## Facts

- Tom Beanal, an Amungme tribal leader from Irian Jaya, Indonesia, sued two U.S. corporate entities associated with the Grasberg Mine, a large open-pit copper, gold, and silver mining operation in Indonesia.
- Beanal alleged the mining operations caused severe environmental harm, including disposal of tailings and waste rock into local waterways and valleys, damaging forests, rivers, and agricultural areas used by indigenous communities.
- He further alleged that the companies collaborated with Indonesian military forces and used private security in ways that contributed to killings, torture, forced relocation, and other abuses against indigenous residents.
- Beanal also alleged “cultural genocide,” asserting that destruction of habitat, sacred lands, and religious symbols, along with relocation, threatened the tribe’s cultural and religious existence.
- The complaint sought relief under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), the Torture Victim Protection Act (TVPA), and related jurisdictional theories; the district court dismissed under Rule 12(b)(6) after allowing amendment and requiring more specific pleading.

## Issues

1. Whether alleged overseas environmental harms constitute violations of “specific, universal, and obligatory” customary international law norms actionable under the ATS.
2. Whether allegations framed as “cultural genocide” satisfy the international-law definition of genocide actionable under the ATS, including the requirement of specific intent to destroy a protected group.
3. Whether allegations that a corporation “acted in concert” with foreign military forces sufficiently plead corporate participation in actionable human-rights violations under the ATS.
4. Whether the TVPA authorizes suits against corporate defendants or is limited to natural persons.
5. Whether the complaint’s allegations were sufficiently specific to survive dismissal under Rule 12(b)(6) after opportunities to replead.

## Decision

- The Fifth Circuit affirmed dismissal of all claims.
- The ATS environmental claims were dismissed because the asserted environmental norms were not shown to be definite, universally accepted, and obligatory rules of customary international law.
- The ATS genocide-related claims were dismissed because the pleadings did not satisfy the stringent international-law definition of genocide and did not plausibly allege the required specific intent to destroy the group “as such”; “cultural genocide” was not treated as a separate actionable norm on the pleadings presented.
- The ATS human-rights claims were dismissed because the complaint relied on conclusory assertions of corporate complicity and lacked concrete factual allegations tying the corporations’ conduct to particular abuses.
- The TVPA claims were dismissed because the statute’s cause of action applies to natural persons, not corporations.

## Legal Principles

- ATS jurisdiction is limited to a narrow set of claims for violations of customary international law norms that are clearly defined, universally accepted, and obligatory.
- Treaties, declarations, and policy statements that are aspirational or indeterminate do not, without more, establish ATS-actionable customary international law norms.
- Genocide under international law requires specific intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a protected group “as such”; allegations of cultural harm or displacement, without that intent, do not state a genocide claim.
- ATS claims alleging corporate involvement in human-rights abuses must plead non-conclusory facts linking the defendant’s conduct to the alleged violations, not merely general allegations of acting “in concert” with state actors.
- The TVPA authorizes suits against “individuals” understood as natural persons acting under color of foreign law; it does not impose liability on corporate entities.

## Conclusion

The Fifth Circuit held that the pleaded environmental and “cultural genocide” theories did not identify actionable, clearly defined norms of customary international law under the ATS, that allegations of corporate complicity in abuses were too conclusory to state an ATS claim, and that the TVPA does not permit suits against corporate defendants, warranting dismissal under Rule 12(b)(6).


Beanal v. Freeport-McMoRan, Inc., 197 F.3d 161 (5th Cir. 1999)