The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 on Tuesday that foreign plaintiffs cannot sue American companies under federal human rights statutes for allegedly aiding and abetting abuses committed by foreign governments, fundamentally narrowing the scope of transnational litigation in U.S. courts.
The decision in Cisco Systems, Inc. v. Doe represents a major curtailment of legal tools available to international claimants seeking accountability from U.S. corporations for their role in overseas human rights violations. The majority held that federal courts lack authority to expand the Alien Tort Statute of 1789 and that the Torture Victim Protection Act of 1991 does not permit secondary liability claims against companies that knowingly facilitate abuse.
What Happened
Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote the majority opinion, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh. “Today, we close the door that Sosa cracked and hold that courts may not create new causes of action for violations of international norms,” Barrett wrote, referencing the court’s 2004 precedent in Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain. “We also hold that the Torture Victim Protection Act of 1991, which contains an express cause of action, does not provide for aiding-and-abetting liability.”
The case originated from a lawsuit filed by practitioners of Falun Gong, a religious movement banned by China’s government, who alleged that Cisco Systems knowingly provided surveillance and networking technology used in detention and torture. The company’s “Golden Shield” project infrastructure was central to the plaintiffs’ claims that Cisco had facilitated state-sponsored human rights violations.
A federal district court had initially dismissed the complaint, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit revived the claims, ruling that both statutes permitted actions against American companies that knowingly facilitated international law violations. Tuesday’s decision reversed that ruling entirely.
The Reaction
The three liberal justices issued sharp dissents. Justice Sonia Sotomayor argued that the statute’s plain text includes individuals who aid and abet torture. “Because the plain text of this statute includes individuals who aid and abet the victim’s torture, I would affirm the Ninth Circuit’s judgment on this score as well,” she wrote. Justice Elena Kagan joined Sotomayor’s reasoning on the secondary liability question.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, while agreeing with narrowing aspects of the Alien Tort Statute’s reach, maintained that the Torture Victim Protection Act’s framework was sufficiently broad to reach parties providing material, knowing assistance to state-sponsored torture.
Business groups and defense counsel praised the decision as removing legal uncertainty for technology firms and manufacturers operating internationally. The federal government, represented by the Solicitor General’s office during oral arguments, had urged the justices to curtail extraterritorial litigation, warning that expansive human rights suits could disrupt diplomatic relations, invite reciprocal foreign litigation against U.S. interests, and discourage American technological development abroad.
What This Means
The ruling culminates decades of effort by conservative jurists to restrict transnational human rights litigation in American courts. By holding that foreign policy remedies must originate in Congress rather than through judge-created tort claims, the majority invoked constitutional separation of powers doctrine.
Barrett’s opinion reasoned that creating private rights of action represents an extraordinary legislative power reserved exclusively to Congress. Allowing unelected federal judges to recognize new tort claims based on evolving international norms, the court reasoned, risks judicial overreach into foreign policy—a domain the Constitution assigns to the executive and legislative branches.
The decision provides legal relief to companies facing potential exposure under decades of precedent permitting sweeping class actions under the Alien Tort Statute. Plaintiffs alleging complicity in human rights abuses will face significantly higher barriers to bringing federal court claims against American corporations, potentially requiring them to pursue remedies through diplomatic channels or international forums instead.
