"Paris court rejects appeal against chemicals giant over Vietnam War use of Agent Orange," 22 August 2024

A Paris court has rejected an appeal by a French-Vietnamese woman who has been trying to sue Bayer-Monsanto and 13 other agrochemicals groups that supplied Agent Orange to the U.S. army during the Vietnam War.

Some 18 million gallons of the highly toxic herbicide were sprayed in Vietnam during the war. The country blames the chemical for birth defects in 150,000 children.

Tran To Nga, who was born in what was then known as French Indochina, was exposed to the sticky defoliant substance in 1966 when it was used to destroy forests protecting communist fighters...

To Nga lost her first case in 2021, when a French court ruled that the companies benefited from legal immunity because they were working for a sovereign government.

Today, the Paris Court of Appeal used the same argument to reject her appeal, saying the case was “inadmissible” because it “ran up against the immunity from jurisdiction enjoyed by companies” since they acted on the orders of the U.S. state.