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14 

JESNER v. ARAB BANK, PLC 

Opinion of the Court 
Opinion of KENNEDY, J. 

that  respect  for  fundamental  human  rights  is  in  their
individual and collective interest.”  Filartiga, 630 F. 2d, at 
890.  That  principle  and  commitment  support  the  conclu-
sion  that  human-rights  norms  must  bind  the  individual
men  and  women  responsible  for  committing  humanity’s
most  terrible  crimes,  not  just  nation-states  in  their  inter-
actions  with  one  another.    “The  singular  achievement  of 
international law since the Second World War has come in 
the  area  of  human  rights,”  where  international  law  now 
imposes  duties  on  individuals  as  well  as  nation-states. 
Kiobel, 621 F. 3d, at 118. 

It  does  not  follow,  however,  that  current  principles  of 
international  law  extend  liability—civil  or  criminal—for 
human-rights  violations  to  corporations  or  other  artificial 
entities.  This is confirmed by the fact that the charters of 
respective  international  criminal  tribunals  often  exclude 
corporations from their jurisdictional reach.

The Charter for the Nuremberg Tribunal, created by the
Allies after World War II, provided that the Tribunal had 
jurisdiction over natural persons only.  See Agreement for 
Prosecution  and  Punishment  of  Major  War  Criminals  of
the  European  Axis,  Art.  6,  Aug.  8,  1945,  59  Stat.  1547, 
E. A. S.  472.    Later,  a  United  States  Military  Tribunal
prosecuted  24  executives  of  the  German  corporation  IG 
Farben.  7 Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuernberg
Military  Tribunals  Under  Control  Council  Law  No.  10,
pp. 11–60 (1952) (The Farben Case).  Among other crimes,
Farben’s  employees  had  operated  a  slave-labor  camp  at 
Auschwitz  and  “knowingly  and  intentionally  manufac-
tured and provided” the poison gas used in the Nazi death 
chambers.  Kiobel,  621  F. 3d,  at  135.    Although  the  Mili-
tary Tribunal “used the term ‘Farben’ as descriptive of the 
instrumentality  of  cohesion  in  the  name  of  which”  the
crimes were committed, the Tribunal noted that “corpora-
tions  act  through  individuals.”  8  The  Farben  Case,  at 
1153.  Farben itself was not held liable.  See ibid.