Recent court rulings on the question of whether oil companies and other multinationals can be sued in U.S. courts for alleged human rights violations overseas has made the issue ripe for Supreme Court intervention...Although it is notoriously tough to predict whether the high court will take a case, the chances appear reasonably high in large part because there is a split within the federal appeals court on the issue. There is also the possibility that the court could pass on Kiobel but then take up one of the other cases at a later date. "Although it's not clear which of the individual cases the court will review, it seems to be virtually certain that the justices will take up this question within the next two terms," said Supreme Court expert Tom Goldstein of the Goldstein, Howe & Russell law firm...Attorneys for the corporate defendants dispute whether the 11th Circuit has really tackled the question head-on. They also have high hopes that the D.C. Circuit will reverse itself after the en banc rehearing...