Rukoro v. Fed. Republic of Ger.

363 F. Supp. 3d 436
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. Illinois
DecidedMarch 6, 2019
DocketNo. 17 CV 62-LTS
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 363 F. Supp. 3d 436 (Rukoro v. Fed. Republic of Ger.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Rukoro v. Fed. Republic of Ger., 363 F. Supp. 3d 436 (S.D. Ill. 2019).

Opinion

LAURA TAYLOR SWAIN, United States District Judge

Plaintiffs Vekuii Rukoro, Johannes Isaack, The Association of the Ovaherero Genocide in the USA Inc., and Barnabas Veraa Katuuo bring this putative class action on behalf of members and descendants of the Ovaherero and Nama indigenous peoples against the Federal Republic of Germany ("Germany") for damages, declaratory, and other equitable relief arising from the genocide of thousands of Ovaherero and Nama people in German South West Africa, now modern day Namibia, from 1885 to 1909. Before the Court is Defendant Germany's motion, pursuant to Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(2), to dismiss Plaintiffs' Amended Complaint (docket entry no. 39, the "AC") for lack of subject matter and personal jurisdiction under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, 28 U.S.C. §§ 1330, 1602 - 1611 ("FSIA"). (Docket entry no. 42.) Germany also moves to dismiss the AC for lack of subject matter jurisdiction under the political question doctrine and, in the alternative, argues that the Court should decline to exercise both subject matter and personal jurisdiction pursuant to the doctrines of forum non conveniens and prudential exhaustion. On October 31, 2018, Plaintiffs filed a motion for leave to file a supplemental declaration or, in the alternative, to file a Second Amended Complaint. (Docket entry no. 61.) The Court has considered the submissions of the parties carefully and, for the following reasons, Germany's motion to dismiss the Amended Complaint is granted and Plaintiffs' motion for leave to file a supplemental declaration or a Second Amended Complaint is denied.

BACKGROUND

The AC recites in extensive detail the sequence of events that culminated in the *442brutal exploitation, enslavement, and extermination of substantial numbers of the Ovaherero and Nama peoples. The following abbreviated recitation of relevant facts is drawn from the AC, the well-pleaded factual content of which is taken as true for purposes of this motion practice.

Plaintiffs are U.S. and non-U.S. citizens who are members, or direct descendants of members, of the Ovaherero and Nama indigenous peoples. (AC ¶ 316.) From approximately 1884 to 1903, German colonial authorities arrived in what was then known as German South West Africa and began to occupy and seize Ovaherero and Nama land, livestock, personal property, and natural resources using violence and coercion. (AC ¶¶ 5, 69-93.) Through various decrees and ordinances, German authorities forced the relocation of the Ovaherero and Nama peoples and seized multiple tracts of ancestral land. (AC ¶¶ 88-89, 92.) Deprived of their homes and livelihoods, many Ovaherero and Nama people were forced into debt and slavery. (AC ¶¶ 89, 94.)

In 1904, the German Empire began a violent campaign to exterminate the Ovaherero and Nama peoples. (AC ¶¶ 99, 102-145.) Under the leadership of German military commander Adrien Dietrich Lothar von Trotha, German troops captured and lynched countless Ovaherero men, women, and children. (AC ¶¶ 105-106, 119-120.) In one particularly gruesome incident, German troops massacred thousands of unarmed and vulnerable Ovaherero members who had gathered in the town of Waterberg for the purpose of surrendering to German forces. (AC ¶¶ 107-112.) Those who survived or managed to escape the German forces were driven to the Omaheke Desert to die of starvation and thirst. (AC ¶¶ 114-115, 118.) As one German lieutenant observed: "There's a path that leads out of Onduru towards Omuramba. Alongside the path are human skulls, rib cages, and thousands of fallen cattle and other livestock. This is the path on which the Ovaherero fled.... Everything suggests this was a march of death." (AC ¶ 124.) German troops carried out a similar campaign against the Nama people, calling for members to surrender on pain of death. (AC ¶¶ 143-144.)

In 1905, the German imperial government ordered all surviving Ovaherero and Nama peoples to report to shelters from which they were transported to concentration camps. (AC ¶¶ 129-130, 145.) At these camps, Ovaherero and Nama people were treated as property, rented out as laborers and, ultimately, worked to death. (AC ¶¶ 148, 150-152.) Women and children in the camps were raped and sexually abused. (AC ¶ 154.) At a concentration camp located on Shark Island, Plaintiffs allege, hundreds of Ovaherero and Nama bodies were dissected for medical research, and hundreds more men, women, and children were brutally murdered and decapitated so that their remains could be studied by researchers who believed in the superiority of the white race. (AC ¶¶ 167-176.)

In 1985, the United Nations Economic and Social Council Commission on Human Rights issued a report classifying the events described in the AC as a genocide. (AC ¶ 271); see also Special Rapporteur to Sub-Comm'n on Prevention of Discrimination & Prot. Of Minorities, Revised and Updated Report on the Question of the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide ¶ 24, U.N. Doc. E/CN.4/Sub.2/1985/6 (July 2, 1985) (by Benjamin Whitaker). In recent years, Germany has begun negotiations with the government of Namibia regarding the events described in the AC. (AC ¶ 288.) Plaintiffs have not been invited to participate in those negotiations. (AC ¶ 289.)

*443Plaintiffs seek damages for the genocide pursuant to the Alien Tort Statute, federal common law, and the law of nations (AC ¶¶ 327-332), damages for conversion of various property rights (AC ¶¶ 333-370), damages for unjust enrichment (AC ¶¶ 371-373), an accounting (AC ¶¶ 374-375), the establishment of a constructive trust (AC ¶¶ 376-377), and declaratory relief recognizing Plaintiffs as the "legitimate successors to sovereign nations" and declaring that the exclusion of Plaintiffs from negotiations between Germany and Namibia constitutes a violation of Plaintiffs' rights under international law, including the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (AC ¶¶ 378-382). Plaintiffs also seek injunctive relief prohibiting Germany from continuing to exclude Plaintiffs from its negotiations with Namibia. (AC at 91.)

In aid of their argument that jurisdiction exists pursuant to one or more of the enumerated exceptions under the FSIA, Plaintiffs allege that many of the Ovaherero and Nama skulls and body parts used for medical experiments remain in Germany's possession (AC ¶ 222), and that certain human remains have been transported to the American Museum of Natural History ("AMNH") in New York City (the "AMNH Remains") (AC ¶¶ 297-300). Plaintiffs aver that the AMNH Remains "were originally collected by Professor Felix von Luschan, a German anthropologist and ethnologist at the Museum for Ethnology in Berlin from 1995-1910," and then remained a part of von Luschan's "private collection" until his widow sold the collection to the AMNH after von Luschan's death in 1924.

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363 F. Supp. 3d 436, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/rukoro-v-fed-republic-of-ger-ilsd-2019.