Document Type
Book Chapter
Publication Date
12-25-2025
Editor(s)
Anne Bloom, David M. Engel & Richard L. Jolly
ISBN
9781035314577
Publisher
Edward Elger Publishing
Language
en-US
Abstract
This chapter argues for the creation of an International Court of Civil Justice for transnational mass tort cases. It considers the challenges of adjudicating cross-border mass torts along with the incentives and feasibility of a new international court. Drawing upon case studies including the Bhopal disaster, litigation surrounding the devastation of the Ecuadorian rainforest, and the attempts to sue over human rights abuses in Nigeria, the chapter demonstrates that the world's legal systems were not designed to solve these kinds of complex cases, and the absence of mechanisms to ensure coordination means that victims try, but fail, to find justice in country after country, court after court. The chapter also explains how an ICCJ would provide victims with access to justice and corporate defendants with a non-corrupt forum and an end to the cost and uncertainty of unending litigation, more efficiently resolving the most complicated types of civil litigation.
Recommended Citation
Maya Steinitz,
Chapter 25: Transnational mass tort litigation: a proposal for an International Court of Civil Justice
,
in
Research Handbook on Civil Justice
425
(Anne Bloom, David M. Engel & Richard L. Jolly ed.,
2025).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scholarship/4243
