statute has been around since the earliest days of our nation and yet this court has never accepted the type of claim that the plane just bring here the claim plane just bring alleges something horrific that locators and molly sold them as children farms or overseers forced them to work the defendants are not the locators not the overseers and not the farms instead they are to us corporations nestle usa and cargo the plaintiffs do not allege that these two owner operated any farms and they do not allege that the companies bought anything from farms they use child labor instead the companies are an afterthought a few of the one hundred and one dollars paragraphs in their complaint they claim the companies  decisions in the us and that they had knowledge of child slavery this lawsuit fails for two independent reasons st it's extraterritorial you've said when the statute gives no clear indication of an extraterritorial application none here the plaintiffs haven't alleged any domestic injury or even that they've been to the us history and this court's cases make clear that the a t f has focused is the injury or principle wrongdoing from a tort here that occurred halfway across the globe and nd the a t f is about natural persons just not recognized there is no specific universal and obligatory international law norm of corporate liability that fully applies to domestic defined with a specificity comparable to the features of the th century paradigm these are some of the most product decisions government makes to say congress and seven hundred and eighty nine made them is treat many difficult policy choices and to fake statutory text this court is generally warned against doing that and specifically with the a t s every single time i'm mr cox you know in this case no foreign country has objected to the united states hailing its own citizens into its own courts and why should we be cautious in terms of international relations in such a case and  foreign countries have to ensuring that u s corporations follow customary international law your honor st of all i don't think the fact the relevant because nabisco what you said was even if international friction is quote not necessarily are the result in every case the potential for correction militates against recognizing foreign injury claims and i think that's true generally and then with respect to here i do think that there's the re different impacts on foreign policy that would  be recognized that would that would occur if you were to recognize corporate liability in this case one isn't just there you talked about the surrogacy problem with the injury nation is that paralyses said that plaintiffs can still use corporations a surrogate permit foreign corporations like nestle to be sued because of their domestic sobs like in this case but not others and finally to thank you counsel i justice thomas thank you mr chief justice and  your honor we think that that if you were to reach that question that for the reasons the solicitor general said there is no such norm in honde on a footnote forty you said you said something similar the domestic precedents like such world bank i think are clear on this but i think our most important point justice thomas is that here aiding and abetting would translate to aiding in a more focus in this particular case because there's two axes here one is extraterritoriality which is already blinking red here because there is no u s injury or principle wrong and now the plaintiffs want to add this ambiguous concept of aiding and abetting and you'd be left with an extremely broad statute with no congressional analog whatsoever if you were to accept their interpretation child slavery and they failed their own test they have not a single case that says there is such a norm of aiding and abetting that and i think this court has recognized that the test is a more general one it's not specific norms by norm judgment and as the language that you joined in just or indicates it's a much more general test of is there a universal specific and obligatory norm and here there isn't the only evidence they can even point to about child slavery in particular rest of the court have talked about you have to proceed with great caution it's really their severe burden to produce evidence showing some sort of norm here and they haven't and so judge and justice briar you have your back to  secretary of french legion in philadelphia and there was no legal remedy for the assault but so is that this statue was designed in part to give a secretary he had been the president of a corporation and they all sat around and said i have a great idea let's hit the french secretary so they passed a resolution and went out and hit the french secretary why should that make a difference though just as prior three things st i think your example points to that exit is a separate argument about extraterritoriality and i just want to make clear that they are distinct mark on the other incident really underscore that there was about injury your hypothetical they're very well would be a remedy against the individual perpetrators and that's exactly what international law requires time and again you don't go after the corporation but you absolutely have a remedy we're not here seeking any sort of corporate impunity we're just saying you have to go over after the individual unless the statute in congress makes a different choice and most notably justice breyer in the t v p a which is the most closely analogous that you do it is an a t f cause of action  and you're ready for one of the reasons why if everything had been done in marble or by a corporation why would you want to make the corporation immune from the statute for two reasons one because there's already a separate remedy of going after the individuals and nd because corporate liability is congress recognizing the t v p a has any number of other difficulties such as mens rea this  many of your arguments lead to results that are pretty hard to take so suppose a us corporation makes a big show of supporting every cause to show our butts and surreptitiously hires agents in africa to kidnap children and keep them in bondage on a plantation so that the corporations can buy cocoa or coffee or some other agricultural product at bargain prices you would say that the victims who couldn't possibly yes anywhere cover really in the course of the country where they had been held should be shot out of court in the united states where this corporation is headquartered and does business but justi alito i have three buckets of answers to this and this is really the heart of the case in many ways so i'll try to briefly outline them and then hope to detail them so the st is that that hypothetical is of course a very firm move from the facts of this case where they lead to minimal u s conduct not some sort of operation run from the united states nd i don't think your hypothetical states a violation of the alien tort statute because there is no domestic injury but rd and most importantly your hypothetical does violate other statute are already criminal sanctions there in the state department department of labor says those are being used and indeed when congress makes statutes extraterritorial like the t v they require exhaustion of those foreign remedies st before one can sue in the individual acts as a principal and lastly if there's any doubt about this congress can specify a specific remedy an alternative a path extraterritorial was all the time and indeed if the violation is so clear of international law and the laws of i've listened to you and your answers to justice alito is questions he seems to me that his hypothetical all points to the fact that the aiding and abetting by the corporation happened in the united states that's various questions about whether there were allegations that scene x of this corporation had a sufficient ties to the being whether there were enough ties to the jurisdiction in which it occurred i take not i don't need an answer from you that says to me there wasn't enough here i need an answer that says why wouldn't with with respect to the law st of all i think piracy is the court recognized and one hundred and twenty one is a category unto itself because the high seas are jurisdictional unique and governed by no single sovereign and the reason why if you assist in any way on the sea or on land you are liable but i think the problem is that when you translate anything from pirate i think the court's been through or just great caution and exercise in trying to draw too much from piracy because there isn't of course another sovereign involves or the way there is for example in this very case where they're challenging the conduct and ivory coast and where there's a remedy in the foreign country and the reason why i think congress hasn't always recognizing and abetting even with specific statute that deal with that is because it does lead to an amorphous form of liability is cairo slavery not aiding and abetting it but the offense of self is that a violation of the specific universal and obligatory norm where we're not yes i think we're not challenging that here it's just not a that's right could a former liability under intra norma a specific norm of under international law which doesn't exist here i think so so i guess what i'm asking is like what sense does the smith this goes back to justice briar's question what sense does this make you have a suit against tennis label interest ten players already decided to form a corporation specifically to remove liability from themselves and now you're saying you can't sue the corporation justice kagan i think that's shows when you go after individuals you often can go after the into the true wrongdoers once you go after the corporate form you get bogged down with questions of mens rea in a collective enterprise which advocates great sorry to interrupt m pick up on this line of questioning i don't see a thing in the language of the statute and i don't believe you pointed to anything that distinguishes between individuals and corporations and the rationale which just as prior was alluding to perhaps be a lawful causes for war against the united states and on those two lines on the language and on the rationale that this court has long adopted or recognize you talked about the rationale about not letting kind of things go on remedy that as i just said to justice kagan there are remedies you can go after the individual so you don't need to go after the corporations and indeed doing so and poses lots of liability and are fundamental is lots of problems like men's ramma like i don't believe you have yeah ok i understand response is there i don't believe you did get a chance to fully respond to justice kagan on our last point i would like an answer to that and and that is we do know one thing about the a an engine of an international human rights protection your position however would allow suits by aliens only against individuals as you said and only for towards international law recognize that occurred in the united states and professor caus amicus brief on behalf of former government officials for example says that your position would quote got the statute and quote so why should we do that well i really feel like that's when the overheated rhetoric you know after all for two hundred plus years the statutes been around there's not a successful example of a case like this ever justice kavanagh all we're suggesting is to preserve the status quo as it's always been i understand there are some policy arguments for why you might want something else but that's really something addressed to a different branch of government and for all the reasons the court said in jest there and you said in your dissent in exxon does recognizing corporate liability here or making it extra territorial in the way that the plaintiffs want raises a host of really difficult intricate policy questions which are best left handled by the other branch not by courts i mean is an extraordinary thing they're asking the court to do in fashioning a common law remedy and that's why every decision of this court says proceed with great caution they have a tie as to fars and they haven't come close to me mr a lot of the questions you've been asked thus far focused on whether there is a specific universal an obligatory norm here and that you know as many of my colleagues have pointed out raises some complications do you agree that this is a case that would be also think that the extraterritoriality which is independent is really pretty is very very clear because there's a court set in morrison there's always some us conduct that can be pointed to in any case and it'll be a craven watchdog if you can just use that to get out of the extraterritoriality bar in this case is a perfect example of this there's a very limited u s conduct that is alleged in the complaint and yet they want to make the hugest a federal cases out of it well if we do resolve it at the step to when would we ever recognize a cause of action because you know most cases will raise the same let's focus on the separation of powers sprung most cases raise this question of the policy questions that may be better left to congress i mean we've been very restrained in the business context about recognizing mark on the back sion i mean would this just kind of halt recognition of new causes of action altogether if we adopt your position no justice bear we're not making th position we're not taking the position that justice scalia's you know it's obviously available to you but we certainly think that things outside of the blackstone three that rise to the level of universality used to use the prior four formulation of justice c things like torture genocide crimes against humanity and war crimes for example what i think all meet that sosa step to even though they're not part of the original blackstone three we have not if a corporation was not with the  cases we don't think that right actually went the corporate liability there's no international law norm that meets their burden there but you could go after them as individuals and of course congress could pass a specific statute to deal with that as they have some usa and cargo are not akin to justice alito is hypothetical of a direct and slave or anything like that the allegations in this complaint don't allege anything close to that level of wrongdoing and when there are those allegations of such wrongdoing there are five different parts paths apart from the a t s to protect human rights and this court has always said great caution has to be exercised when recognizing a new cause of action even in the face of hard facts and our concern is that with  without such great caution further complaints like this all political weight and go on for decades with harm to our foreign policy separation of powers and other policy objectives this court's been clear that the bar against extraterritoriality is a high one and the allegations in this complaint and other a t s suits don't come close to meeting thank you counsel mr gannon thank you mr chief justice and man please the court the united states condemns child slavery and trafficking congress has expressly provided for criminal and civil liability for forced labor in certain circumstances and the federal government has specifically supported efforts to eliminate the worst forms of child labor at cocoa farms in law but this court should not extend the reach of the alien tort statute to encompass respondants claims in this case for two principal reasons st the ts does not authorize liability for domestic corporations for the same reasons that the majority of the poor ality in jasmine are found that foreign corporations are not liable as the jazzer majority said a decision to extend liability from natural persons to corporations must be made by congress rather than the judiciary and nd the aiding and abetting conduct alleged against defendants does not overcome the bar against extraterritorial application of the a t s i counsel i want to ask you the same question i asked  know we don't have objections from foreign countries in this case as far as we can tell they're perfectly comfortable having u s citizens u s corporations failed into their you and us courts what should we make of that and doesn't that suggest we ought to be a little more a little less cautious about finding a cause of action here well in general you recognize correctly i think that you should be cautious about extending the cause of action in previous cases you recognized that this is a question about whether there is a general threat posed by these types of cases and whether or not there's a threat  case cases against a domestic corporation can indeed be used as a proxy challenges to foreign governments or to foreign parents or subsidiary corporations and the united states has raised specific foreign policy concerns in cases involving u s corporations including doe against exxon coalmining and american isuzu other cases but even in this case the allegations are somewhat in co even though the case is fifteen years old but there are ways that mr castro pointed out that big case crystal threaten foreign affairs interest if it comes to fruition council if if the united states corporation sent the mystic employees to the ivory coast for the express purpose of setting up a cocoa farm that uses child slavery would that conduct touch and concern the united states as we use those terms in kyogle well i think that it depends on how much contact happens in the united states and how much conduct happens overseas we think that the court has clarified that the way cable is talking about that is whether the whether the conduct touches the territory of the united states and we think that it's the conduct in question not the not the citizenship of the parties thanking the house or justice thomas thank you mr chief justice counsel the i'm intrigued by my colleagues questions on the corporate form and the and i seem to remember the in the past the government has argued that the corporate form should make a difference  as the difference in the case and certainly not quite the argumentum maybe even the argument that you're making like you to if you can to respond to some of the concerns raised by my colleagues with respect to the corporate form and to at least explain or correct me if i'm wrong about your prior positions the government's privatizations as to the coverage of the corporate form of justice thomas we did previously not urge the court to adopt a categorical rule limiting corporate liability under the a t s but  we're trying to be consistent with the court's precedents here and jazzer rejected key parts of our argument there and key parts of our reasoning and it reinforced a connection between the a t s caution that the court should have about recognizing new forms of liability and  extensions of liability and other areas such as given to reinforce that connection and hernandez and we've consistently opposed corporate liability in the context of ivins and under that rubric we think that the same answer applies here and we the question that the court is asking is whether there is reason to doubt whether congress would want this damages remedy to be available for artificial persons and we know that there are times when congress makes that decision it did so in the torture victim protection act this court did so in the last go and now that jazz never has made foreign corporations not liable it would be especially in congress to discriminate on the basis of the defendant's nationality in the corporate context because we know that that's not happening in the context of natural persons the mark why incident that justice prior brought up has been discussed by sosa and key a bell and in both cases the court assumes that both the frenchman and the new york constable who assaulted an investor in the united states would be liable so if both foreign and u s natural persons are liable we think that congress should be the one that makes the decision that u s corporations would be discriminated against in a way that foreign corporations are individual because in my pathetically individuals have all moved to lithuania all you have is the corporate outside to the bank in many minutes that prove it was a corporate decision what's new about it why is it creating the form of action what's the reason it shouldn't be there i don't see is it a different rule again for partnerships a different rule again for i don't know limited liability companies or merely having an underlying form of civil liability for individuals doesn't necessarily mean that it should be extended to corporations and you're right there may be a background rule that corporations are generally liable for the torture of their agents but we're not looking at this at so step one we think this is controlled by sosa step two and congress has used two different models they've used the torture victim protection act where they will doubt all artificial persons only natural persons can be sued so that takes care of all your questions about corporations or limited liability companies or partnerships or anything else only natural persons can be sued under the torture victim protection act something that everybody understands is a violation of the law of nations now congress did take a different route in the trafficking victims protection act where they ultimately recognized a civil remedy but it departs from the a t f in multiple ways it didn't make the civil provision retroactive it doesn't discriminate between a u s corporation and a foreign corporation found in the united states it's arguably extraterritorial at morris and step one in a way that the a t f has died and it provides a specific cause of action with details that are tailored to the particular violations that issue of justice  o are you aware of a t s suits based on conduct that occurred in the united states why would someone bring such a  crime if the i think that the canonical example would have been something like the marc why incident if the only cause of action was something that needed to be brought under the law of nations then the a t s would have provided jurisdiction for that result as holding that a domestic corporation can be sued under the eighty s corporations always act through natural persons so if a corporation can aid in the vat there will be only a sliver of activity where they could be responsible under respond the superior or isn't that true of well i think whether or not the court recognizes aiding and abetting liability there will be a separate question about whether responding to parry or type of liability should apply i think and in other cases the court has suggested there could be other limits and obviously congress knows how to impose those sorts of limits and in a civil action and provided in five thousand and ninety five dollars for for crimes associated with slavery and forced labor specifically extended that action to whoever knowingly benefits financially or receiving and anything of value from from a venture that engages that underlying conduct and so i think part of the question is going to be whether you recognize dating and having a betting we we are not disputing the international law level of this analysis just a sort of my or just as with a question about corporate liability we think that this is something that the court if it wants to reach the question could do entirely at step two so sharp and so even assuming that there is a sufficient we define a norm at international law and step one the question is still going to be whether the court would recognize an extension for right recognizes primary civil liability that doesn't incorporate the expansion associated with aiding and abetting liability unless congress really provides for that justice kagan mr gannon one of the  best of the united kingdom france germany japan canada do you know of anything that suggests otherwise well i'm not sure about other countries but i do think one point is that they are doing that as a matter of domestic law and not always with an analogy that is like the a t f and here the united states congress has actually provided for liability civil congress an act of the a t f in response to its concern about other nations being offended by our failure to remedy international law violations and one might ask why one would think that another country would be around the world with which were usually associated as a rule of law and nations do not make that distinction well one reason is because we don't think that civil liability under the a t f is the only way that congress has to ensure that we are holding u s persons accountable for violations of human rights under the torture victim protection act congress didn't think that corporations needed to be held liable their order for us to effect our obligation is to prevent torture and similarly if congress has provided for other remedies besides the team they have besides the a t f it has criminal consequences the types of things that justice so instructs the courts to pay attention or give serious weight to the executive branch's view of the case is impact on foreign policy in your view are you you making any footnote twenty one argument at all about this particular case having an impact on foreign policy not specifically we are saying that there are allegations in the complaint that if this case were ultimately brought to fruition that like the other types of cases that have previously presented concerns may well point up a particular foreign relations problem because they implicate the actions of foreign officials potentially and separately we do say that there is a potential interaction here between the allegations of liability here and efforts that the executive branch congress other governments are making in order to help solve and ameliorate the human rights situation  for slavery chains that the harken angle of protocol is used by plaintiffs here as evidence of liability rather than an instance where a u s corporation is and is engaging in good faith in efforts to try to a human rights abuses thank you justice barrett counsel i have a question about aiding and abetting liability in extraterritoriality you say that the focus of the tort should be the primary conduct so here what was happening in code to rather than the aiding and abetting which you can't drive as a secondary but why should that be so i mean let's imagine you have a u s corporation or even a u s individual that is making plans to facilitate the use of child slaves you know making phone calls sending money specifically for that purpose writing e mails to that effect why isn't that conduct that occurs in the united states something that touches on concerns you know or should be the focus of combat however you want to state the test i think that there are two different ways of looking at that we do think that the focus test requires us to look at the object of a statute solicitude including the conduct of the statute seeks to regulate and to the extent that the u s corporation in your hypothetical going to engage in all of this conduct overseas even though some planning operative activities happen in the united if you just want to focus on the aiding and abetting allegations or just say we're only going to look at the at the the conduct by the u s corporation instead of the people on the ground who are engaging in the underlying tort we still think that the allegations in this case don't specifically state enough in order to stay a claim that would not be extraterritorial thank you minute to wrap up mr gannon thank you mr chief justice concerns that  political branches have not moved quickly enough to resolve forced labor problems and corporate supply chains in this industry or elsewhere are not a license for this court to expand tort liability under the ts having already ruled out s liability for foreign corporations the court should not adopt a different role for u s corporations by contrast between the torture victim protection act and the trafficking victims protection act show that is a policy choice that could go either way and the decision should be made by congress and if the court reaches the question of extraterritoriality then even assuming that aiding and abetting is actionable the focus of any forced labor toward here was overseas that's where the injury happened and where any substantial justice and please the court first congress and the alien torts fichu provided a federal form for foreign citizens to bring cases for law of nations violations without limitation as to defendants or serious of tort liability kleiner so former child slaves seeking compensation from two u s corporations which maintain a system of child slavery and forced labor in their ivory coast supply chain as a matter of corporate policy to gain a competitive advantage in the u s market the international norms prohibiting child slavery and forced labor are indisputable specific universal in obligatory the norms apply directly to private parties including corporations unlike the oval intestine or this case does not seek to assert u s jurisdiction over foreign corporations for actions against other foreign citizens they took on foreign soil this case alleges violations of wong established norms prohibiting child slavery and forced labor by u s corporations from the united states the founders were particularly concerned about actions of u that might lead to foreign entanglements and their response was to provide for a federal judicial forum to resolve such disputes based on the rule of law the recent discovery of legal opinions written by thomas jefferson and edmund without any need for further congressional action these claims fit comfortably within the text history and purpose of the a p s and this court's holding and so so and it should be allowed to proce on conduct overseas and those responsible for that can be brought into court either as witnesses or for aiding and abetting so why doesn't this type of action present the same international relations concerns that we've noted in in the prior cases in this area well  not different in many respects from any transnational litigation there is certainly have been no problem with discovery and other matters in most of these cases that have gone to discovery policy grounds within the footnote twenty one context there are others so there really is no evidence that that's true moreover congress already decided in the trafficking victims protection act that forced labor and child slavery and or slavery generally and supply chains is something for which damage remedies are appropriate and obviously the congress doesn't  those issues present any for any of those problems the t v are any that you just mentioned i think is is pertinent here congress is addressing the sort of questions that you would have the court resolved as a matter of i suppose federal common law and doesn't what congress did in the t v p r a suggest that they are congress in of these questions they are active in the area and it's it's time for the court to get out of the unusual situation where it's it's making rather than just consequence may be in your indication it is certainly true that the t v p r is broader than the a t s claims that we are making in this case and that it is seems very likely that any case from two thousand and eight on would use the trafficking victims protection act rather than the a t s in making these kinds of claims so our case is really an exceptional case that arises before that and i think that the t v p corporate liability and you don't have aiding and abetting liability so why shouldn't we take that as an indication that congress saw limitations on the  certainly decided and mohammed that corporate liability is not available but the court has said that it looks to the most analogous statute and what we can tend to see the trafficking victims protection act which deals specifically with force lebrun slavery and supply chains is the most analogous and so whatever congress thought about corporate liability for claims of torture extrajudicial execution congress has made it very clear that they believe that there should be corporate liability when it comes to knowingly benefiting from forced labor and sweat of rayon in the supply chain you'd be just as a matter of curiosity you bring whether or not you could this could have been an diversity or something else i i think that this particular case in the way that it was originally framed could not have been brought under diversity  included both citizens and non citizens on the other side so diversity was not available but the a t s directly applied terms and separate matter there seems to be some suggestion in the arguments and some of the other arguments that there is no moon even though there is no universal norm for  and abetting irish treasury liability and tort was widely available at the time it was passed but but on the international level it is our position the international community has come up with specific universal  obligatory norms with respect aiding and abetting serious violations of international human rights law which would include these norms for sure and attractive to all the circuits that have decided this question have found that there is any and abetting liability in a ts claims they have different sometimes about the standard sometimes adding requirements that don't appear to be in the customary international law norm there is corporate liability for domestic corporation to assume that there is a meeting about the liability you know what counts as aiding and abetting for purposes of the statute when i read through your complaint it seems to me that all or virtually all of your complaints amount to doing business with these people they help pay for the farm and that's about it  knowingly do it well unfortunately child labor it's terrible but it exists throughout the world in many many places and if we take this is the norm but typically when congress is now working in the area that would mean throughout the world this is the norm and i don't know but i have concerns the treating this allegation the six that you make here as aiding and abetting falling within that term for purpose s of this statute if other nations do the same and we do the same could have very very significant effects i'm just saying i'm worried about that and i want you to companies do business facilitating child slave labor in the ivory coast it can be done there are requirements by by far as in europe about how it should be to refine your complaint and i assume you've chosen your words with care and paragraph fifty on page three hundred and nineteen of the joint appendix you allege that quote defendants in general not only purchased cocoa from farms and or farm cooperate in which they knew or should have known or lied on forced child labor so even putting aside the question of which defendants you're referring to you don't even allege that they actually knew about forced child labor do you go further anyplace in the compliance and if not is should have known which not for aiding and abetting liability under either international law or us law and i don't think that should have known would would satisfy but knowledge i find an allegation of knowledge intimately involved and from the koch of growing area and they are not they have knowledge because of the reports that have been issued because they send their on people to invest  and that trials are report back to the headquarters that they're intimately involved with goes on in their supply chain and we have a big wedge knowledge whether  assume you're really care if you're careful about what you allege because you don't want to one car roll of an liabilities so after fifteen years is it too much to ask that you allege specifically that the defendant involved the defendants who are before us here specifically knew that forced child labor was being used on the farms or farm cooperatives with which they did business is that too much to ask you believe that the aiding and abetting exist if they knew simply if they knew that child labor was being used to produce the cocoa beans and they bought the product states to buy these products from these kinds of farnham's i presume that's knowing their child vaguely but i don't see an allegation other than sending representatives to look at the farm so that knowledge could be imputed that there is any other actual aiding and abetting that you have alleged against the particular us corporations that you amends you could actually show the think transmitted the money that they directly i'm not talking about their subsidiaries that the american corporations actually directed the money thing is fed is fed she is controlled by the corporate and so that we would and we've been in aspic allegations particularly separating out the foreign corporations that have to be dis jesness to identify exactly what we contend these victim s the corporate to that and we think we have enough information to to think the decision making and should not be used to police the actions of tunes particularly when they act primarily on foreign soil whereas those are two completely different in the united states has its both killed just their deal with completely different situations where there is minimal contact with the united states and where it's really the responsibility of other countries to their own corporations and you know one of the netherlands majority in some places only have a reality in other places if you look at that decision what do you think it tells us about the approach that we need to use to answer the question of domestic or liability for child slavery i mean what is controlling do you think with respect to how we go about answering that question i think that there is a controlling majority about how to approach that question the par ality does discuss the question of whether there needs to be a specific and universal obligatory norm of corporal liability i think the reasons that th not that basically what international law provides a bit of norms in this case child slave and th labor but the meat forcing them are individual states and in the  cause of action and and here you're asking us to in for a new cause of action for aiding and abetting and i guess i want to understand why i should be creating new cause of action as a judge today we have abandoned federal common law in every other area after erie or at least we proclaim to do so and i'm not sure i understand why the s should be different especially when congress stands able and ready to create new causes of action as the chief justice has pointed out it's done elsewhere that would be the appropriate more appropriately placed it to create new legislation it would seem and in every respect what you're asking us to do is a form of legislation and then finally i throw into the mix central bank which underscores that aiding and abetting liability is a different thing and that often there are good reasons not to have aiding and abetting liability even when there is primary liability so whatever i think about the question i have to least acknowledge there are good arguments for a lawmaker to consider on both sides of that question which again takes me back to my question wondering whether on the right person to be making this pitch to rather than a legislator can you help me with that to the courts to enforce the law of nations using common law methods was still viable not withstanding eerie and i was standing many of the arguments for that the defendants make in this  court to recognise the ability to enforce those norms by tort liability in our courts and basically the norms about child slavery and forced labor are as as quintessential so specifically because those were not exactly in the questions presented but but our position on any and abetting liability is that in fact the founders understood a had been a liability there was it in abetting liability in british common law that was remedy and reparations when u s citizens violated the rights of foreign citizens and the st congress was not looking to restrict them to the nature of liability their word that they would now want to exempt you chief justice and good morning and welcome mr hoffman that morning i have a different flavor of justice course which is broader question about separation of powers a are the cases of said the court the court should not be out in front in fleshing out the cause of action here didn't go didn't reject it entirely didn't take justice scalia's position but should be out in front and two sources in particular the court has said to look to to constrain the cause of action to make sure as justice corset said we're not creating it ourselves and one is of course making sure the norm is sufficiently rooted in international law as you know and my concern on that is the language of so this doesn't just talk about the norm as you know but footnote twenty specifically directs us to look at the particular perpetrator being sued in the category of perpetrator whether it's a corporation or an individual and i've looked at this before as you know and looked at it again and i think it's hard to argue that corporate liability in international law is a specific universal no obligatory or specific and universal form wall is different justice kagan rightly points that are out and there may be debatable policy reasons for drawing the line between individual and corporate why ability but it's on it's hard to argue that it's there in international law that's my concern in this case stems on the question presented on corporate law below the stems from footnote twenty in the content as i see it of international law stalled give you an opportunity to respond to here i think if the aim the question i think we would argue and footnote twenty was addressed to the distinction between norms that applied directly to private parties including corporations versus norms that required some connection to state action i think that this citations fair make that fairly clear i don't think it was saying that corporal liability had to be a specific universal and obligatory norms because that's really not the way the international system works many governments do impose corporate liability for violations of international law for example and that's i think that's a different question though and that gets to justice kagan's point which i think is a good one that foreign foreign law does impose corporate a lot of building of course as does us law in many circumstances but international law and the international tribunals have not seemed to do you said that the a t s was a statement by the st congress that we will enforce the law of nations and provide a forum for foreign citizens to do that but of course the a t s also did it to protect the you know th the policy interests of the united states and to protect the united states from retaliation by other countries in circumstances in which it failed to provide such a form so we've talked a little bit about the foreign policy implications or lack there of recognizing a cause of action against domestic corporations for violations of international law norms but could you say a little bit about any foreign policy implications that might be the result of our failing to recognise such a cause of action idea of the a t s was to provide that form to avoid that kind of protest it didn't require would be i guess my question is do you think that the united states  well it hasn't i mean and for one thing it's not clear whether there's a form or there isn't a form so the ivory coast wouldn't have reason at this point to protest you know it's not clear whether in today's world there would be protests of the same nature but it seems to me that the the the purpose of the statute was to provide that kind of forum and s corporations in this circumstance so mr k o s pointing out that domestic corporations often have relationships with foreign subsidiaries or parent corporations and therefore that many of the same concerns that we identified in jazz now would be implicated by the recognition of liability in this context as well so what do you have to say to that would recognizing liability here against a domestic corporation with fo are probably there can't be a viable a t s claim against nestle usa that's now what we believe but if in fact the facts turn out that way then i think it probably is in conflict with  and forced labor plaintiffs claim satisfy every social requirement and fit squarely within the text history and purpose of the a t s the a t s represents a commitment to enforce the law of nations in our courts a commitment congress has never withdrawn or restricted and certainly not with respect to child slavery discourse should reaffirm that commitment and should allow these former child slaves to have their day in court justice thank you counsel mr cocktail rebuttal four points your honor st nestle and cargo import child slavery this case isn't about that it's about whether this old statute applies extraterritorial e and who can be sued when asked by justices alito and sotomayor where in the complaint is there any knowledge of slavery by the defendants my friend couldn't answer zilch this case is an easy one extraterritoriality where there is no us injury and little us conduct accepting the complaint would create the craven watchdog problem of morrison and deeds of breathtaking kennel problems as my friends opening line admitted that lawsuits quote without limitation on defendants were theories of tort liability and even if aiding and abetting liability exists justice sotomayor it doesn't get around extraterritoriality rather it's ambiguity highlights the problem as justice briar's worry to my friend shows the a t f this focus is still the injury or principal wrongdoing otherwise it's truly aiding an amorphous nd my friend suggest our view guts human rights law but ours was the law for at least the st two hundred years with no practice of a t s liability the congress knows how to fashion specific remedies for the extreme hypotheticals and already have i heard no answer from my friend to the five mechanisms to prevent abuse rd my friends arguments never grapple with justice   his point that in every case that every case is said that this court should be out in front it's his high burden under sosa to convince you a specific universal norm exists he does it for and finally for corporate liability just congress sometimes uses corporate liability and sometimes doesn't like a t v p a the queries today about how can we exempt corporations and makes no sense could be said about torture but in the t v p a congress said there was no liability for  corporations the fact that there are two reasonable choices shows you should defer to congress same with extraterritoriality sometimes congress extends a statute that way by genocide other times it doesn't nothing in the a t f says it reaches an injury halfway across the globe and the new jefferson and randolph letters are about us conduct bringing people to the us as slaves and they're about aly and aj jurisdiction under article three neither says the a t f overcomes the extraterritoriality of our justice prior you asked do we want to judge deciding that this then an accusatory complaint and my friend admission of just how open ended and transformative has liability would be answers that question