Royal Dutch Shell has been sued so many times over its conduct in Nigeria that its cases offer a laboratory experiment for human rights litigation…[T]he "Bodo" case…emerged from obscurity three weeks ago. On Aug. 3, four months after farmers and fishermen from the village of Bodo filed a common law complaint in London high court, Shell's Nigerian subsidiary admitted liability for a pair of oil spills in return for the parent company's dismissal from the suit…[P]arental liability for the conduct of foreign subsidiaries has been called the leading legal question in European business human rights… [T]he common law model of corporate human rights accountability is starting to make the Alien Tort Statute look pretty weak by comparison. Bodo confirms that plaintiffs may have other options if the corporate alien tort hits a dead end. [also refers to Chevron, Monterrico Metals (part of Zijin), Trafigura, Unocal (part of Chevron)]