Healthy Skepticism Library item: 888

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Publication type: news

Associated Press.
Judge Dismisses Vietnamese Suit Against Makers of Agent Orange
Associated Press 2005 Mar 10

Full text:

A federal judge on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit charging that American chemical companies committed war crimes against Vietnamese citizens by making Agent Orange, the defoliant used during the Vietnam War that allegedly caused birth defects, miscarriages and cancer.

“There is no basis for any of the claims of plaintiffs under the domestic law of any nation or state or under any form of international law,” U.S. District Judge Jack B. Weinstein in Brooklyn wrote in a 233-page ruling. “The case is dismissed.”

Lawyers who filed the lawsuit on behalf of some four million Vietnamese argued that Agent Orange, which is laden with the highly toxic chemical dioxin, was a poison barred by international rules of war.

Lawyers for Monsanto Co., Dow Chemical Co. and more than a dozen other companies said they shouldn’t be punished for following what they believed to be the legal orders of the nation’s commander in chief. They also argued that international law generally exempted corporations, as opposed to individuals, from criminal and civil liability for alleged war crimes.

Judge Weinstein said that Agent Orange and similar U.S. herbicides couldn’t be considered poisons banned under international rules of war, even though “their undesired effects may have caused some results analogous to those of poisons in their impact on people and land.”

He also found that the Vietnamese plaintiffs couldn’t prove that Agent Orange had caused their illnesses, largely because of a lack of large-scale epidemiological research into the health effects of the defoliant. “The fact that diseases were experienced by some people after spraying does not suffice to provide general or specific causation,” Judge Weinstein wrote.

The ruling was welcomed by the chemical companies named in the lawsuit.

“We’ve said all along that any issues regarding wartime activities should be resolved by the U.S. and Vietnamese governments,” said Scot Wheeler, a spokesman for Dow Chemical. “We believe that defoliants saved lives by protecting allied forces from enemy ambush and did not create adverse health effects.”

“This was a good decision for law,” said Glyn Young, a spokesman for Monsanto. “I think the judge recognized the problems with the plaintiffs’ case.”

A plaintiff lawyer, William Goodman, said the judge made “a clear error” in deciding Agent Orange wasn’t a poison and said an appeal was planned. “The use of this chemical in Vietnam was a scandal from the very beginning and the failure of this court to redress these wrongs is a continuation of that scandal,” Mr. Goodman said.

The Department of Justice filed a brief supporting the chemical companies, saying a ruling against the firms had the potential to cripple the president’s powers to direct U.S. armed forces in wartime.

The lawsuit was the first attempt by Vietnamese plaintiffs to seek compensation for the effects of Agent Orange, which has been linked to cancer, diabetes and birth defects among Vietnamese soldiers, civilians and American veterans. U.S. aircraft sprayed more than 21 million gallons of the chemical between 1962 to 1971 in attempts to destroy crops and remove foliage used as cover by communist forces.

Some 10,000 U.S. war veterans receive medical disability benefits related to Agent Orange. The Vietnamese government has said the U.S. has a moral responsibility for damage to its citizens and environment but has never sought compensation for victims.