An International Court for Mass Torts?

The Stanford Law Review has an interesting essay from University of Iowa College of Law Professor Maya Steinitz suggesting that there should be an international court of civil justice. Steinitz reasons the civil equivalent for a International Criminal Court would be just for plaintiffs and efficient for corporate defendants. She notes that there is no forum for cross-border torts after the Supreme Court ruled in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co. that the Alien Tort Claims Act presumptively does not apply extraterritorially and closed American courts to most cross-border mass torts. "The core reason the problem of the missing forum is deeply troubling is, of course, that it creates an access-to-justice deficit. ... In addition to injustice to individual tort victims, the lack of deterrence leads to a tremendous wealth transfer from the developing to the developed world; the world’s most disempowered constitu­encies internalize the costs of the economic activities of the world’s wealthiest corporations," Steinitz argues.