.​pdf.
 
48
Krajewski et al. [18].
 
49
Chambers and Berger-Walliser [1], pp. 579, 609.
 
Literature
Rachel Chambers & Gelinde Berger-Walliser, The Future of International Corporate Human Rights Litigation: A Transatlantic Comparison, 53 am. bus. l.j. 579, 582 (2021).
David Weissbrodt, Business and Human Rights, 74 u. cin. l. rev. 55, 59 (2005).
Union carbide Corporation Gas Plant Disaster at Bhopal India in December, 1984, 634. F. Supp. 842, 865–867 (1986) (hereinafter Bhopal).
Catriona Cook, Internationalism in Transnational Litigation Defeated, austl. current l. 36085, 36086 (1988).
Michael Pryles, The Struggle for Internationalism in Transnational Litigation, 61 austl. l.j. 434, 435 (1987).
David W. Robertson, Forum non conveniens in America and England: A Rather Fantastic Fiction, 103 l.q. rev. 398, 412 (1987).
penelope simons & audrey macklin, the governance gap: extractive industries, human rights, and home state advantage 225 (Routledge, 2014).
Int’l Commission of Jurists, Needs and Options for A New International Instrument In the Field of Business and Human Rights 15 (2014).
Beth Stephens, The Rise and Fall of the Alien Tort Statute, in research handbook on human rights and business 46 (Surya Deva & David Birchall eds., Edward Elgar, 2020).
Edward Broughton, The Bhopal Disaster and Its Aftermath: A Review, 4 env’t health art. 6 (2005).
Stephen L. Cummins, International Mass Tort Litigation: Forum Non Conveniens and the Adequate Alternative Forum in Light of the Bhopal Disaster, 16 ga. j. int’l & compar. l. 109, 122 (1986).
Bhopal, 634. F. Supp. 842 , 865–867 (1986).
Peter Prince, Bhopal, Bougainville and Ok Tedi: Why Australian Forum Non Conveniens Approaches Is Better, 47 int’l & compar. l.q. 573, 577 (July 1998).
David W Robertson, The Federal Doctrine of Forum Non Conveniens, 29 tex. int’l l.j. 353, 372–373 (1994).
Upendra Baxi & Amit Dhanda, Valiant Victims and Lethal Litigations: The Bhopal Case (1990), xxiii-xxiv, cited in id.
Jacquiline Silva, Transnational Corporation and International Human Rights: Alternative to Litigation, 61 santa clara l. rev. 867, 870 (2021).
Markus Krajewski et al., Mandatory Human Rights Due Diligence in Germany and Norway: Stepping, or Striding, in the Same Direction, 6 b.h.r.j. 550, 556 (2021).
Metadata
Title
Maran Shipping: A Ray of Hope in a Darkening Landscape for Inter-state Civil Actions—Forum Non-conveniens Versus Duty of Care
Authors
Mohammad Zulfikar Ali
Prafula Pearce
Copyright Year
2023
Publisher
Springer Nature Singapore
Book
Comparative Approaches in Law and Policy

Print ISBN: 978-981-9944-59-0

Electronic ISBN: 978-981-9944-60-6

Copyright Year: 2023

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-4460-6_11