Doe v. Unocal Corp.
E1029617
Doe v. Unocal Corp. is a landmark U.S. human rights lawsuit in which Burmese villagers sued Unocal in federal court for alleged complicity in forced labor and other abuses linked to a gas pipeline project in Myanmar.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Doe v. Unocal Corp. canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T13232869 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Doe v. Unocal Corp. Context triple: [Unocal Corporation, legalCase, Doe v. Unocal Corp.]
-
A.
Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co.
Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co. is a landmark 2013 U.S. Supreme Court case that limited the extraterritorial application of the Alien Tort Statute in human rights lawsuits against corporations for conduct occurring abroad.
-
B.
Branch v. Texas
Branch v. Texas is a U.S. Supreme Court case addressing the constitutionality and application of the death penalty in the wake of the landmark Furman v. Georgia decision.
-
C.
Ogden v. Saunders
Ogden v. Saunders is an 1827 U.S. Supreme Court case, known for Justice Bushrod Washington’s opinion addressing the constitutionality of state bankruptcy laws under the Contract Clause.
-
D.
Lucas v. Earl
Lucas v. Earl is a landmark 1930 U.S. Supreme Court tax law case that established the principle that income is taxed to the person who earns it, regardless of contractual arrangements to split or assign that income.
-
E.
South Dakota v. Dole
South Dakota v. Dole is a 1987 U.S. Supreme Court case that upheld Congress’s power to condition federal highway funds on states adopting a minimum drinking age of 21, helping define the scope of the federal spending power.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Doe v. Unocal Corp. Target entity description: Doe v. Unocal Corp. is a landmark U.S. human rights lawsuit in which Burmese villagers sued Unocal in federal court for alleged complicity in forced labor and other abuses linked to a gas pipeline project in Myanmar.
-
A.
Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co.
Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co. is a landmark 2013 U.S. Supreme Court case that limited the extraterritorial application of the Alien Tort Statute in human rights lawsuits against corporations for conduct occurring abroad.
-
B.
Branch v. Texas
Branch v. Texas is a U.S. Supreme Court case addressing the constitutionality and application of the death penalty in the wake of the landmark Furman v. Georgia decision.
-
C.
Ogden v. Saunders
Ogden v. Saunders is an 1827 U.S. Supreme Court case, known for Justice Bushrod Washington’s opinion addressing the constitutionality of state bankruptcy laws under the Contract Clause.
-
D.
Lucas v. Earl
Lucas v. Earl is a landmark 1930 U.S. Supreme Court tax law case that established the principle that income is taxed to the person who earns it, regardless of contractual arrangements to split or assign that income.
-
E.
South Dakota v. Dole
South Dakota v. Dole is a 1987 U.S. Supreme Court case that upheld Congress’s power to condition federal highway funds on states adopting a minimum drinking age of 21, helping define the scope of the federal spending power.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (50)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
civil action
ⓘ
human rights lawsuit ⓘ lawsuit ⓘ transnational human rights case ⓘ |
| allegation |
complicity in arbitrary detention
ⓘ
complicity in forced labor ⓘ complicity in murder ⓘ complicity in rape ⓘ complicity in torture ⓘ other human rights abuses ⓘ |
| appealTo | United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| areaOfLaw |
corporate accountability law
ⓘ
international human rights law ⓘ tort law ⓘ |
| citation |
Doe v. Unocal Corp., 110 F. Supp. 2d 1294 (C.D. Cal. 2000)
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
Doe v. Unocal Corp., 248 F.3d 915 (9th Cir. 2001) NERFINISHED ⓘ Doe v. Unocal Corp., 395 F.3d 932 (9th Cir. 2002), opinion withdrawn NERFINISHED ⓘ Doe v. Unocal Corp., 963 F. Supp. 880 (C.D. Cal. 1997) NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| country |
United States of America
ⓘ
surface form:
United States
|
| court | United States District Court for the Central District of California NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| defendant |
Union Oil Company of California
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
Unocal Corporation NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| impact |
influenced later Alien Tort Statute jurisprudence
ⓘ
raised awareness of corporate human rights responsibilities ⓘ |
| involved |
French oil company Total S.A. (context of pipeline project)
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
Myanmar military NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| jurisdiction | United States federal courts NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| legalBasis |
Alien Tort Claims Act
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
Torture Victim Protection Act NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| legalIssue |
standard for aiding and abetting liability in human rights cases
ⓘ
whether corporations can be held liable under Alien Tort Claims Act ⓘ |
| locationOfAbuses | Tenasserim region of Myanmar GENERATED ⓘ |
| notableFor |
application of Alien Tort Claims Act to corporate conduct abroad
ⓘ
corporate accountability for overseas human rights abuses ⓘ first significant settlement of a human rights case against a multinational corporation in U.S. courts ⓘ |
| pipelineName | Yadana pipeline NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| plaintiff |
John Doe
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
other Burmese villagers ⓘ |
| relatedTo |
Burma
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
Myanmar NERFINISHED ⓘ Yadana gas pipeline project NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| settlement | yes ⓘ |
| settlementIncluded |
compensation for plaintiffs
ⓘ
funds for programs in Burma ⓘ |
| settlementType | confidential settlement ⓘ |
| settlementYear | 2004 ⓘ |
| subjectMatter |
corporate complicity in state abuses
ⓘ
human rights abuses connected to resource extraction ⓘ |
| timePeriod | 1990s ⓘ |
| yearFiled | 1996 ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Doe v. Unocal Corp. Description of subject: Doe v. Unocal Corp. is a landmark U.S. human rights lawsuit in which Burmese villagers sued Unocal in federal court for alleged complicity in forced labor and other abuses linked to a gas pipeline project in Myanmar.
Referenced by (1)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.