Source: AFP
A Paris court has rejected an appeal by a Franco-Vietnamese woman trying to sue Monsanto and other makers of Agent Orange for use of the chemical in the Vietnam War.
Tran To Nga, who was born in what was then French Indochina, accused 14 agrochemical companies of causing her and others serious harm by selling Agent Orange to the US military, which used the herbicide with devastating effect in Vietnam.
It lost its original case in 2021 when a French court ruled that the companies enjoyed legal immunity from prosecution because they worked for a sovereign government.
The Paris Court of Appeal used the same argument in rejecting Nga’s claim.
Her requests “contrary to the corporate immunity regime,” the court said in its written ruling, seen by AFP.
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Nga will now take her case to France’s highest appeals court for a final decision, her lawyers said.
The 82-year-old, who covered the 1955-1975 war as a reporter and has lived in France for the past three decades, also blamed the companies for environmental damage.
Campaign groups estimate that four million people in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia were exposed to 76 million liters (20 million gallons) of Agent Orange sprayed by US forces to destroy ground cover and food sources in their battle against communists North Vietnamese troops between 1962 and 1971.
Vietnam blames the chemical for severe birth defects in 150,000 children.
But so far, only military veterans — from the United States, Australia and Korea — have won compensation for the after-effects of the highly toxic chemical.
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Source: AFP
Nga suffers from type 2 diabetes and an extremely rare insulin allergy, which she linked to exposure to Agent Orange.
She also said she contracted tuberculosis twice and developed cancer, while one of her daughters died of a heart defect.
Monsanto, which was acquired by German chemical giant Bayer in 2018, argued that French courts lacked jurisdiction over the case because of the issue of sovereign immunity.
Source: AFP
