![[South Africa] A Non-Whites Only train during the apartheid era](https://assets.thenewhumanitarian.org/s3fs-public/styles/responsive_large_2x/public/images/1031.jpg.webp?itok=vw8QQ2Ju "South Africa has struggled to shed its divisive past")
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The South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) has expressed its disappointment with an American court judgment that dismissed claims by victims of apartheid for damages from US corporations because they "bordered on the frivolous".
US District Judge John Sprizzo on Monday reportedly ruled that the plaintiffs had not claimed that actions by the US corporations directly caused the alleged murders, torture, crimes against humanity and other heinous acts in South Africa from 1948 until a decade ago.
"The judgment reflects a very narrow approach on the issue of causation - the point is, the corporations' support sustained the apartheid system," said Jody Kollapen, SAHRC's national commissioner for civil and political rights.
He said the judgment should have addressed the issue of accountability, which was increasingly being reflected in recent human rights cases.
The lawsuit sought to hold 23 multinational corporations accountable for their role in supporting an environment in which gross violations of human rights were made possible, and claimed the apartheid government had tracked African individuals on US-made computers, obtained loans from US banks and kept its military machine running with US-supplied oil.
Sprizzo said his job was to "apply the law, and not some normative or moral ideal", but reportedly stated, "at most, by engaging in business with the South African regime, defendants benefited from the unlawful state action of the apartheid government."
The South Africa-based NGO, Khulumani Support Group, who had instituted the court action on behalf of the apartheid victims, referred IRIN to its legal representative in the US, Michael Hausfeld, who was not available for comment.
Khulumani filed their lawsuit in New York in November 2002, using the Alien Tort Claims Act of 1789 - legislation that allows companies to be sued in American courts for breaches of human rights committed anywhere in the world.
The South African government did not support the lawsuit.
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions
