Private International Law
Our firm has been at the forefront of the development of modern private international law, providing access to justice for tens of thousands of litigants before the courts of England & Wales. In the past few years alone members have acted in cases stemming from Algeria, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Colombia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Peru, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania, Thailand and Zambia.
Members at J-William appeared before the Supreme Court in the leading cases of Lungowe v Vedanta Industries and Okpabi v Royal Dutch Shell which set the legal framework for the liability of UK domiciled parent companies for the acts of their subsidiaries abroad.
In the realm of environmental law members of the team acted in cases such as the Trafigura litigation (dumping of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast), the Bodo litigation (£55 million settlement in respect of an oil spill in the Niger Delta) Begum v Maran (claim in respect of the practice of ‘shipbreaking’ super-tankers on beaches in Bangladesh) and for claims brought by thousands of South African miners exposed to horrific working conditions in apartheid South Africa.
In the field of human rights our recent cases include claims against tea plantation owners in Malawi for sexual violence, against mine owners in Sierra Leone and Peru for violence against protestors, for dispossession of land in Cambodia and against cigarette manufacturers for child labour in Malawi.
Members of the team have also appeared in group litigation against Government. These claims have included hundreds of settlements of claims of abuse/unlawful detention by UK forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. We have also acted in historical claims against government arising out of colonial abuses including successful litigation leading to the historic settlement of the claims brought by elderly victims from Kenya and Cyprus.