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Lawyers at EarthRights International, a Washington-based human rights law nonprofit, say they suspect that a new legal submission  - which was signed only by the U.S. Justice Department - reflects tensions inside the government on how to deal with multinational corporations do business in the U.S. Significantly, neither the State nor the Commerce Department signed on to the brief, despite their key roles in the case.

Filartiga v. Peña-Irala set a precedent for U.S. federal courts to punish non-U.S. citizens for acts committed outside the U.S. that violate international law or treaties to which the U.S. is a party. ATCA has brought almost 100 cases of international (often state-sanctioned) torture, rape and murder to U.S. federal courts to date.

No plaintiff against a corporation has won on ATCA grounds, although some have settled or plea bargained.

In the latest showdown between western oil companies and Venezuela’s populist president, Exxon Mobil is widely seen as the loser, after the Paris-based International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) ruled that the world’s biggest oil company would not be entitled to most of the damages it demanded after its fields were nationalised.

Despite this recent victory, PDVSA is facing some trouble. Under Chavez, the energy giant has undertaken ambitious social spending, running subsidised food distribution programmes and international aid projects as if it were a state unto itself. Critics say oil companies should not be delivering government services. And the money used for "Bolivarian" projects means the corporation has less to invest in developing new reserves; production has dropped from about 3.3m barrels per day in 1998 to about 2.25m in 2011, The Economist reported.

Like many of its South American neighbours, Venezuela has drastically reduced poverty in the past decade; the Bolivarian Republic’s poverty rate fell from 48.6 per cent in 2002 to 27.8 per cent in 2010, according to the UN Commission for Latin America's 2011 report. Inequality also declined sharply. This progress is linked to tough negotiations with foreign oil companies, so the state can have more resources to invest in local communities, Chavez’s supporters contend.

Exxon Mobil Corp over its activity in Indonesia

Minister of Petroleum Resources Diezani Alinson-Madueke who also addressed the forum, said that by enacting the law and establishing a formidable Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB), which would help to implement the provision of NOGICD Act, the Federal Government had taken the lead with the provision of the enabling environment and would continue making the improvements required.She said that with the new drive, there would be “transformation of ownership profile of marine assets supporting industry activities from a current ratio of 20 Nigerian-owned vessels: 280 Foreign-owned vessels to a more equitable ratio of 180 Nigerian:120 (Foreign).”She noted that the Nigerian content would not only integrate indigenes and businesses residing in the oil producing areas into the mainstream of industry economic activity, but it would also capture of over 70 per cent of banking services, insurance risk placements, and Legal services supporting industry activities and transactions.