Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-09-07125/USCOURTS-caDC-09-07125-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 360
Nature of Suit: Other Personal Injury
Cause of Action: 

---

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued January 25, 2011 Decided July 8, 2011

No. 09-7125

JOHN DOE VIII, ET AL.,

APPELLANTS

v.

EXXON MOBIL CORPORATION, ET AL.,

APPELLEES

Consolidated with 09-7127, 09-7134, 09-7135

Appeals from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:07-cv-01022)

(No. 1:01-cv-01357)

Agnieszka Fryszman argued the cause for appellants on

State Claims. Paul Hoffman argued the cause for appellants on

Federal Claims. With them on the briefs were Kathleen M.

Konopka, Maureen E. McOwen, Terrence P. Collingsworth, and

Piper M. Hendricks. Charles J. Ogletree Jr. and Joseph M.

Sellers entered appearances.

Marco B. Simons was on the brief for amicus curiae

EarthRights International (ERI) in support of appellants. 

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 1 of 151
2

Jennifer M. Green was on the brief for amici curiae

University of Minnesota Law School, et al. in support of

appellants. 

William J. Aceves was on the brief for amici curiae

International Law Scholars in support of appellants. 

Muneer I. Ahmad was on the brief for amici curiae Arthur

Miller, Erwin Chemerinsky, and Professors of Federal

Jurisdiction and Legal History in support of appellants. 

Sri Srinivasan argued the cause for appellees/crossappellants. With him on the brief were Walter Dellinger, Anton

Metlitsky, Theodore V. Wells Jr., Alex Young K. Oh, Nikhil

Singhvi, Martin J. Weinstein, and Patrick J. Conlon.

Robin S. Conrad, Alan E. Untereiner, and Mark T. Stancil

were on the brief for amicus curiae The Chamber of Commerce

of the United States of America in support of appellees. 

Jeffrey A. Lamken and Robert K. Kry were on the brief for

amici curiae National Foreign Trade Council, Inc. et al. in

support of appellees. 

Daniel J. Popeo and Richard A. Samp were on the brief for

amici curiae Washington Legal Foundation, et al. in support of

appellees. 

Before: ROGERS, TATEL, and KAVANAUGH, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court by Circuit Judge ROGERS.

Opinion dissenting in part by Circuit Judge KAVANAUGH.

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 2 of 151
3

ROGERS, Circuit Judge: Pursuant to a contract with the

Indonesian government, Exxon Mobil Corporation, a United

States corporation, and several of its wholly owned subsidiaries

(hereinafter “Exxon”) operated a large natural gas extraction and

processing facility in the Aceh province of Indonesia in

2000–2001. Plaintiffs-appellants are fifteen Indonesian villagers

from the Aceh territory. Eleven villagers filed a complaint in

2001 alleging that Exxon’s security forces committed murder,

torture, sexual assault, battery, and false imprisonment in

violation of the Alien Tort Statute (“ATS”) and the Torture

Victim Protection Act (“TVPA”), and various common law

torts. (The Doe I complaint.) Four other Aceh villagers alleged

in 2007 that Exxon committed various common law torts. (The

Doe VIII complaint.) All plaintiffs-appellants allege that Exxon

took actions both in the United States and at its facility in the

Aceh province that resulted in their injuries. The district court

dismissed the statutory claims, see Doe I v. Exxon Mobil Corp.,

393 F. Supp. 2d 20 (D.D.C. 2005), and discovery proceeded on

the tort claims.1

 Those claims, however, were subsequently

dismissed for lack of prudential standing. See Doe VIII v. Exxon

Mobil Corp., 658 F. Supp. 2d 131 (D.D.C. 2009). Plaintiffsappellants challenge the dismissals of their complaints and

Exxon filed a cross-appeal, inter alia raising for the first time

that as a corporation it was immune from liability under the

ATS.2 

1

 In an interlocutory appeal filed in 2005, this court held that

it lacked jurisdiction to address Exxon’s contention that the complaint

should be dismissed pursuant to the political question doctrine and that

Exxon had failed to meet the standard for issuance of a writ of

mandamus. See Doe I v. Exxon Mobil Corp., 473 F.3d 345 (D.C. Cir.

2007).

2

 For purposes of these appeals it is unnecessary to

distinguish between the two complaints. Plaintiffs-appellants appeal

the dismissal of the statutory claims in 2005 by Judge Oberdorfer and

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 3 of 151
4

For the reasons that follow, we conclude that aiding and

abetting liability is well established under the ATS. We further

conclude under our precedent that this court should address

Exxon’s contention on appeal of corporate immunity and,

contrary to its view and that of the Second Circuit, we join the

Eleventh Circuit in holding that neither the text, history, nor

purpose of the ATS supports corporate immunity for torts based

on heinous conduct allegedly committed by its agents in

violation of the law of nations. We affirm the dismissal of the

TVPA claims in view of recent precedent of this court. We

conclude, however, that Exxon’s objections to justiciability are

unpersuasive and that the district court erred in ruling that

appellants lack prudential standing to bring their non-federal tort

claims and in the choice of law determination. Finally, we

conclude that Exxon’s challenge to the diversity of parties in the

Doe VIII complaint is to be resolved initially by the district

court. Therefore, we affirm the dismissal of plaintiffsappellants’ TVPA claims, reverse the dismissal of the ATS

claims at issue in this appeal, along with plaintiffs-appellants’

non-federal tort claims, and remand the cases to the district

court. 

 

I.

Accepting the allegations of the complaints as true, and

construing the complaints in favor of plaintiffs-appellants, as we

must, see Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 501 (1975), the

plaintiffs claim that Exxon’s security forces were comprised of

members of the Indonesian military and that Exxon and its

subsidiaries, which were incorporated at the time of the filing of

the first complaint in New Jersey and Delaware, Doe I Compl.

¶¶ 17, 20, 23, retained these soldiers as guards for its natural

the dismissal of the common law torts in 2009 on prudential standing

grounds by Chief Judge Lamberth.

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 4 of 151
5

gas facility even though Exxon was aware that the Indonesian

army had committed human rights abuses in the past, id. ¶¶

39–47; Doe I Am. Compl. ¶¶ 55–66; Doe VIII Compl. ¶¶ 39–59,

and knew that performance of the security contract would lead

to human rights violations by Indonesian soldiers against the

residents of Aceh. Doe I Compl. ¶¶ 64, 71; Doe I Am. Compl.

¶¶ 60, 66, 125; Doe VIII Compl. ¶¶ 51–53, 79. The human

rights abuses alleged included genocide, extrajudicial killing,

torture, crimes against humanity, sexual violence, and

kidnaping. Doe I Compl. ¶ 64. In addition to extrajudicial

killings of some of the plaintiffs-appellants’ husbands as part of

a “systematic campaign of extermination of the people of Aceh

by [d]efendants’ [Indonesian] security forces,” id. ¶ 65, the

plaintiffs-appellants were “beaten, burned, shocked with cattle

prods, kicked and subjected to other forms of brutality and

cruelty” amounting to torture, id. ¶ 66, as well as forcibly

removed and detained for lengthy periods of time, id. ¶ 67. 

Plaintiffs-appellants claim that Exxon or its agents, by decisions

made in the United States, id. ¶¶ 30, 32–33, and at its Aceh

plant, id. ¶¶ 55–57, “committed acts that had the intent and the

effect of grossly humiliating and debasing” either them or their

deceased husbands by “forcing them to act against their will and

conscience, inciting fear and anguish, and breaking their

physical and/or moral resistance” by actions that constitute

“inhuman or degrading treatment in violation of the law of

nations.” Id. ¶ 68.

According to the complaints, these actions of the Indonesian

military could be attributed to Exxon because they were

committed by a unit dedicated only to Exxon’s Aceh facility and

Exxon had the authority “to control and direct[]” the soldiers’

actions. Id. ¶ 40. Plaintiffs-appellants claim Exxon was aware

of the atrocities committed by the Indonesian military in Aceh,

as confirmed by public reports including reports of atrocities

committed by Exxon’s dedicated unit, and that Exxon

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 5 of 151
6

nonetheless provided logistical and material support to the

military by hiring mercenaries to provide advice, training,

intelligence, and equipment to the unit while Exxon profited

from the operation of its Aceh facility. Id. ¶¶ 39–41, 46. By

acting together with Indonesian security forces, the plaintiffsappellants claim that Exxon acted under color of Indonesian law. 

Id.

On October 1, 2001, Exxon moved to dismiss the

complaint, and after a hearing on the motion the district court

requested the Office of Legal Adviser of the Department of State

to inform the court whether the Department deemed adjudication

of the case to affect adversely the interests of the United States.

On July 29, 2002, the Office of Legal Adviser filed a statement

of interest and attached a statement of the Indonesian

Ambassador to the United States. Thereafter, the district court

dismissed the statutory claims. It ruled that aiding and abetting

was not actionable under the ATS, Doe I, 393 F. Supp. 2d at 24,

that “sexual violence” is not sufficiently recognized as a

violation of the law of nations to be actionable under the ATS,

and that Exxon could not be liable for genocide and crimes

against humanity because adjudication of such claims would “be

an impermissible intrusion in Indonesia’s internal affairs.” Id.

at 25. Although concluding that “resolving claims of complicity

in arbitrary detention, torture, and extrajudicial killing pose[d]

less of a threat of infringing Indonesia’s sovereignty,” id., the

district court ruled that the plaintiffs could not assert such claims

against Exxon because color-of-law jurisprudence developed in

lawsuits under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 was inapplicable in view of

Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, 542 U.S. 692 (2004). Doe I, 393 F.

Supp. 2d at 25–26. The district court also ruled that joint action

with the Indonesian military was not sufficiently alleged, but

even if it were the required inquiry would raise justiciability

concerns, and to the extent state action could be alleged under

a proximate cause theory, that theory was not sufficiently

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 6 of 151
7

alleged in the complaint. Id. at 26–27. The district court

declined to hold, as Exxon urged, that the ATS claims must be

dismissed due to plaintiffs-appellants’ failure to exhaust

remedies in Indonesia because it was apparent that such efforts

would be futile. Id. at 24–25.

On appeal, plaintiffs-appellants challenge the dismissal of

their ATS and TVPA claims based on prohibitions of

extrajudicial killing, torture, and prolonged arbitrary detention,

but do not appeal the dismissal of their claims of genocide,

crimes against humanity, or sexual violence. They contend, and

Exxon does not dispute, that extrajudicial killing, torture, and

prolonged arbitrary detention are clearly established norms of

international law.3

 They also contend, but Exxon disputes, that

the district court erred in ruling that aiding and abetting liability

is unavailable under the ATS, in view of subsequent case law in

the circuit courts of appeals, and in ruling that color-of-law

jurisprudence may not be applied in ATS cases. Responding to

Exxon’s new contention on appeal that it is entitled to corporate

immunity because customary international law does not

recognize corporate liability for human rights violations,

appellants contend that Exxon has conflated Sosa’s analysis for

norms in a manner that is inconsistent with a well-established

distinction in international law, and alternatively it has

inaccurately recounted customary international law. Appellants

maintain that corporations may be liable directly and also for

aiding and abetting under the ATS and the TVPA.

Finally, appellants challenge the dismissal of their nonfederal tort claims, contending that history demonstrates that

3

 This relieves the court from the task, in which our dissenting

colleague unnecessarily engages, see Dis. Op. at 4 n.2, of identifying

the universe of international norms capable of giving rise to causes of

action in ATS lawsuits. See Oral Arg. Tr. at 64:9–12.

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 7 of 151
8

there is no per se bar on non-resident alien standing and that

they meet the traditional zone-of-interests test for prudential

standing. Exxon maintains that appellants cannot meet the zoneof-interests test because the alleged torts occurred on foreign

soil and that any state law claims would be subject to foreign

affairs preemption, and even if those claims survive, Indonesian

law ought to apply. Exxon also raises three justiciability

objections: the complaint should be dismissed in deference to

the foreign policy views of the Executive Branch; the claims

interfere with a peace agreement supported by the United States;

and the claims threaten international comity with Indonesia. 

Exxon further maintains the Doe VIII complaint must be

dismissed for lack of diversity jurisdiction. 

In Part II, we address aiding and abetting liability under the

ATS, concluding that it is well established. In Part III, we

examine Exxon’s claim of corporate immunity, concluding that

corporations can be held liable under the ATS. In Part IV, we

affirm the dismissal of appellants’ claims under the TVPA in

view of precedent issued by this court after oral argument in

these cases. In Part V, we consider Exxon’s contentions that the

complaints should be dismissed on justiciability grounds and

find them unpersuasive. In Part VI, we resolve appellants’

challenge to the dismissal of their common law claims for lack

of prudential standing, concluding that they have such standing;

we agree, however, with Exxon that the district court erred in its

choice of law determination and that Indonesian law applies

under the District of Columbia choice of law rule to appellants’

non-federal tort claims. In Part VII, we remand to the district

court questions raised by Exxon with regard to the existence of

diversity jurisdiction in Doe VIII.

We conclude that none of the four reasons offered by our

dissenting colleague for reaching a different conclusion about

the reach of the ATS withstand analysis. The dissent’s first

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 8 of 151
9

objection relates to extraterritoriality when that issue is not

presented and, as the historical context makes clear, the ATS

reaches harm occurring outside of the United States. The

dissent’s objection to corporate liability is based on a

misstatement of the definition of customary international law

and of Supreme Court precedent, and disregards both a

fundamental distinction between causes of action based on

conduct that violates the law of nations or treaties and the

remedy under domestic law, and a source of international law. 

The dissent’s third objection that the TVPA precludes the

court’s conclusions regarding the ATS is contrary to the

Supreme Court’s conclusion about the effect of the TVPA on the

ATS and inappropriately addresses an argument forfeited by

Exxon. Finally, the dissent’s justiciability objection selectively

characterizes not only the complaints but also the State

Department’s expression of interest in this litigation.

II.

The ATS stood largely dormant for nearly two centuries

after its enactment in 1789. Two district courts invoked

jurisdiction under the ATS. See Adra v. Clift, 195 F. Supp. 857

(D. Md. 1961)); Bolchos v. Darrel, 3 F. Cas. 810 (D.S.C. 1795)

(No. 1,607). The first appellate court to uphold a claim under

the ATS did so in 1980 when the Second Circuit held in

Filartiga v. Pena-Irala, 630 F.2d 876 (2d Cir. 1980), that

deliberate torture perpetrated under color of official authority

violated universally accepted norms of international law on

human rights and that the ATS provided federal jurisdiction

over a claim by a resident alien against a Paraguayan official for

the death of his son in Paraguay. The Supreme Court in Sosa

described Filartiga as “the birth of the modern line of [ATS]

cases.” 542 U.S. at 724–25. Even after Filartiga, however,

courts and commentators continued to disagree as to the proper

interpretation of the ATS, resulting in the exchange between

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 9 of 151
10

Judge Edwards and Judge Bork in Tel-Oren v. Libyan Arab

Republic, 726 F.2d 774 (D.C. Cir. 1984). The Supreme Court

in Sosa settled this disagreement, adopting an approach

consistent with both Filartiga and Judge Edwards’ separate

opinion in Tel-Oren.

The issue in Sosa was whether a Mexican citizen (AlvarezMachain) could bring a claim under the ATS against Mexican

nationals hired by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration

(“DEA”) for an alleged violation of the law of nations arising

from his “arbitrary arrest.” DEA agents had obtained an arrest

warrant from a U.S. district court and hired Mexican nationals

(including Sosa) to abduct Alvarez-Machain and bring him to

the United States to be arrested. 542 U.S. at 698. The Supreme

Court, although concluding the ATS was “intended as

jurisdictional,” id. at 714, and “creat[ed] no new causes of

action,” id. at 724, held that “[t]he jurisdictional grant is best

read as having been enacted on the understanding that the

common law would provide a cause of action for the modest

number of international law violations with a potential for

personal liability at the time,” id. Further, the Court concluded

that “Congress has not in any relevant way amended § 1350 or

limited civil common law power by another statute.” Id. at 725.

The Court went on to observe, as we discuss in Part V, that

“there are good reasons for a restrained conception of the

discretion a federal court should exercise in considering a new

cause of action of this kind.” Id.

Upon considering the history and purpose of the ATS, the

Supreme Court instructed that “courts should require any claim

based on the present-day law of nations to rest on a norm of

international character accepted by the civilized world and

defined with a specificity comparable to the features of the

18th-century paradigms we have recognized,” id., referencing

violation of safe conducts, infringement of the rights of

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 10 of 151
11

ambassadors, and piracy, id. at 724. The Court recognized that

“a judge deciding in reliance on an international norm will find

a substantial element of discretionary judgment in the decision,”

id. at 726, but admonished that “federal courts should not

recognize private claims under federal common law for

violations of any international law norm with less definite

content and acceptance among civilized nations than the

historical paradigms familiar when § 1350 was enacted,” id. at

732. Appellants’ aiding and abetting contention meets this test.

In dismissing appellants’ statutory claims, the district court

relied principally on In re South African Apartheid Litigation,

346 F. Supp. 2d 538, 549–51 (S.D.N.Y. 2004), which held that

private actors who did not engage in state action committed no

violation remediable under the ATS. That authority was

overruled in Khulumani v. Barclay National Bank Ltd., 504 F.3d

254 (2d Cir. 2007), aff’d for lack of en banc quorum sub nom.

Am. Isuzu Motors, Inc. v. Ntsebeza, 553 U.S. 1028 (2008); see

also Presbyterian Church of Sudan v. Talisman Energy, Inc.,

582 F.3d 244, 256 (2d Cir. 2009), cert. denied, 131 S. Ct. 79

(2010). The district court also ruled that there was no liability

for aiding and abetting under the ATS, applying the rule of

statutory construction in Central Bank of Denver v. First

Interstate Bank of Denver, 511 U.S. 164, 181–82 (1994),

superseded in part by statute, 15 U.S.C. § 78t(e), that there is no

general presumption in favor of aiding and abetting liability. 

Doe I, 393 F. Supp. 2d at 24. 

Appellants persuasively contend that aiding and abetting

liability exists under the ATS. Virtually every court to address

the issue, before and after Sosa, has so held, recognizing

secondary liability for violations of international law since the

founding of the Republic. Appellants cite as examples Talbot

v. Jansen, 3 U.S. (3 Dall.) 133, 167–68 (1795) (Iredell, J.), The

Amiable Nancy, 1 F. Cas. 765, 768 (C.C.D.N.Y. 1817) (No.

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 11 of 151
12

331), and Henfield’s Case, 11 F. Cas. 1099 (C.C.D. Pa. 1793)

(No. 6,360). Further, they note that aiding and abetting liability

was a common feature of Founding-era statutes addressing

international law offenses, see Crimes Act of 1790, ch. 9, § 10,

1 Stat. 112, 114 (1790) (deeming “an accessary [sic] to . . .

piracies” anyone who “knowingly and willingly aided” piracy). 

Exxon maintains, however, that there is no aiding and abetting

liability under the ATS because of the presumption against

extraterritorial application established at the time of the ATS’s

enactment, and the Supreme Court’s instruction in Central

Bank, 511 U.S. at 181–82, that although “aiding and abetting is

an ancient criminal law doctrine,” id. at 181, “when Congress

enacts a statute under which a person may sue and recover

damages from a private defendant for the defendant’s violation

of some statutory norm, there is no general presumption that the

plaintiff may also sue aiders and abettors,” id. at 182. For the

following reasons, we hold that there is no extraterritoriality bar

as Exxon suggests, that the principle of aiding and abetting

liability is well established in customary international law, and

that the mens rea and actus reus requirements are those set out

by the Nuremberg Tribunals and the international courts created

by the United Nations, which reflect the standard under federal

common law.

A.

The issue of extraterritoriality, although briefed,4

 was not

decided in Sosa, and it has yet to be decided by a circuit court

of appeals. One judge of this court discussed the issue in TelOren, looking to the then-tentative draft Restatement of the

Foreign Relations Law of the United States, 726 F.2d at 781 n.7,

788 (Edwards, J., concurring), which in its final version states

4

 Brief for the United States as Respondent Supporting

Petitioner 47–50, Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, 542 U.S. 692 (2004) (No.

03-339), 2004 WL 182581.

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 12 of 151
13

that a nation has universal jurisdiction to define and prescribe

punishment for certain egregious crimes regardless of any

territorial considerations, RESTATEMENT (THIRD) OF FOREIGN

RELATIONS LAW OF THE UNITED STATES § 404, and otherwise

a nation may prescribe law as to conduct occurring or having an

effect in its territory and “the activities, interests, status, or

relations of its nationals outside as well as within its territory,”

id. § 402(1)–(2); see also Sosa, 542 U.S. at 761 (Breyer, J.,

concurring) (citing RESTATEMENT (THIRD) OF FOREIGN

RELATIONS LAW OF THE UNITED STATES § 401(1)–(2)). The

two other judges in Tel-Oren and our recent decision in Ali

Shafi v. Palestinian Authority, ___ F.3d ___. 2011 WL 2315028

(D.C. Cir. June 14, 2011), relied on other grounds for

dismissing the ATS claims, notwithstanding that both involved

claims of harms occurring outside of the United States, as did

the claims in Sosa and Filartiga. 

The Supreme Court, however, recently reaffirmed the

“presumption against extraterritoriality” in Morrison v. National

Australia Bank Ltd., 130 S. Ct. 2869 (2010), holding that

“[r]ather than guess anew in each case, we apply the

presumption in all cases, preserving a stable background against

which Congress can legislate with predictable effects.” Id. at

2881. “This principle represents a canon of construction, or a

presumption about a statute’s meaning.” Id. at 2877. “When a

statute gives no clear indication of an extraterritorial

application, it has none.” Id. at 2878. 

The ATS provides in full:

The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of

any civil action by an alien for a tort only, committed

in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the

United States.

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 13 of 151
14

28 U.S.C. § 1350. The ATS was enacted as part of the Judiciary

Act of 1789, ch. 20, § 9, 1 Stat. 73, 77 (1789), and its content

has not been materially amended since its enactment.5 Its terms

are “jurisdictional,” the Supreme Court held in Sosa,

“enabl[ing] federal courts to hear claims in a very limited

category defined by the law of nations and recognized at

common law.” 542 U.S. at 712. At the time of enactment of

the ATS, the Court observed, “torts in violation of the law of

nations were understood to be within the common law.” Id.

And although the Supreme Court has fundamentally altered the

breadth and understanding of federal common law since the

ATS’s enactment, see id. at 729 (citing Erie R.R. Co. v.

Tompkins, 304 U.S. 604 (1938)), the Court noted in Sosa that in

5

 The ATS has been amended three times. In 1874, as part of

the first official codification of the Acts of Congress when the grants

of jurisdiction were listed, the ATS was amended to read: “The district

courts shall have jurisdiction . . . [o]f all suits brought by any alien for

a tort only in violation of the law of nations, or of a treaty of the

United States.” Rev. Stat. § 563 (1st ed. 1875). In the 1911

codification of the Judiciary Act, a comma was added after the phrase

“tort only” and a comma was removed after the phrase “law of

nations”; neither change appears to have had any practical effect. Act

of Mar. 3, 1911, ch. 231, § 24, 36 Stat. 1087, 1093 (1911). In the

1948 revision of the Judicial Code, the term “civil action” was

substituted for “suits” to conform with Rule 2 of the Federal Rules of

Civil Procedure, which provided that “there shall be one form of

action to be known as a ‘civil action.’” Act of June 25, 1948, ch. 646,

§ 1350, 62 Stat. 869, 934 (1948) (codified at 28 U.S.C. § 1350). The

word “committed” was added, but no party has cited a case or

scholarly work suggesting the addition has any significance or that

Congress had any particular intent in adding it. See Tel-Oren, 726

F.2d at 779 n.3 (Edwards, J., concurring). Also in the 1948 Act, the

term “any alien” reverted to “an alien,” consistent with the original

1789 language, and the word “original” was inserted before

“jurisdiction.” 62 Stat. at 934.

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 14 of 151
15

certain areas federal common law will prevail either because of

express congressional authorization to devise a body of law, see

id. at 726 (citing Textile Workers v. Lincoln Mills of Ala., 353

U.S. 448 (1957)), or by way of judicial decision “to create

federal common law rules in interstitial areas of particular

federal interest,” id. (citing United States v. Kimbell Foods, Inc.,

440 U.S. 715, 726–27 (1979)). The Court concluded that the

ATS was enacted on the basis of a “congressional assumption”

that courts would develop common law claims “derived from

the law of nations,” thus ensuring that any common lawmaking

authority as to actionable conduct would, at least, be cabined by

the law of nations. Id. at 731 n.19.

Citing Morrison, Exxon contends that a “strong

presumption . . . against extending [federal statutes] to

encompass conduct in foreign territory” militates against

recognizing a common law aiding and abetting claim based on

human rights violations committed in a foreign country. 

Appellees’ Br. 37. Exxon posits a novel form of the canon, for

it appears beyond debate that piracy is contemplated by the

ATS, see Sosa, 542 U.S. at 719; Tel-Oren, 726 F.2d at 779

(Edwards, J., concurring) (citing 4 BLACKSTONE’S

COMMENTARIES *67); id. at 813–14 (Bork, J., concurring), and

piracy can occur outside of the territorial bounds of the United

States, see generally United States v. Hasan, 747 F. Supp. 2d

599 (E.D. Va. 2010), and, the Supreme Court has held, also

within the territorial waters of another nation, see United States

v. Furlong, 18 U.S. (5 Wheat.) 184, 200–01 (1820). Morrison

and other Supreme Court cases hold, in contrast to Exxon’s

canon, “that legislation of Congress, unless a contrary intent

appears, is meant to apply only within the territorial jurisdiction

of the United States.” 130 S. Ct. at 2877 (quoting EEOC v.

Arabian Am. Oil Co. (“ARAMCO”), 499 U.S. 244, 248 (1991));

see also Foley Bros., Inc. v. Filardo, 336 U.S. 281, 285 (1949);

Blackmer v. United States, 284 U.S. 421, 437 (1932); United

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 15 of 151
16

States v. Bowman, 260 U.S. 94, 98–99 (1922). It is at least

arguable that none of the modern cases cited by Exxon (and our

dissenting colleague, Dis. Op. at 7–10) interpret statutes having

obvious extraterritorial reach, as the dissent concedes is true of

the ATS, see Dis. Op. at 14–15. 

“This principle [of a presumption against extraterritorial

reach of a statute] represents a canon of construction . . . rather

than a limit upon Congress’s power to legislate.” Morrison, 130

S. Ct. at 2877. Exxon’s characterization of the presumption

against extraterritoriality is incomplete at best, stating the

presumption is “against extending [federal statutes] to

encompass conduct in foreign territory.” Appellees’ Br. 37. 

Exxon has cited no authority supporting the existence of a

presumption that a statute applies to the high seas (e.g., piracy)

but not to foreign territory; indeed, Exxon cites two Supreme

Court cases supporting the contrary: The Apollon, 22 U.S. (9

Wheat.) 362, 370 (1824), and Rose v. Himely, 8 U.S. (4 Cranch)

241, 279 (1808). In The Apollon the Court held that “[t]he laws

of no nation can justly extend beyond its own territories, except

so far as regards its own citizens,” 22 U.S. at 370 (emphasis

added), and in Rose v. Himely “that the legislation of every

country is territorial; that beyond its own territory, it can only

affect its own subjects or citizens,” 8 U.S. at 279 (emphasis

added).6

 To the extent Exxon maintains that the ATS is only

6

 In Rose v. Himely the Court went on to hold that “a seizure

of a person not a subject, or of a vessel not belonging to a subject,

made on the high seas, for the breach of a municipal regulation, is an

act which the sovereign cannot authorize,” 8 U.S. at 279, indicating

that the background principle at work at the time was one where

extraterritoriality was based on a national sovereignty principle rather

than a special high-seas exception. Such a principle remains a part of 

international law today. See RESTATEMENT (THIRD) OF FOREIGN

RELATIONS LAW OF THE UNITED STATES § 402(2); Sosa, 542 U.S. at

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 16 of 151
17

partially extraterritorial, it advocates a novel canon of statutory

construction, and not one of the settled “background canons of

interpretation of which Congress is presumptively aware” when

it legislates. Lockhart v. United States, 546 U.S. 142, 148

(2005).

Our dissenting colleague would bifurcate the canon by

requiring a separate query with respect to the high seas and

foreign countries. The dissent posits that because piracy by

definition occurs on the high seas, application of the canon

against extraterritoriality — as that canon has been consistently

defined by the Supreme Court for over two hundred years —

creates a statutory outcome that is at odds with congressional

intent that the ATS grant federal courts jurisdiction over aliens’

piracy-related torts. Dis. Op. at 14–16. Finding the existing

canon of no avail, the dissent mutates both the canon and the

precedent into a new canon that produces the desired result. To

the extent that a canon of construction draws its persuasiveness

in large measure from the fact that Congress is “presumptively

aware,” Lockhart, 546 U.S. at 148, of such canons of

outstanding vintage when it legislates and thus “preserv[es] a

stable background against which Congress can legislate with

predictable effects,” Morrison, 130 S. Ct. at 2878, a newly

minted canon fashioned in a dissenting opinion more than two

hundred years after the First Congress provides no such

benefit.7

761 (Breyer, J., concurring).

7

 To the extent a presumption existed at the time of the First

Congress, it differed materially from that suggested by Exxon and the

dissent. Appellees’ Br. 37; Dis. Op. at 7–9. In Furlong, the Supreme

Court interpreted the reach of the piracy and other provisions in the

Crimes Act of 1790. 18 U.S. at 200. Stating that a court ought to

consider the statute by “reference to the punishing powers” of

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 17 of 151
18

Further, a technical but nonetheless important point sheds 

light on Exxon’s contentions: appellants are not asking this

court to apply the ATS itself extraterritorially. In Sosa, the

Supreme Court held that the ATS is a jurisdictional statute that

provides U.S. district courts with jurisdiction over civil actions

brought by aliens seeking relief for torts committed in violation

of the law of nations, and does not itself create causes of action.

542 U.S. at 713–14; 28 U.S.C. § 1350. As a jurisdictional

statute, it would apply extraterritorially only if Congress were

to establish U.S. district courts in foreign countries. To say that

a court is applying the ATS extraterritorially when it hears an

action such as appellants have brought makes no more sense

Congress and then apply a “reasonable presumption” that Congress

did not intend to exceed those powers, and conversely that “general

words . . . ought not . . . be restricted so as to exclude any cases within

their natural meaning,” the Court held that “it was reasonable to

conclude[] that Congress intended to legislate, unless [the] express

language shall preclude that conclusion.” Id. at 196. The powers of

Congress applied in Furlong were those identified in The Apollon, 22

U.S. at 370, and Rose v. Himely, 8 U.S. at 279, namely that Congress

may legislate with respect to acts within U.S. territory and with respect

to its own citizens. Thus, in Furlong, the Court affirmed the

convictions for piracy of two U.S. citizens under the 1790 Act where

the crimes had been committed in the territorial waters of Portugal,

i.e., in a roadstead near the islands of Boa Vista and Maio, off the

western coast of Africa. 18 U.S. at 200–01; see also U.S. DEP’T OF

STATE, BACKGROUND NOTE: CAPE VERDE, available at

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2835.htm (last visited June 21,

2011); John H. Knox, A Presumption Against Extrajurisdictionality,

104 AM. J. INT’L L. 351, 364 (2010). The dissent argues that

“[c]haracteristically [piracy] has been regarded as an offense of the

open seas,” Dis. Op. at 16 n.8 (quoting Edwin D. Dickinson, Is the

Crime of Piracy Obsolete?, 38 HARV. L. REV. 334, 336–37 (1925)), 

but in Furlong the Supreme Court has made patently clear that the

First Congress intended the term “high seas” to include at least some

territory of foreign states, see 18 U.S. at 200–01. 

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 18 of 151
19

than saying that a court is applying 28 U.S.C. § 1331, the

federal question statute, extraterritorially when it hears a TVPA

claim brought by a U.S. citizen based on torture in a foreign

country.

Thus, the question here is not whether the ATS applies

extraterritorially but is instead whether the common law causes

of action that federal courts recognize in ATS lawsuits may

extend to harm to aliens occurring in foreign countries. One

might hope to resolve this question by considering whether the

First Congress would have understood federal courts to have the

authority to recognize such causes of action. Unfortunately, the

historical record with respect to this question is sparse and has

been characterized as ambiguous. The authority most on point

is a 1795 legal opinion by U.S. Attorney General William

Bradford. See Breach of Neutrality, 1 Op. Att’y Gen. 57

(1795). In the midst of the war between Britain and France that

followed the French Revolution, U.S. citizens participated in a

French privateer fleet’s attack and plunder of the British colony

of Sierra Leone in 1794. See id. at 58.8

 Responding to a protest

from the British Ambassador, Attorney General Bradford

expressed “some doubt” as to whether the U.S. citizens could be

prosecuted in U.S. courts. See id. at 58–59. But Bradford had

“no doubt that the company or individuals who ha[d] been

injured by the[] acts of hostility ha[d] a remedy by a civil suit in

the courts of the United States” since Congress in the ATS had

granted federal courts “jurisdiction . . . in all cases where an

8

 See also William R. Casto, The Federal Courts’ Protective

Jurisdiction over Torts Committed in Violation of the Law of Nations,

18 CONN. L. REV. 467, 502–03 (1986) (hereinafter “Casto, Law of

Nations”) (citing CHRISTOPHER FYFE, A HISTORY OF SIERRA LEONE,

59–61 (1962)), cited by the Supreme Court in Sosa, 542 U.S. at 713,

717, 718, 719 n.13, 721.

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 19 of 151
20

alien sues for a tort only, in violation of the laws of nations, or

a treaty of the United States.” Id. at 59 (emphasis in original).

Bradford’s opinion, however, is not a model of clarity. The

paragraph containing Bradford’s discussion of the ATS opens

by stating, “So far . . . as the transactions complained of

originated or took place in a foreign country, they are not within

the cognizance of our courts . . . .” Id. at 58. In context, this

statement might be best read as applying only to the scope of

the U.S. courts’ criminal jurisdiction. The majority in the

Second Circuit, however, interpreted the statement more

broadly, citing it as support for the proposition that at the time

of its enactment, the ATS was not understood to grant federal

courts jurisdiction over international law violations committed

within the territorial jurisdiction of foreign nations but “only for

the actions taken by Americans on the high seas.” See Kiobel

v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., 621 F.3d 111, 142 n.44 (2d Cir.

2010).9

 In Sosa the Supreme Court viewed the Attorney

9

 The cases on which Exxon relies, which seek to invoke

early piracy cases for the proposition of non-extraterritoriality, are

inapposite. For instance, in United States v. Palmer, 16 U.S. (3

Wheat.) 610 (1818), the Supreme Court interpreted the Crimes Act of

1790 not to extend to situations where a non-citizen attacked a vessel

under foreign flag bearing citizens of a foreign state. Exxon fails,

however, to account for United States v. Klintock, 18 U.S. (5 Wheat.)

144 (1820), where the Supreme Court backed away from Palmer,

stating that although Palmer could be “understood to indicate the

opinion that the whole act must be limited in its operation to offences

committed by, or upon, the citizens of the United States,” that issue

was not before the Court in Palmer. Id. at 152. The Court held that

so long as the piracy was committed by persons on board a vessel not

“belonging to the subjects of any foreign power . . . in possession of

a crew acting in defiance of all law, and acknowledging obedience to

no government whatever,” id., or in other words, a vessel having no

nationality, the piracy provisions of the Crimes Act of 1790 would

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 20 of 151
21

General’s opinion as “clear that a federal court was open for the

prosecution of a tort action growing out of the episode,” 542

U.S. at 721, but noted uncertainty about whether Bradford

assumed there had been a violation of a treaty and concluded

that “it appears likely Bradford understood the ATS to provide

jurisdiction over what must have amounted to common law

causes of action,” id. 

Extraterritorial application of the ATS would reflect the

contemporaneous understanding that, by the time of the

Judiciary Act of 1789, a transitory tort action arising out of

activities beyond the forum state’s territorial limits could be

tried in the forum state. See Stoddard v. Bird, 1 Kirby 65, 68

reach the conduct. This “description happens to fit pirates to a tee.” 

Eugene Kontorovich, The “Define and Punish” Clause and the Limits

of Universal Jurisdiction, 103 NW. U. L.REV. 149, 189 (2009) (citing

4 BLACKSTONE’S COMMENTARIES *71). Further, Exxon fails to

address developments in response to Palmer, namely that in 1819

Congress amended the Crimes Act of 1790 to provide:

That if any person or persons whatsoever, shall, on the high

seas, commit the crime of piracy, as defined by the law of

nations, . . . every such offender or offenders shall . . . be

punished with death.

Act of March 3, 1819, ch. 77, § 5, 3 Stat. 510 (1819) (emphasis

added). The 1819 Act was indefinitely extended, Act of May 15,

1820, ch. 113, § 2, 3 Stat. 600 (1820), and the crime of piracy today

is “nearly identical,” Hasan, 747 F. Supp. 2d at 614 (citing 18 U.S.C.

§ 1651 and, inter alia, United States v. Corrie, 25 F. Cas. 658, 663

(C.C.D.S.C. 1860) (No. 14,869)). Other cases, such as The Apollon,

22 U.S. at 370, and Rose v. Himely, 8 U.S. at 279, on which Exxon (a

U.S. citizen) relies, and the prize court cases on which amici

Washington Legal Foundation and Allied Educational Foundation

rely, do not advance their extraterritorial objection.

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 21 of 151
22

(Conn. Super. Ct. 1786) (Ellsworth, J.); Mostyn v. Fabrigas,

(1774) 98 Eng. Rep. 1021 (K.B.) 1025–26; Casto, Law of

Nations, supra note 8, at 503–04 & n.205. It also would reflect

an understanding that a violation of the law of nations could

occur within the territorial jurisdiction of a foreign country and

be civilly remediable in the United States courts. As early as

1781, Lord Mansfield held in Lindo v. Rodney, 2 Doug. 614

(K.B.), reprinted in Le Caux v. Eden, (1781) 99 Eng. Rep. 375

(K.B.), that “[b]y the law of nations, and treaties, every nation

is answerable to the other for all injuries done, by sea or land,

or in fresh waters, or in port,” id. at 389 n.1, and that “every

reason which created a Prize Court as to things taken upon the

high seas, holds equally when they are thus taken at land,” id.,

citing treaties as old as 1498, id. at 389, and parliamentary acts

from the reign of King George II, id. at 392. Congress adopted

this definition of “piracy” in the Act of May 15, 1820, ch. 3,

§ 3, 3 Stat. 600 (1820). 

Chancellor Kent, “the great commentator on American

law,” Holy Trinity Church v. United States, 143 U.S. 457, 470

(1892), and then “the country’s foremost legal scholar,”

Douglas v. Seacoast Prods., Inc., 431 U.S. 265, 278 n.13

(1977), in “his landmark work,” Sun Oil Co. v. Wortman, 486

U.S. 717, 726 (1988), described both Lindo and the piracy

statute as “only declaratory of the law of nations.” 1 JAMES

KENT,COMMENTARIES ON AMERICAN LAW 189 (New York 8th

ed. 1854) (hereinafter “KENT’S COMMENTARIES”). The Crimes

Act of 1790 had similarly contemplated violations of the law

against piracy committed on land.10 Id. at 187–89. The dissent,

10 The Crimes Act of 1790 provided punishment for

every person who shall, either upon the land or the seas,

knowingly and wittingly aid and assist, procure, command,

counsel, or advise any person or persons, to do or commit . . .

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 22 of 151
23

in maintaining that the ATS ought to apply wherever piracy can

occur, see Dis. Op. at 14–16, makes no attempt to reconcile its

view with early definitions of piracy that are not limited to the

high seas.

True, the 1790 Act did not provide for primary liability for

actions taken on the land of another nation, instead providing

punishment as a principal only for crimes of piracy committed

“upon the high seas, or in any river, basin or bay, out of the

jurisdiction of any particular [U.S.] state,” ch. 9, § 8, 1 Stat. at

113–14; Furlong, 18 U.S. at 200–01. Moreover, amici suggest 

that the provisions were never invoked by prosecutors in cases

involving actions taken within the territory of another nation,

Brief of Washington Legal Foundation and Allied Educational

Foundation as Amici Curiae in Support of DefendantsAppellees (“Wash. Legal Found. Br.”) 11 n.8, although the facts

of Furlong, see supra note 7, weaken this point. Consequently,

the historical record, clear on the notion that U.S. courts at the

nation’s founding could exercise jurisdiction over at least some

international law violations committed beyond our domestic

shores and in the territorial waters of another nation, Furlong,

18 U.S. at 200–01, is nonetheless ambiguous regarding whether

piracy . . . on the seas, [and that] all and every such person so

as aforesaid, aiding, assisting, procuring, commanding,

counselling [sic] or advising the same, either upon the land

or the sea, shall be, and they are hereby declared, deemed and

adjudged to be accessary [sic] to such piracies before the fact,

and every such person being thereof convicted shall suffer

death.”

§ 10, 1 Stat. at 114 (emphasis added).

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 23 of 151
24

jurisdiction could be exercised over law of nations violations

occurring on the land of another nation.11 

To the extent the historical record is inconclusive, two

modern developments convince us that it is entirely appropriate

to permit appellants to proceed with their aiding and abetting

claims even though much of the conduct relating to the

international law violations alleged in their complaint occurred

in Indonesia. First, modern ATS litigation has primarily

focused on atrocities committed in foreign countries, and

Congress in enacting the TVPA expressly endorsed federal

courts’ exercise of jurisdiction over such lawsuits. The Report

of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary states that the “TVPA

would establish an unambiguous basis for a cause of action that

has been successfully maintained” in ATS lawsuits such as

Filartiga, explaining that in that case “two citizens of Paraguay

alleged that a former Paraguayan inspector general of police had

tortured and killed a member of their family in Paraguay.” S.

REP. NO. 102-249, at 4 (1991).12 The TVPA thus “enhance[d]

11 The complaints at issue concern aiding and abetting

liability where at least some of the conduct causing harm to the

plaintiffs in Indonesia occurred in the United States. The district

court, in denying in part Exxon’s motion for summary judgment on

the non-federal tort claims, found that the plaintiffs had presented

sufficient evidence of corporate control within the United States to go

to trial. Doe I v. Exxon Mobil Corp., 573 F. Supp. 2d 16, 31–32

(D.D.C. 2008). 

12 The Legal Advisor of the State Department supported

adjudication of the claims in Filartiga, participating as amicus curiae

and stating that:

The . . . international law of human rights . . . endows

individuals with the right to invoke international law, in a

competent forum and under appropriate circumstances. . . . As

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 24 of 151
25

the remedy already available under” the ATS by extending that

civil remedy also to U.S. citizens who may have been tortured

abroad. Id. at 5. Expressing approval for the ATS, the Senate

Committee report thus noted that “[c]onsequently, that statute

should remain intact.” Id. The Report of the House Committee

on the Judiciary is to the same effect. See H.R. REP. NO. 102-

367, at 3 (1991). Second, although the United States argued in

Sosa that the ATS in no way “applies to alleged torts, such as

the one [at issue in Sosa – arbitrary detention], that occur

outside of the United States,” Brief for United States at 8, Sosa,

542 U.S. 692 (2004) (No. 03-339); see also id. at 46–50; Reply

Brief for United States at 19–20, Sosa, 542 U.S. 692 (2004)

(No. 03-339), no Justice indicated agreement with the United

States’ position, cf. Sosa, 542 U.S. at 762–63 (Breyer, J.,

concurring). Given Congress’s ratification of ATS lawsuits

involving foreign conduct and the Supreme Court’s failure to

disapprove of such lawsuits in Sosa, we conclude that the

extraterritoriality canon does not bar appellants from seeking

relief based on Exxon’s alleged aiding and abetting of

international law violations committed in Indonesia.

The arguments of our dissenting colleague offer no basis

for a contrary conclusion. First, the dissent notes that injuries

of the sort alleged here, by aliens occurring abroad, could be

remedied “by foreign sovereigns under their countries’ laws.” 

Dis. Op. at 12. Perhaps so, but the unchallenged finding by the

a result, in nations such as the United States where

international law is part of the law of the land, an individual’s

human rights are in certain cases directly enforceable in

domestic courts.

Memorandum for the United States as Amicus Curiae at 20, Filartiga

v. Pena-Irala, 630 F.2d 876 (2d Cir. 1980) (No. 79-6090), reprinted

in 19 I.L.M. 585, 602–03 (1980). 

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 25 of 151
26

district court is that the plaintiffs could not litigate their claims

in Indonesia, even assuming, as Exxon argued before the district

court, that international law required exhaustion of local

remedies, because they had demonstrated such efforts would be

futile, an exception to prudential exhaustion. Doe I, 393 F.

Supp. 2d at 25 (citing Hammontree v. NLRB, 925 F.2d 1486,

1517 (D.C. Cir. 1991); Rasoulzadeh v. Assoc. Press, 574 F.

Supp. 854, 861 (S.D.N.Y. 1983), aff’d without op. 767 F.2d 908

(2d Cir. 1985)). In Sosa, the Supreme Court referenced the

exhaustion argument by amicus European Commission but

noted that it need not reach the question although stating it

“would certainly consider this requirement in an appropriate

case.” 542 U.S. at 733 n.21. Since then the only circuit to

address the question concluded that “certain ATS claims are

appropriately considered for exhaustion under both domestic

prudential standards and core principles of international law,”

Sarei v. Rio Tinto, PLC, 550 F.3d 822, 824 (9th Cir. 2008) (en

banc), noting that “[u]nder international law, ordinarily a state

is not required to consider a claim by another state for an injury

to its national until that person has exhausted domestic

remedies, unless such remedies are clearly sham or inadequate,

or their application is unreasonably prolonged,” id. at 829

(quoting RESTATEMENT (THIRD) OF FOREIGN RELATIONS LAW

OF THE UNITED STATES § 713 cmt. f, and citing id. § 703 cmt. d,

and Interhandel (Switz. v. U.S.), 1959 I.C.J. 6, 26 (Mar. 29));

the Ninth Circuit also recognized the futility exception applied

by the district court here, id. at 830. Because Exxon has not

challenged the district court’s finding of futility, this court has

no occasion to decide the question. To the extent Exxon

suggests subsequent events in Indonesia may have rendered the

finding outdated, that issue may be addressed on remand, see

infra Part V.C.13

13 The dissent’s satisfaction with foreign domestic remedies

and use of extradition, Dis. Op. at 12 n.5, 14 n.7, undoes the First

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 26 of 151
27

Second, in deeming “very odd” that the First Congress

would be interested in protecting “a Frenchman injured in

London,” Dis. Op. at 12, the dissent ignores that the calculus

can change where a U.S. citizen is a cause of the harm.14 E.g.,

The Apollon, 22 U.S. 362; Furlong, 18 U.S. at 200–01; Rose, 8

U.S. 241. “Congress in prescribing standards of conduct for

American citizens may project the impact of its laws beyond the

territorial boundaries of the United States,” Steele v. Bulova

Watch Co., 344 U.S. 280, 282–83 (1952), especially where a

defendant engaged in acts here that “were essential steps in the

course of business consummated abroad,” id. at 287. The

Supreme Court has not found an extraterritorial bar when a

federal statute provided for criminal or civil liability for a

Congress’s decision that federal courts should be empowered to

provide a remedy for aliens suffering torts in violation of the law of

nations. Relying on foreign domestic remedies, the dissent assumes

such harms occur in the territory of the offended country and not in

the territory of a third disinterested country. Furthermore, neither

party nor amici describe the status of extradition treaties prior to the

passage of the Judiciary Act of 1789. By way of example, the Jay

Treaty with the United Kingdom permitted extradition only in cases

of murder and forgery, see Treaty of Amity, Commerce, and

Navigation, U.S.-Gr. Brit., art. XXVII, Nov. 19, 1794, 8 Stat. 116,

129, and appeared to exclude violations of the law of nations such as

piracy, see id. art. XX, 8 Stat. at 126–27. 

14 The objections in some respects echo the minority views 

in the Senate Committee report accompanying the TVPA, which

expressed concerns about “over-extendind[ing] Congress’s

constitutional authority” in that statute. S. REP. NO. 102-249, at 13.

But the dissent ignores the fact that both the minority and the majority

views agreed no such concern existed in a case where the “connection

to the United States . . . is clear,” id. at 14, as in Verlinden B.V. v.

Central Bank of Nigeria, 461 U.S. 480 (1983), where a foreign

defendant used a U.S. corporation as an instrumentality of a breach of

contract, id.

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 27 of 151
28

scheme devised and executed in the United States intended to

inflict harm abroad, e.g., to a Frenchman in London.15 See

Laker Airways Ltd. v. Sabena, Belgian World Airlines, 731 F.2d

909, 921–22 (D.C. Cir. 1984); cf. Pasquantino v. United States,

544 U.S. 349, 371–72 (2005). Here, appellants claim that

Exxon engaged in acts in the United States that were part and

parcel of the harm they suffered. Considering the identity of the

person causing harm to the Frenchman in London further

illuminates the First Congress’s intent. After all, 

where the individuals of any state violate this general

law [of nations], it is then the interest as well as duty

of the government, under which they live, to

animadvert upon them with a becoming severity, that

the peace of the world may be maintained. For in vain

would nations, in their collective capacity, observe

these universal rules, if private subjects were at liberty

to break them at their own discretion, and involve the

two states in a war. It is therefore incumbent upon the

nation injured, first, to demand satisfaction and justice

to be done on the offender, by the state to which he

belongs; and, if that be refused or neglected, the

15 The dissent finds fault with this citation of Steele and 

Pasquantino, misinterpreting their citation. The court is not, as the

dissent suggests, reading Steele “to permit application of a

nonextraterritorial statute whenever conduct in the United States

contributes to a violation abroad,” Morrison, 130 S. Ct. at 2886 n.11

(emphasis supplied). Dis. Op. at 8 n.4. Rather, the court starts with

the ATS text and history and concludes that the ATS, like the statute

at issue in Steele, grants federal courts jurisdiction over at least some

forms of extraterritorial conduct. The court cites Pasquantino only as

support for the proposition that where, as here, plaintiffs may

ultimately prove that Exxon provided substantial practical assistance,

see infra Part II.C, from its offices in the United States, jurisdiction

over extraterritorial harm is all the more appropriate. 

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 28 of 151
29

sovereign then avows himself an accomplice or abettor

of his subject’s crime, and draws upon his community

the calamities of foreign war. 

4 BLACKSTONE’S COMMENTARIES *67–68. Blackstone’s

representation that a foreign country could deem the United

States an “accomplice or abettor,” id. at *68, of a violation of

the law of nations if it does not censure a U.S. citizen who has

violated that law makes the First Congress’s judgment hardly

“odd” at all. 

B.

The rule of statutory construction set forth in Central Bank

does not preclude recognition of aiding and abetting liability for

claims under the ATS. In Central Bank, the Supreme Court held

that although § 10(b) of the Securities and Exchange Act, 15

U.S.C. § 78j, did not prohibit aiding and abetting liability, “the

private plaintiff may not bring a 10b-5 suit against a defendant

for acts not prohibited by the text of § 10(b),” 511 U.S. at 173. 

The Court declined to create a presumption against aiding and

abetting liability, but instructed that when Congress enacts a

statute, there is no presumption in favor of aiding and abetting

liability. Id. at 182. Our conclusion that there is aiding and

abetting liability under the ATS is not based on a presumption

in favor of aiding and abetting liability.

The ATS provides jurisdiction for the federal courts to hear

lawsuits regarding torts “committed in violation of the law of

nations.” 28 U.S.C. § 1350. Congress thus directed that the

courts derive the rule of law from the law of nations, and that

law extends responsibility for conduct violating its norms to

aiders and abettors. The “Supreme Court’s instruction in

Central Bank that ‘when Congress enacts a statute under which

a person may sue and recover damages from a private defendant

for the defendant’s violation of some statutory norm, there is no

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 29 of 151
30

general presumption that the plaintiff may also sue aiders and

abettors,’ is thus inapposite.” Khulumani, 504 F.3d at 282

(Katzmann, J., concurring) (quoting Central Bank, 511 U.S. at

182) (internal citation omitted); see also id. at 288 n.5 (Hall, J.,

concurring); William R. Casto, The New Federal Common Law

of Tort Remedies for Violations of International Law, 37

RUTGERS L.J. 635, 650 (2006) (hereinafter “Casto, Federal

Common Law”).

Ample authority supports the conclusion that the First

Congress considered aiding and abetting itself to be a violation

of the law of nations. All three branches of government had

addressed the subject and were in accord. Congress in 1790

enacted a piracy law providing for aiding and abetting liability. 

Crimes Act of 1790, § 10, 1 Stat. at 114. President George

Washington, in response to the state of hostilities in Europe

following the French Revolution, issued the Proclamation of

Neutrality in 1793, warning “the citizens of the United States

carefully to avoid all acts and proceedings” that would

contravene that neutrality and “mak[ing] known that” citizens

would render themselves “liable to punishment or forfeiture

under the law of nations by committing, aiding, or abetting

hostilities against any” power involved in the general conflict

“or by carrying to any of them those articles which are deemed

contraband by the modern usage of nations.” Proclamation No.

3 (1793), reprinted in 11 Stat. 753 (1859) (emphasis added). So

too, the 1795 opinion of Attorney General Bradford stated that

civil recovery could be had in federal court against U.S. citizens

who “aided and abetted” the French privateer fleet in its plunder

of Sierra Leone. 1 U.S. Op. Att’y Gen. at 58; see also Sosa, 542

U.S. at 721. An early decision of the Supreme Court upheld

aiding and abetting liability for the unlawful capture of a neutral

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 30 of 151
31

ship. See Talbot, 3 U.S. at 167–68; see also Henfield’s Case, 11

F. Cas. 1099.16

Because aiding and abetting liability implicates the

character of the “specific conduct allegedly committed by the

defendants sued,” Khulumani, 504 F.3d at 269 (Katzmann, J.

concurring), adopted in Presbyterian Church of Sudan, 582 F.3d

at 258, the conduct must represent a violation of an international

16 Henfield’s Case involved a U.S. citizen accused of illegally

enlisting with a French privateer. Chief Justice John Jay, sitting on

circuit, instructed the grand jury that: (1) “the laws of the United

States” consisted of treaties, the law of nations, and the Constitution

and statutes of the United States, 11 F. Cas. at 1100–01; (2)

“circumstances and considerations now unite in urging the people of

the United States to be particularly exact and circumspect in observing

the obligation of treaties, and the laws of nations, which . . . form a

very important part of the laws of our nation,” id. at 1102; (3)

President Washington’s proclamation had been “exactly consistent

with and declaratory of . . . the law of nations,” id.; (4) if a nation

“let[s] loose the reins of [its] subjects against foreign nations, these

will behave in the same manner to [it],” id. at 1103; and (5) those

“who commit, aid, or abet hostilities against” the European nations in

violation of neutrality must be punished, id. at 1104 (emphasis added),

and “[w]hat acts amount to committing, or aiding, or abetting

hostilities, must be determined by the laws and approved practice of

nations, and by the treaties and other laws of the United States relative

to such cases,” id. (emphasis added). The grand jury charge was

apparently published to explain the effect of the 1793 Proclamation at

home and abroad. See Casto, Law of Nations, supra note 8, at 502 &

n.193 (citing Ralph Lerner, The Supreme Court as Republican

Schoolmaster, 1967 SUP. CT. REV. 127; FRANCIS WHARTON, STATE

TRIALS OF THE UNITED STATES DURING THE ADMINISTRATIONS OF

WASHINGTON AND ADAMS (hereinafter “WHARTON’S STATE TRIALS”)

49 n.* (1849); JULIUS GOEBEL,JR., HISTORY OF THE SUPREME COURT

OF THE UNITED STATES, ANTECEDENTS AND BEGINNINGS TO 1801, at

623–24 (1971)).

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 31 of 151
32

law norm with at least as “definite content and acceptance

among civilized nations [as] the historical paradigms familiar”

in 1789, Sosa, 542 U.S. at 732. To the extent the district court

in Doe I, 393 F. Supp. 2d at 24, concluded that aiding and

abetting liability would be an “‘innovative interpretation[ ]’ of

the Alien Tort Statute” that could result in “collateral

consequences and possible foreign relations repercussions,” the

Second Circuit has since held that there can be aiding and

abetting liability under the ATS, see Presbyterian Church of

Sudan, 582 F.3d at 258–59; Khulumani, 504 F.3d at 260 (per

curiam). The Eleventh Circuit has also held that aiding and

abetting liability is available under the ATS. See Sinaltrainal v.

Coca-Cola Co., 578 F.3d 1252, 1258 n.5 (11th Cir. 2009);

Romero v. Drummond Co., Inc., 552 F.3d 1303, 1315 (11th Cir.

2008); Aldana v. Del Monte Fresh Produce N.A., 416 F.3d 1242,

1248 (11th Cir. 2005). Both courts reached this conclusion upon

looking to customary international law, seePresbyterian Church

of Sudan, 582 F.3d at 258; Aldana, 416 F.3d at 1247–48, to

which we now turn.

Decisions of the courts established by the U.N. Security

Council, the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg

established in the Agreement for the Prosecution and

Punishment of the Major War Criminals of the European Axis,

Aug. 8, 1945, U.N.T.S. 280 (hereinafter “London Charter”), and

the several Nuremberg tribunals are recognized as an

authoritative source of customary international law. See, e.g.,

Flores v. S. Peru Copper Corp., 414 F.3d 233, 244 n.18 (2d Cir.

2003); United States v. Yousef, 327 F.3d 56, 105 nn.39–40 (2d

Cir. 2003); cf. Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 548 U.S. 557, 610 & n.40

(2006); Princz v. Federal Republic of Germany, 26 F.3d 1166,

1174 (D.C. Cir. 1994), cert. denied, 513 U.S. 1121 (1995). See

generally Theodor Meron, Reflections on the Prosecution of

War Crimes by International Tribunals, 100AM.J.INT’L L.551,

559 (2006). The General Assembly of the United Nations has

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 32 of 151
33

unanimously affirmed the principles of international law

recognized by the London Charter and the Nuremberg tribunals. 

See Affirmation of the Principles of International Law

Recognized by the Charter of the Nürnberg Tribunal, G.A. Res.

95(I), U.N. Doc. A/236 (Dec. 11, 1946) (“Nuremberg Principles

Resolution I”). Exxon does not dispute that the London Charter

and the cases prosecuted thereunder constitute sources of

customary international law. 

“[C]riminal responsibility of those who aid and abet

violations of international law” has been “accepted as one of the

core principles of the post-World War II war crimes trials.” 

Khulumani, 504 F.3d at 273 (Katzmann, J., concurring). The

London Charter extended responsibility for crimes to

“accomplices participating in the formulation or execution of a

common plan or conspiracy to commit” any of the crimes triable

by the Tribunal. London Charter art. 6, 82 U.N.T.S. 282. At the

direction of the U.N. General Assembly, the International Law

Commission (“ILC”) in 1950 formulated “principles recognized

in the Charter . . . and in the judgment of the Tribunal,” as a

codification of certain legal principles applied by the Nuremberg

tribunals. See Nuremberg Principles Resolution I; see also

Prosecutor v. Akayesu, Case No. ICTR-96-4-T, Trial Chamber

Judgement, ¶ 526 (Sept. 2, 1998); Prosecutor v. Milosevic, Case

No. IT-02-54, Trial Chamber Decision on Preliminary Motions,

¶¶ 29–30 (Nov. 8, 2001). Principle VII provided that

“[c]omplicity in the commission of a crime against peace, a war

crime, or a crime against humanity . . . is a crime under

international law.” ILC, Principles of International Law

Recognized in the Charter of the Nürnberg Tribunal and in the

Judgment of the Tribunal, G.A.O.R., 5th session, Supp. No. 12,

U.N. Doc. A/1316, Principle VII (1950) (“ILC Principles”). 

Implementing the London Charter, the joint Allied body

coordinating the governance of postwar Germany promulgated

Control Council Law No. 10 to impose criminal liability on

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 33 of 151
34

whomever was “an accessory to the commission of any such

crime or ordered or abetted the same.” Allied Control Council

Law No. 10, art. II, § 2 (Dec. 20, 1945) (“Control Council Law

No. 10”), in 1 ENACTMENTS AND APPROVED PAPERS OF THE

CONTROL COUNCIL AND COORDINATING COMMITTEE 306(1945)

(“ENACTMENTS”); see Khulumani, 504 F.3d at 272 (Katzmann,

J., concurring); Flick v. Johnson, 174 F.2d 983, 985–86 (D.C.

Cir. 1949). 

The U.N. Security Council resolutions establishing the

International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia

(“ICTY”) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda

(“ICTR”) likewise imposed liability on any “person who

planned, instigated, ordered, committed or otherwise aided and

abetted in the planning, preparation or execution” of a crime. 

Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former

Yugoslavia, art. 7, U.N. Doc. S/25704 annex (May 3, 1993)

(“ICTY Statute”), adopted in S.C. Res. 827, U.N. Doc.

S/RES/827 (May 25, 1993); Statute of the International Criminal

Tribunal for Rwanda, art. 6, S.C. Res. 955, U.N. Doc.

S/RES/955 annex (Nov. 8, 1994) (“ICTR Statute”). The

Secretary General of the United Nations explained that “in

assigning to the International Tribunal the task of prosecuting

persons responsible for serious violations of international

humanitarian law, the Security Council would not be creating or

purporting to ‘legislate’ that law. Rather, the International

Tribunal would have the task of applying existing international

humanitarian law.” Report of the Secretary-General Pursuant to

Paragraph 2 of Security Council Resolution 808, ¶ 29, U.N. Doc.

S/25704 (May 3, 1993) (“Sec’y General ICTY Report”). The

ICTY’s jurisdiction was limited to “rules of international

humanitarian law which are beyond any doubt part of customary

[international] law.” Id. ¶ 34; see Khulumani, 504 F.3d at 275

(Katzmann, J., concurring) (citing Prosecutor v. Furundzija,

Case No. IT-95-17/1 Trial Chamber Judgement, ¶¶ 249, 275

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 34 of 151
35

(Dec. 10, 1998); Prosecutor v. Tadic, Case No. IT-94-1-T, Trial

Chamber Opinion and Judgement, ¶¶ 689–92, 730, 735, 738

(May 7, 1997)). The ICTY emphasized that it was required to

determine “the objective basis for such individual responsibility

as a matter of customary international law . . . since the

International Tribunal is only empowered to apply international

humanitarian law that is ‘beyond any doubt customary law.’” 

Tadic, Trial Chamber Opinion and Judgement, ¶ 662 (quoting

Sec’y General ICTY Report ¶ 34). The ICTR has a similar

mandate to that of the ICTY but also encompasses several

treaties. See Report of the Secretary-General Pursuant to

Paragraph 5 of the Security Council Resolution 955, ¶ 12, U.N.

Doc. S/1995/134 (Feb. 13, 1995). 

 

Federal courts have, in turn, relied on international criminal

law norms in establishing the content of the law of nations. See,

e.g., Khulumani, 504 F.3d at 270 (Katzmann, J., concurring);

Kadic, 70 F.3d at 241–43; see also Sosa, 542 U.S. at 762–63

(Breyer, J., concurring).17 These authorities and sources confirm

that aiding and abetting liability is clearly established in the law

of nations and consequently such liability is available under the

ATS.

17 As the Seventh Circuit has pointed out:

Crimes and torts frequently overlap. In particular, most

crimes that cause definite losses to ascertainable victims are

also torts: the crime of theft is the tort of conversion; the

crime of assault is the tort of battery . . . . [In] a much earlier

era of Anglo-American law, . . . criminal and tort

proceedings were not clearly distinguished.

United States v. Bach, 172 F.3d 520, 523 (7th Cir. 1999) (citing, inter

alia, David J. Seipp, The Distinction Between Crime and Tort in the

Early Common Law, 76 B.U. L. REV. 59, 81 (1996)). 

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 35 of 151
36

C.

The question remains what intent must be proved for aiding

and abetting liability under the ATS. Appellants suggest that the

federal common law standard for aiding and abetting —

knowing assistance that has a substantial effect on the

commission of the human rights violation — is well established

and that the standard under customary international law is

essentially the same. Exxon urges the court to follow the

Second Circuit in Presbyterian Church of Sudan, 582 F.3d at

259, by requiring proof that the defendant acted with the purpose

of committing the alleged human rights violation, maintaining

that “[i]f a federal common law aiding and abetting cause of

action is to be recognized under the ATS, then Sosa requires that

the scope of the federal common law rule derive from

international law.” Appellees’ Br. 40. 

In Sosa, the Supreme Court stated that the ATS’s

“jurisdictional grant is best read as having been enacted on the

understanding that the common law would provide a cause of

action.” 542 U.S. at 724. From this statement appellants draw

the conclusion that federal common law provides the standard

for aiding and abetting liability. Judge Edwards similarly

observed in Tel-Oren, 726 F.2d at 777–78, that “the law of

nations never has been perceived to create or define the civil

actions to be made available by each member of the community

of nations; by consensus, the states leave that determination to

their respective municipal laws.” Appellants also cite the United

States’ amicus brief in the Second Circuit urging that the

“validity of a federal-common-law claim under Sosa should

generally be treated as a merits question, with the ATS

conferring subject-matter jurisdiction so long as the allegations

of a violation of customary international law are not plainly

insubstantial.” Brief for the United States as Amicus Curiae at

20, Abdullahi v. Pfizer, Inc., 562 F.3d 163 (2d Cir. 2009) (Nos.

05-48630-cv & 05-6768-cv). Appellants suggest that “[t]he

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 36 of 151
37

application of domestic common law standards is essential

because international law does not ordinarily provide for the

means of its own enforcement in domestic courts,” Appellants’

Br. 33, and in their view, the Supreme Court in Sosa, 542 U.S.

at 731, “endorsed Judge Edwards’ view that domestic rules

govern the litigation of ATS claims in U.S. courts,” Appellants’

Br. 33–34.

The history of the ATS examined by the Supreme Court in

Sosa, 542 U.S. at 731, indicated the First Congress’s

understanding that federal common law would supply the rules

in ATS cases. Amici law professors in Sosa noted that when the

ATS was enacted there was no clear distinction between

common law and customary international law. See Brief of

Professors of Federal Jurisdiction and Legal History as Amici

Curiae in Support of Respondents, Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain,

542 U.S. 692 (2004) (No. 03-339), reprinted in 28 HASTINGS

INT’L & COMP. L. REV. 99, 109 (2004) (“Sosa Legal History

Amicus Br.”). Courts routinely treated causes of action arising

under international law as they did other common law torts – by

applying general common law principles. See, e.g., Talbot, 3

U.S. (3 Dall.) at 155–58 (Paterson, J.); id. at 161 (Iredell, J.); id.

at 169 (Rutledge, C.J.); United States v. Benner, 24 F. Cas. 1084,

1087 (C.C.E.D. Pa. 1830) (No. 14,568). Appellants maintain

that the application of common law rules to ATS cases is

consistent with the way in which federal courts implement other

federal statutes. See, e.g., United States v. Kimbell Foods, Inc.,

440 U.S. 715, 727 (1979); see also Tex. Indus., Inc. v. Radcliff

Materials, Inc., 451 U.S. 630, 641 (1981). The Eleventh Circuit

has adopted this approach, holding that a knowledge standard

applies because that is the standard under federal common law.

See Cabello v. Fernandez-Larios, 402 F.3d 1148, 1157–60 (11th

Cir. 2005); cf. Doe v. Islamic Salvation Front, 257 F. Supp. 2d

115, 120 n.12 (D.D.C. 2003). 

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 37 of 151
38

That a particular cause of action cognizable under the ATS

is to be recognized as a federal common law claim, however,

does not identify the source of law to which the court must look

for a standard. The Supreme Court in Sosa mandated that courts

recognize only “a narrow set of common law actions derived

from the law of nations.” 542 U.S. at 721. In so doing, a court

must identify a norm for conduct of no less “definite content and

acceptance among civilized nations than the historical paradigms

familiar when § 1350 was enacted,” id. at 732, to which the

international community expresses approbation or

disapprobation.18 Aiding and abetting liability, while

supplemental to some other alleged tort liability, is based on

conduct distinct from the conduct of the principal actor. 

Consistent with Sosa, the question is whether the international

community would express definite disapprobation toward aiding

and abetting conduct only when based on a particular standard. 

The court therefore looks to customary international law to

determine the standard for assessing aiding and abetting liability,

much as we did in addressing availability of aiding and abetting

liability itself. Important sources are the international tribunals

18 “A norm prescribes or permits a certain human behavior,” 

HANS KELSEN, PRINCIPLES OF INTERNATIONAL LAW 6 (1966); it

determines what “ought” to happen or, the meaning of conduct, that

is, whether one ought or ought not engage in particular behavior,

HANS KELSEN, GENERAL THEORY OF NORMS 2 (1991). International

law embraces the concept of a peremptory norm, one that is “accepted

and recognized by the international community of states as a whole

and from which no derogation is permitted and which can be modified

only by a subsequent norm of general international law having the

same character.” Art. 53, Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties,

May 23, 1969, 1155 U.N.T.S. 331; see also RESTATEMENT (THIRD) OF

FOREIGN RELATIONS LAW OF THE UNITED STATES § 102 cmt. k; 1

OPPENHEIM’S INTERNATIONAL LAW § 2 (Sir Robert Jennings & Sir

Arthur Watts, eds., 9th ed. 1996); Prosper Weil, Towards Relative

Normativity in International Law, 77 AM.J.INT’L L. 413, 421 (1983). 

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 38 of 151
39

mandated by their charter to apply only customary international

law. Two such tribunals, the International Criminal Tribunals

for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, are considered

authoritative sources of customary international law. See, e.g.,

Hamdan, 548 U.S. at 611 n.40; Abagninin v. AMVAC Chem.

Corp., 545 F.3d 733, 739 (9th Cir. 2008); Ford ex rel. Estate of

Ford v. Garcia, 289 F.3d 1283, 1293 (11th Cir. 2002). They

have declared the knowledge standard suffices under customary

international law.19

The ICTY, in addressing whether the accomplice20 must

“share the mens rea of the principal or whether mere

knowledge” will suffice, concluded that “the latter will suffice.” 

Furundzija, Trial Chamber Judgement, ¶ 236. It is not necessary

that the aider and abettor “shares the mens rea of the perpetrator,

in the sense of positive intention to commit the crime,” provided

he “ha[s] knowledge that his actions will assist the perpetrator

19 The knowledge standard appears to conform with the

standard for aiding and abetting liability in many other countries,

including France, Germany, England, Canada, Australia, and

Switzerland. See Krstic, Appeals Judgement, ¶¶ 140–41; Brief of

Amici Curiae International Law Scholars in Support of PlaintiffsAppellants Seeking Reversal (“Int’l Law Scholars Amicus Br.”)

16–17.

20 The ICTY and the ICTR opinions refer to “accomplice”

and “aiding and abetting” liability interchangeably, e.g., Furundzija,

Trial Chamber Judgement, ¶¶ 190–249, and that understanding is

reflected in the London Charter and the opinions of the Nuremberg

tribunals, see Khulumani, 504 F.3d at 272 (Katzmann, J., concurring).

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 39 of 151
40

in the commission of the crime.” Id. ¶ 245.21 The Trial

Chamber’s judgment states: 

[T]he actus reus [of aiding and abetting] consists of

practical assistance, encouragement, or moral support

which has a substantial effect on the perpetration of the

crime. The mens rea required is the knowledge that

these acts assist the commission of the offense.

Id. ¶ 249; see also id. ¶¶ 238–40, 245–46 (citing inter alia, In re

Tesch, 1 LAW REPORTS OF TRIALS OF WAR CRIMINALS 93);

Prosecutor v. Krstic, Case No. IT-98-33-A, Appeals Judgement,

¶¶ 139–41 (Apr. 19, 2004); Prosecutor v. Delalic, Case No. IT96-21-I, Trial Chamber Judgement, ¶¶ 325–29 (Nov. 16, 1998);

Tadic, Trial Chamber Judgement, ¶¶ 674, 692. The ICTR is in

agreement. See Prosecutor v. Ntakirutimana, Case No. ICTR96-13-I, Appeals Judgement, ¶ 501 (Dec. 13, 2004); Prosecutor

v. Musema, Case No. ICTR-96-13-I, Trial Chamber Judgement,

¶¶ 180–82 (Jan. 27, 2000). The parties do not suggest that the

21 The Trial Chamber in Furundzija further emphasized that

the knowledge standard:

is particularly apparent from all the cases in which persons

were convicted for having driven victims and perpetrators to

the site of an execution. In those cases the prosecution did

not prove that the driver drove for the purpose of assisting in

the killing, that is, with an intention to kill. It was the

knowledge of the criminal purpose of the executioners that

rendered the driver liable as an aider and abettor. 

Consequently, if it were not proven that a driver would

reasonably have known that the purpose of the trip was an

unlawful execution, he would be acquitted.

Id.

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 40 of 151
41

approach of the ICTY and the ICTR is inconsistent with the

federal standard for aiding and abetting liability.

In Halberstam v. Welch, 705 F.2d 472 (D.C. Cir. 1983),

which the Supreme Court described as “a comprehensive

opinion on the subject [of aiding and abetting],” Central Bank,

511 U.S. at 181, this court defined the scope of aiding and

abetting for tort liability in the civil context as follows: 

(1) the party whom the defendant aids must perform a

wrongful act that causes an injury; (2) the defendant

must be generally aware of his role as part of an overall

illegal or tortious activity at the time that he provides

the assistance; (3) the defendant must knowingly and

substantially assist the principal violation.

705 F.2d at 477 (citing, inter alia, RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF

TORTS § 876 (1979), which provides: “For harm resulting to a

third person from the tortious conduct of another, one is subject

to liability if he . . . (b) knows that the other’s conduct

constitutes a breach of duty and gives substantial assistance or

encouragement to the other so to conduct himself.”). In

Halberstam, the court cited five factors relevant in determining

whether the defendant’s assistance was sufficiently substantial:

“‘the nature of the act encouraged, the amount of assistance

given by the defendant, his presence or absence at the time of

the tort, his relation to the other [tortfeasor] and his state of

mind.’” Id. at 478 (alteration in original) (quoting

RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF TORTS § 876 cmt. d). The Eleventh

Circuit has adopted the Halberstam standard in ATS and TVPA

litigation. See Cabello, 402 F.3d at 1158–59 (citing Halberstam,

705 F.2d at 481, 487). To the extent that the federal common

law and the customary international law standards do not differ,

a court may, for purposes of applying the actus reus and mens

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 41 of 151
42

rea standards, turn to the federal common law knowledge

standard in addressing claims under the ATS.

The Second Circuit, in Presbyterian Church of Sudan, 582

F.3d at 259, nonetheless held that the aider and abettor must

share the same purpose as the principal actor, relying on the

Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (“Rome

Statute”), July 17, 1998, 2187 U.N.T.S. 90, and United States v.

von Weizsaecker (“The Ministries Case”), in 14 TRIALS OF WAR

CRIMINALS BEFORE THE NUERNBERG MILITARY TRIBUNALS

UNDER CONTROL COUNCIL LAW NO. 10, at 308, 622 (1997)

(“TRIALS OF WAR CRIMINALS”); see also Khulumani, 504 F.3d

at 276 (Katzmann, J., concurring). Under that standard, “the

defendant (1) provides practical assistance to the principal which

has a substantial effect on the perpetration of the crime, and (2)

does so with the purpose of facilitating the commission of that

crime.” Khulumani, 504 F.3d at 277 (Katzmann, J., concurring). 

The Second Circuit reasoned that whether to recognize “aiding

and abetting liability is no less significant a decision than

whether to recognize a whole new tort in the first place,”

Presbyterian Church of Sudan, 582 F.3d at 259, and consistent

with Sosa’s command about the definiteness of new norms, it

concluded from those two sources that “no such [international]

consensus exists for imposing liability on individuals who

knowingly (but not purposefully) aid and abet a violation of

international law,” id. 

Although we agree with the Second Circuit’s premise that 

aiding and abetting must be embodied in a norm of customary

international law, amici international law scholars point out why

its conclusion was flawed. The Rome Statute, which created the

International Criminal Court (“ICC”), is properly viewed in the

nature of a treaty and not as customary international law. See

Int’l Law Scholars Amicus Br. 19–20 (citing Rome Statute, art.

10; Leila Nadya Sadat, Custom, Codification and Some

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 42 of 151
43

Thoughts About the Relationship Between the Two: Article 10 of

the ICC Statute, 49 DEPAUL L. REV. 909, 911 & n.11, 917

(2000); Otto Triffterer, Article 10, in COMMENTARY ON THE

ROME STATUTE OF THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT 317

(Otto Triffterer ed., 1999)). It specifically provides in Article 10

that it is not to “be interpreted as limiting or prejudicing in any

way existing or developing rules of international law.” This

acknowledges that the Rome Statute was not meant to affect or

amend existing customary international law. See Int’l Law

Scholars Amicus Br. 19. As a treaty, the Rome Statute binds

only those countries that have ratified it, see Military and

Paramilitary Activities (Nicar. v. U.S.), 1986 I.C.J. 14, ¶ 175

(June 27), and the United States has not,22 see U.S. CONST. art.

II, § 2, cl. 2; Haver v. Yaker, 76 U.S. (9 Wall.) 32, 35 (1869);

Abagninin, 545 F.3d at 738; see also Statute of the International

Court of Justice (“ICJ Statute”), June 26, 1945, art. 38(1)(a), 59

Stat. 1055, 1060, 832 U.S.T.S. 993.23 The 

22 President Clinton signed the Rome Statute stating: “I will

not, and do not recommend that my successor submit the Treaty to the

Senate for advice and consent.” White House Office of

Communications, Statement by President on Signature of the ICC

Treaty (Jan. 2, 2001), available at 2001 WL 6008. On May 6, 2002,

President Bush withdrew the signature of the United States from the

Statute. See Letter of John R. Bolton, Under Sec’y of State for Arms

Control and Int’l Sec., to Kofi Annan, Sec’y Gen. of the United

Nations (May 6, 2002). By contrast, the United States Representative

to the United Nations voted in the U.N. Security Council to create

both the ICTY and the ICTR; the votes were unanimous, except for

the vote of the representative from Rwanda against creation of the

ICTR. Laura Bingham, Strategy or Process? Closing the

International Criminal Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and

Rwanda, 24 BERKELEY J. INT’L L. 687, 695 (2006).

23 Article 38 of the ICJ Statute, which “embodies the

understanding of States as to what sources offer competent proof of

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 43 of 151
44

the content of customary international law,” Flores, 414 F.3d at 251,

provides:

The Court, whose function is to decide in accordance with

international law such disputes as are submitted to it, shall

apply:

a. international conventions, whether general or

particular, establishing rules expressly recognized by

the contesting states;

b. international custom, as evidence of a general

practice accepted as law;

c. the general principles of law recognized by

civilized nations;

d. . . . judicial decisions and the teachings of the most

highly qualified publicists of the various nations, as

subsidiary means for the determination of rules of

law.

ICJ Statute, art. 38; see also RESTATEMENT (THIRD) OF FOREIGN

RELATIONS LAW OF THE UNITED STATES §§ 102(1), 103(2). 

Our dissenting colleague incorrectly implies that the definition

of customary international law is synonymous with the law of nations. 

Dis. Op. at 1, 26 n.10. Rather, as the ICJ Statute indicates, customary

international law is one of the sources for the law of nations. The

misconception appears also in Kiobel, 621 F.3d at 116, and Flores,

414 F.3d at 237 & n.2, where the cited authorities for treating the “law

of nations” as a synonym for “customary international law” do not

support the proposition. Nor did the Supreme Court in Sosa treat as

equivalent customary international law and the law of nations

generally. In Sosa the notion of customary international law is not

discussed until Part IV.C, where the Court addresses whether AlvarezMachain’s abduction and arrest could be considered a violation of an

international norm of a sufficiently specific character to be cognizable

under the ATS. 542 U.S. at 735–37. By contrast, where the Supreme

Court reaches a general conclusion it refers to “international law” or

the “law of nations” without modification. See, e.g., id. at 712, 714,

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 44 of 151
45

ICC has recognized that the Rome Statute does not necessarily

represent customary international law. Prosecutor v. Germain

Katanga and Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui, Case No. ICC01/14/01/07, Decision on the Confirmation of Charges, ¶¶

507–08 (Sept. 30, 2008).24

715 (quoting The Paquette Habana, 175 U.S. 677, 686 (1900)). The

Court’s rejection of Alvarez-Machain’s claim because the defendant’s

conduct “violate[d] no norm of customary international law so well

defined as to support the creation of a federal remedy,” id. at 738,

necessarily requires for liability to exist under the ATS, a finding that

the defendant either violated a norm of customary international law or

a treaty to which the United States is a party. This follows not from

the fact that the “law of nations” is synonymous with “customary

international law.” Countless sources of international law

conclusively demonstrate otherwise, see generally LOUIS HENKIN,

RICHARD CRAWFORD PUGH & OSCAR SCHACHTER, INTERNATIONAL

LAW 51–149 (3d ed. 1993), and this court ought not assume that the

Court misstated international law, cf. Murray v. The Schooner

Charming Betsy, 8 U.S. (4 Cranch) 241, 279 (1808). Rather, in stating

that courts must engage in some form of common lawmaking subject

to “vigilant doorkeeping,” Sosa, 542 U.S. at 729, the Court

emphasized that the violation of a norm of customary international law

is a necessary condition to the recognition under federal common law

of a plaintiff’s claim. This by no means indicates that customary

international law constitutes the entire corpus of international law or

that this court, in exercising its common law authority to decide

interstitial and technical questions appurtenant to the substantive norm

of primary conduct, which is governed by customary international law,

may not look to guidance from other sources of international law. 

24 Appellants direct the court to the amicus brief filed by

David J. Scheffer, former U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes

Issues and head of the U.S. delegation involved in negotiating the

Rome Statute. Brief of David J. Scheffer, Director of the Center for

International Human Rights, as Amicus Curiae in Support of the

Issuance of a Writ of Certiorari, Presbyterian Church of Sudan v.

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 45 of 151
46

Even were we to agree that the Rome Statute reflects

customary international law, the Second Circuit’s interpretation

in Khulumani, 504 F.3d at 276 (Katzmann, J., concurring), and

Presbyterian Church of Sudan, 582 F.3d at 259, appears

inconsistent with its provisions. Article 25(3)(c) of the Rome

Statute provides for liability if an individual, “[f]or the purpose

of facilitating the commission of such a crime, aids, abets or

otherwise assists in its commission or its attempted commission,

including providing the means for its commission.” Rome

Statute, art. 25(3)(c) (emphasis added). Article 25(3)(d)

provides liability for an individual who “contributes to the

commission or attempted commission of such a crime by a

group of persons acting with a common purpose” where such

contribution is “intentional” and either “made with the aim of

furthering the criminal activity or criminal purpose of the group”

or “made in the knowledge of the intention of the group to

commit the crime.” Id. art. 25(3)(d) (emphasis added). Article

30 provides that “a person has intent where . . . [i]n relation to a

consequence, that person means to cause that consequence or is

aware that it will occur in the ordinary course of events.” Id. art.

30(2)(b) (emphasis added). Although the text of Article

25(3)(c) appears to require proof of “purpose,” the text of

Article 25(3)(d) requires no more than “knowledge.” Given that

Exxon is alleged to have aided and abetted the Indonesian

military forces, which in turn are alleged to have committed

Talisman Energy, Inc. (May 20, 2010) (No. 09-1262), cert. denied,

131 S. Ct. 79 (2010). Ambassador Scheffer states that the provisions

on accessorial liability were a “negotiated compromise among mostly

common law and civil law governments after years of talks leading to

the Rome Statute and [were] not finalized to express a rule of

customary law.” Id. at 3; see also id. at 7, 9–13; David J. Scheffer &

Caroline Kaeb, The Five Levels of CSR Compliance: The Resiliency

of Corporate Liability Under the Alien Tort Statute and the Case for

a Counterattack Strategy in Compliance Theory, 29 BERKELEY J.

INT’L L. 334, 348–51 (2011) (hereinafter “Scheffer & Kaeb”). 

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 46 of 151
47

violations of the law of nations against appellants, were the

Rome Statute to apply it appears that Article 25(3)(d) and its

mens rea of “knowledge” would apply. Cf. Prosecutor v.

Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, Case No. ICC/01/04-01/06, Pre-Trial

Chamber Decision on the Confirmation of Charges (Jan. 29,

2007) (applying a “knowledge” standard under Article 25(3)(a)

to international law violations by co-perpetrator). To the same

effect are decisions applying Article 30, which defines the mens

rea requirement of intent to include “knowledge,” such as

Prosecutor v. Germain Katanga and Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui,

Case No. ICC-01/14-01/07, Decision on the Confirmation of

Charges, ¶¶ 528, 530 (Sept. 30, 2008), Prosecutor v. Jean-Pierre

Bemba Gombo, ICC-01/05-01/08, Decision on the Confirmation

of Charges, ¶ 359 (June 15, 2009), and Prosecutor v. Abdallah

Banda Abakaer Nourain and Saleh Mohammed Jerbo Jamus,

ICC-02/05-03/09, Decision on the Confirmation of Charges, ¶¶

156–57 (Mar. 7, 2011). The ICTY has also observed that the

Rome Statute embraces a knowledge standard of mens rea for

aiding and abetting. See Furundzija, Trial Chamber Judgement,

¶ 243–44 & n.266.25

Finally, focusing only on The Ministries Case overlooks the

fact that in numerous decisions of the Nuremberg tribunals

defendants were convicted as aiders and abettors based on a

mens rea of knowledge and not purpose. See Int’l Law Scholars

Amicus Br. 21. Amici cite as examples United States v.

Ohlendorf, in 4 TRIALS OF WAR CRIMINALS 568–70 (defendant

“was aware that the people listed would be executed when

found”); United States v. Flick, 6 TRIALS OF WAR CRIMINALS

1217, 1222 (defendant knowingly contributed money to an

organization even though it was “unthinkable” he would

“willingly be a party” to atrocities); In re Tesch, 13INT’L L.REP.

250 (1947) (defendant acted “with knowledge” that gas would

25 See Scheffer & Kaeb, supra note 24, at 251–57.

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 47 of 151
48

be used to kill prisoners). See Int’l Law Scholars Amicus Br.

21. These cases are not addressed by the Second Circuit in

either Presbyterian Church of Sudan or Judge Katzmann’s

concurring opinion in Khulumani. But see Khulumani, 504 F.3d

at 290 (Hall, J., concurring). 

Instead, the Second Circuit considered only one of the

decisions rendered in the multi-defendant prosecution in The

Ministries Case. In Presbyterian Church of Sudan, 582 F.3d at

251, and Khulumani, 504 F.3d at 276 (Katzmann, J.,

concurring), that court examined the case of Karl Rasche, the

Chairman of Dresdner Bank, who was acquitted of war crimes

and crimes against humanity on an aiding and abetting theory,

14 TRIALS OF WAR CRIMINALS 622, although convicted on other

charges, id. at 784. Yet in the same proceeding the Tribunal

convicted Emil Puhl, deputy to the president of the German

Reichsbank, based on the same charge and theory, where he

knowingly took part in disposing of gold, including gold teeth

and crowns and other valuables looted from Holocaust victims,

even though he did not share the intent of the Holocaust

perpetrators and did not “originate[ ] the matter [that] was

probably repugnant to him.” Id. at 621. The Tribunal concluded

that Puhl had no part in the actual extermination of concentration

camp inmates, and that it had “no doubt that he would not, even

under orders, have participated in that part of the program.” Id.

at 620–21. The distinction for the Tribunal appears to have been

not that Rasche had mere knowledge of the activities of the

German Nazis whereas Puhl had purpose; both had knowledge

only. Instead the actus reus was the critical distinction relied on

by the Tribunal.26 Rasche’s activities never went beyond his

26 The Tribunal stated, with respect to Rasche,

[t]he real question is, is it a crime to make a loan, knowing or

having good reason to believe that the borrower will us[e] the

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 48 of 151
49

routine duties as a banker and, thus, he had not committed an

actus reus sufficient to convict. By contrast, Puhl had engaged

in activities beyond his routine banking duties in order to assist

the primary perpetrators. The Second Circuit never considered

the implications of Puhl’s conviction for the scope of aiding and

funds in financing enterprises which are employed in using

labor in violation of either national or international law? 

Does he stand in any different position than one who sells

supplies or raw materials to a builder building a house,

knowing that the structure will be used for an unlawful

purpose? A bank sells money or credit in the same manner as

the merchandiser of any other commodity. It does not

become a partner in enterprise, and the interest charged is

merely the gross profit which the bank realizes from the

transaction, out of which it must deduct its business costs, and

from which it hopes to realize a net profit. Loans or sale of

commodities to be used in an unlawful enterprise may well be

condemned from a moral standpoint and reflect no credit on

the part of the lender or seller in either case, but the

transaction can hardly be said to be a crime. Our duty is to try

and punish those guilty of violating international law, and we

are not prepared to state that such loans constitute a violation

of that law, nor has our attention been drawn to any ruling to

the contrary. 

Id. at 622. By contrast, with respect to Puhl, the Tribunal concluded:

His part in this transaction was not that of a mere messenger

or businessman. He went beyond the ordinary range of his

duties to give directions that the matter be handled secretly by

the appropriate departments of the bank. . . . [W]ithout doubt

he was a consenting participant in part of the execution of the

entire plan, although his participation was not a major one.

Id. at 620–21. 

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 49 of 151
50

abetting liability in reaching a conclusion about the proper

standard. 

Accordingly, we hold that aiding and abetting liability is

available under the ATS because it involves a norm established

by customary international law and that the mens rea and actus

reus requirements are those established by the ICTY, the ICTR,

and the Nuremberg tribunals, whose opinions constitute

expressions of customary international law. The Rome Statute

does not constitute customary international law. Its mens rea

requirements contemplate, in any event, a “knowledge”

standard. The discussion of the aiding and abetting charge

against Rasche in The Ministries Case does not support a

“purpose” standard when considered in conjunction with the

charges against Puhl, also part of The Ministries Case, and other

cases heard at Nuremberg that establish that “knowledge”

suffices to meet the mens rea requirement for aiding and

abetting liability. The decisions of the ICTY and ICTR adopt a

“knowledge” mens rea and a showing for actus reus of acts that

have a substantial effect in bringing about the violation. For all

practical purposes, we agree with appellants that the standard

under federal common law applies inasmuch as the parties

suggest no differences between it and the standard under

customary international law.27

III.

Exxon contends, for the first time on appeal, that the ATS

does not recognize corporate liability. The district court

27 Because Exxon is subject to ATS liability on an aiding and

abetting theory, the court need not address appellants’ alternative

contention, which Exxon challenges, that Exxon is subject to ATS

liability as a state actor acting under color of Indonesian law. 

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 50 of 151
51

dismissed appellants’ ATS claims for failing adequately to plead

joint action or causation under a color of law theory of liability,

having ruled that aiding and abetting liability was unavailable. 

See Doe I, 393 F. Supp. 2d at 24–27. Appellants contend that,

therefore, this court should not address Exxon’s new argument,

but they have responded to the argument on the merits and an

addendum to their reply brief contains amicus briefs on

corporate liability under the ATS that were lodged with the

Second Circuit in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum, No. 06-

4800-cv (Oct. 14 & 15, 2010) (en banc). 

A.

In urging the court to address the question of corporate

liability although it is raised for the first time on appeal, Exxon

suggests the question is “jurisdictional.” See Sosa, 542 U.S. at

712–14. Exxon’s jurisdictional theory may, however, run afoul

of Herero People’s Reparations Corp. v. Deutsche Bank, A.G.,

370 F.3d 1192 (D.C. Cir. 2004). In that case, this court held that

subject matter jurisdiction under the ATS existed where a

corporate defendant was alleged to have violated international

law, stating the question as whether the “federal common law

. . . provide[s] a private cause of action for violations of

customary international law,” id. at 1195, which mimics what

the Supreme Court concluded in Sosa, 542 U.S. at 711, 721, 731

n.19; see also Saleh v. Titan Corp., 580 F.3d 1, 14 (D.C. Cir.

2009), cert. denied, __ S. Ct. __, 2011 WL 2518834 (June 27,

2011). 

It is unnecessary to decide whether Herero settles the

jurisdictional question after Sosa because, as Exxon alternatively

maintains, “[c]ourts of appeals are not rigidly limited to issues

raised in the tribunal of first instance; they have a fair measure

of discretion to determine what questions to consider and resolve

for the first time on appeal.” Roosevelt v. E.I. Du Pont de

Nemours & Co., 958 F.2d 416, 419 n.5 (D.C. Cir. 1992) (citing,

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 51 of 151
52

inter alia, Hormel v. Helvering, 312 U.S. 552, 555–59 (1941)). 

Although such review is usually confined to “exceptional

circumstances,” id., the court in Roosevelt gave as examples of

such circumstances “uncertainty in the state of the law,” id.

(citing Proctor v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 675 F.2d 308,

325–26 (D.C. Cir.), cert. denied, 459 U.S. 839 (1982)), and a

“novel, important, and recurring question of federal law,” id.

(citing City of Newport v. Fact Concerts, Inc., 453 U.S. 247,

255–57 (1981)). The issue of corporate liability under the ATS

is all of the above, and it “does not depend on any additional

facts not considered by the district court.” Id.; see also Time

Warner Entm’t Co., L.P. v. FCC, 93 F.3d 957, 974–75 (D.C. Cir.

1996). Because appellants do not suggest they are prejudiced by

not having had an opportunity to present their position on the

merits in the district court and they have fully addressed the

issue on appeal, including attaching amici briefs, and because

the question is one of law, we conclude that addressing whether

there is corporate liability under the ATS is both a fair and

efficient way to proceed inasmuch as the Doe I complaint was

filed more than a decade ago.

B.

Appellants contend that there is no basis for corporate

immunity in either the text or the history of the ATS or

international law, and that the question of corporate liability is

to be decided either pursuant to federal common law or general

principles of international law. They observe, as the Eleventh

Circuit held in Romero, 552 F.3d at 1315, that the text of the

ATS places no limit on who can be a defendant, by contrast with

who can be a plaintiff, and the phrase “any civil action”

undermines any implied limitations not contained in the text. 

They also observe that the codified statute’s use of “any civil

action,” see supra note 5, does not alter its meaning, citing the

Brief of Amici Curiae Professors of Federal Jurisdiction and

Legal History in Support of Plaintiffs-Appellants Seeking

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 52 of 151
53

Petition for Rehearing En Banc at 2 n.3, Kiobel v. Royal Dutch

Petroleum Co., __F.3d __, 2011 WL 338048 (2d Cir. Feb. 4,

2011) (No. 06-4800-cv) (“Kiobel Legal History Amicus Br.”). 

Consistent with Sosa’s emphasis on history, 542 U.S. at 712–24,

appellants maintain that the textual and historical evidence

indicates that the First Congress would have considered juridical

entities such as corporations to be proper defendants under the

ATS. 

 Our analysis begins by recognizing that corporate liability

differs fundamentally from the conduct-governing norms at

issue in Sosa, and consequently customary international law

does not provide the rule of decision. Then we establish that

corporate liability is consistent with the purpose of the ATS,

with the understanding of agency law in 1789 and the present,

and with sources of international law. Our conclusion differs

from that of the Second Circuit in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch

Petroleum Co., 621 F.3d 111 (2d Cir. 2010), reh’g en banc

denied, __ F.3d __, 2011 WL 338048 (Feb. 4, 2011), because its

analysis conflates the norms of conduct at issue in Sosa and the

rules for any remedy to be found in federal common law at issue

here; even on its own terms, its analysis misinterprets the import

of footnote 20 in Sosa and is unduly circumscribed in examining

the sources of customary international law. Finally, we

conclude that Exxon’s other arguments for corporate immunity

are unpersuasive.

1. In Sosa, the Supreme Court set forth the standard by

which federal courts derive common law causes of action for

violations of international law norms, 542 U.S. at 728–29, and

that standard is to be applied where a norm relating to the

conduct of an actor is at issue. Sosa addressed whether federal

courts should recognize under federal common law “new

cause[s] of action,” 542 U.S. at 713, 724, 725, 727, 732, or a

new common law “claim,” id. at 712, 714, 720, 725, 731 n.19,

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 53 of 151
54

731–32, 733. The Court instructed that when “accepting a cause

of action subject to jurisdiction under § 1350,” a court “should

not recognize private claims under federal common law for

violations of any international law norm with less definite

content and acceptance among civilized nations than the

historical paradigms familiar when § 1350 was enacted.” Id. at

732. The Court also counseled a “restrained conception of the

discretion a federal court should exercise in considering a new

cause of action” of the kind urged by the plaintiff in Sosa. Id. at

725. Because the question presented in Sosa was whether the

alleged illegal arrest and brief detention (of less than 24 hours)

could support a cause of action — i.e., whether a substantive

norm of conduct existed to support the claim — the Court

looked to customary international law. 

Corporate liability presents a conceptually different

question. By way of example, in legal parlance one does not

refer to the tort of “corporate battery” as a cause of action. The

cause of action is battery; agency law determines whether a

principal will pay damages for the battery committed by the

principal’s agent. Here the court may assume that individuals

acting as agents of a corporation violated substantive

international law norms. The question is whether a corporation

can be made to pay damages for the conduct of its agents in

violation of the law of nations. Sosa did not address this

question and “at best lends Delphian guidance,” Khulumani, 504

F.3d at 286 (Hall, J., concurring), on what law supplies the rules

governing “the technical accoutrements to [a cause of] action,”

Tel-Oren, 726 F.2d at 778 (Edwards, J., concurring). 

Sosa instructs that the substantive content of the common

law causes of action that courts recognize in ATS cases must

have its source in customary international law. It is clear from

the fact that the law of nations, outside of certain treaties, see

Dreyfus v. Von Finck, 534 F.2d 24, 31 (2d Cir. 1976), creates no

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 54 of 151
55

civil remedies and no private right of action that federal courts

must determine the nature of any remedy in lawsuits alleging

violations of the law of nations by reference to federal common

law rather than customary international law. Professor Louis

Henkin, a leading authority on international law, explained the

distinction: 

[T]hough international law is part of the law of United

States . . . , except as otherwise provided by treaty or

by special doctrine . . . , international law establishes

rights, duties, and remedies for states against states . .

. . International law itself . . . does not require any

particular reaction to violations of law . . . . Whether

and how the United States should react to such

violations are domestic, political questions: the court

will not assume any particular reaction, remedy, or

consequence.

LOUIS HENKIN, FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND THE UNITED STATES

CONSTITUTION 245–46 (2d ed. 1996). Judge Edwards 

elaborated in Tel Oren, specifically addressing ATS claims: 

The law of nations . . . permits countries to meet their

international duties as they will. In some cases states

have undertaken to carry out their obligations in

agreed-upon ways, as in a United Nations Genocide

Convention, which commits states to make genocide a

crime, or in bilateral or multilateral treaties. 

Otherwise, states may make available their municipal

laws in the manner they consider appropriate. As a

result, the law of nations never has been perceived to

create or define the civil actions to be made available

by each member of the community of nations; by

consensus, the states leave that determination to their

respective municipal laws. Indeed, given the existing

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 55 of 151
56

array of legal systems within the world, a consensus

would be virtually impossible to reach — particularly

on the technical accoutrements to an action — and it is

hard even to imagine that harmony ever would

characterize this issue.

726 F.2d at 778 (Edwards, J., concurring) (citations omitted);

accord Dreyfus, 534 F.2d at 31; RESTATEMENT (THIRD) OF

FOREIGN RELATIONS LAW OF THE UNITED STATES § 906 & cmt.

b; 1 OPPENHEIM’S INTERNATIONAL LAW § 19. That the ATS

provides federal jurisdiction where the conduct at issue fits a

norm qualifying under Sosa implies that for purposes of

affording a remedy, if any, the law of the United States and not

the law of nations must provide the rule of decision in an ATS

lawsuit. 

Consequently, the fact that the law of nations provides no

private right of action to sue corporations addresses the wrong

question and does not demonstrate that corporations are immune

from liability under the ATS. There is no right to sue under the

law of nations; no right to sue natural persons, juridical entities,

or states. Customary international law — defined as the

“[p]ractice of states,” RESTATEMENT (THIRD) OF FOREIGN

RELATIONS LAW OF THE UNITED STATES § 102(2) & cmt. b, i.e.,

that law “made over time by widespread practice of

governments acting from a sense of legal obligation,” LOUIS

HENKIN,HOW NATIONS BEHAVE:LAW AND FOREIGN POLICY 33

(2d ed. 1979), 1 OPPENHEIM’S INTERNATIONAL LAW § 10, and

“gradually ripening into a rule of international law,” The

Paquette Habana, 175 U.S. 677, 686 (1900); see also North Sea

Continental Shelf (Ger. v. Den.), 1969 I.C.J. 3, ¶ 77 (Feb. 20);

Asylum (Colom. v. Peru), 1950 I.C.J. 266, 276 (Nov. 20);

RESTATEMENT (THIRD) OF FOREIGN RELATIONS LAW OF THE

UNITED STATES, § 102(2) & cmts. b, c, k; 1 OPPENHEIM’S

INTERNATIONAL LAW §§ 16–17; 1 CHARLES CHENEY HYDE,

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 56 of 151
57

INTERNATIONAL LAW § 6 (1922) — does not “partake of the

prolixity of a legal code,” cf. M’Culloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. (4

Wheat.) 316, 407 (1819). Although customary international law

provides rules for determining whether international

disapprobation attaches to certain types of conduct, such as

torture, extrajudicial killing, prolonged arbitrary detention, or

aiding and abetting the same, one could not expect, as Judge

Edwards has written, the widespread practice of states out of “a

sense of legal obligation,” to produce detailed rules of procedure

and evidence on matters like res judicata, burdens of proof, and

respondeat superior.

2. Ordinarily our statutory analysis would begin with the

text of the ATS, and end with the text if it is clear. See, e.g.,

Hawaii v. Office of Hawaiian Affairs, __ U.S. __, 129 S. Ct.

1436, 1443 (2009). Appellants have made such points as can be

made about the plain text: the phrase “any civil action” is

inclusive and unrestricted. The Supreme Court has observed

that the ATS “by its terms does not distinguish among classes

of defendants.” Argentine Republic v. Amerada Hess Shipping

Corp., 488 U.S. 428, 438 (1989). Given the brevity of the text

of the ATS and the absence of a formal legislative history,28 see

Sosa, 542 U.S. at 718–19, the court, as in Sosa, looks to the

historical context, and it suggests that the purpose of the ATS

supports the availability of corporate liability.

28 Little is known of the origins of the ATS. See Sosa, 542

U.S. at 718. The debates in the House of Representatives “contain no

reference to the” ATS, In re Estate of Ferdinand E. Marcos Human

Rights Litig., 978 F.2d 493, 498 (9th Cir. 1992), and the debates in the

Senate were not recorded, Tel-Oren, 726 F.2d at 812 (Bork, J.,

concurring); see also Sosa, 542 U.S. at 718–19; Wiwa v. Royal Dutch

Petroleum Co., 226 F.3d 88, 104 n.10 (2d Cir. 2000). 

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 57 of 151
58

As the Supreme Court observed in Sosa, under the Articles

of Confederation, the federal government lacked authority to

remedy or prevent violations of the law of nations.29 Id. at 716. 

The need to address and enforce the law of nations at the federal

level was among the concerns that motivated abandoning the

Articles and convening the Constitutional Convention. James

Madison complained:

The[ ] articles [of confederation] contain no provision

for the case of offenses against the law of nations; and

consequently leave it in the power of any indiscreet

member to embroil the Confederacy with foreign

nations. 

THE FEDERALIST NO. 42, at 258, 260 (James Madison) (Henry

Cabot Lodge ed., 1888). The Continental Congress struggled

to respond to violations of the law of nations. In 1779 it wrote

to the French Minister Plenipotentiary to assure that the courts

“will cause the law of nations to be most strictly observed: that

if it shall be found, after due trial, that the owners of [ ] captured

vessels have suffered damage from the misapprehension or

violation of the rights of war and neutrality, Congress will cause

reparation to be made . . . .” 14 JOURNALS OF THE CONTINENTAL

CONGRESS 1774–1789, at 635 (Worthington Chauncey Ford ed.,

1909). The promise rang hollow; although the Articles gave the

federal courts authority over “the trial of piracies and felonies

committed on the high seas,” ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION,

art. 9, § 1, 1 Stat. 4, 6 (1778), the courts lacked authority over

violations of the law of nations on land. In 1781, the

Continental Congress adopted a resolution that “implored the

States to vindicate rights under the law of nations,” Sosa, 542

U.S. at 716, specifically to “provide expeditious, exemplary and

adequate punishment” for violations. 21 JOURNALS OF THE

29 See Sosa Legal History Amicus Br. 102–03.

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 58 of 151
59

CONTINENTAL CONGRESS 1774–1789, at 1136–37 (Gaillard Hunt

ed., 1912).

 The 1781 resolution is acknowledged to be “the direct

precursor of the alien tort provision in the First Judiciary Act.” 

Anne-Marie Burley, The Alien Tort Statute and the Judiciary Act

of 1789: A Badge of Honor, 83 AM.J.INT’L L. 461, 477 (1989);

see also William S. Dodge, The Historical Origins of the Alien

Tort Statute: A Response to the “Originalists,” 19 HASTINGS

INT’L & COMP. L REV. 221, 226–29 (1996); Casto, Law of

Nations, supra note 8, at 490–91. The resolution requested that

each state, “in words that echo Blackstone,” Sosa, 542 U.S. at

716, establish remedies for the “violation of safe conducts or

passports,” for “the commission of acts of hostility against such

as are in amity, league or truce with the United States, or who

are within the same, under a general implied safe conduct,” for

“the infractions of the immunities of ambassadors and other

public ministers,” for “infractions of treaties and conventions to

which the United States are a party,” and for “offences against

the law of nations, not contained in the foregoing enumeration.” 

21 JOURNALS OF THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS 1774–1789, at

1136–37. In letters to the states, the Continental Congress

pointed out that “a prince, to whom it may be hereafter

necessary to disavow any transgression of that law by a citizen

of the United States, will receive such disavowal with reluctance

and suspicion, if regular and adequate punishment shall not have

been provided against the transgressor.” Id. at 1136.30 

30 In response, for example, Connecticut in 1782 enacted a

law criminalizing violations of the law of nations, as well as “any

other Infractions or Violations of, or Offenses against the known,

received and established Laws of civilized Nations, agreeable to the

Laws of this State, or the Laws of Nations,” and creating a tort remedy

for injuries caused by violation of the law of nations. ACTS AND LAWS

OF THE STATE OF CONNECTICUT, IN AMERICA 82, 83 (1784). 

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 59 of 151
60

Two examples illustrate concerns underlying the 1781

Resolution and enactment of the ATS. Sosa, 542 U.S. at

716–17. In May 1784, the Chevalier De Longchamps, a French

citizen, assaulted Francis Barbe Marbois, the French Consul

General, on a street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. See

Respublica v. De Longchamps, 1 U.S. (1 Dall.) 111, 111 (O.T.

Phila. 1784). The French Ambassador complained to the

Continental Congress and the Dutch Ambassador threatened to

leave the State if action was not taken. Id. (citing Casto, Law of

Nations, supra note 8, at 491–92 & n.138). Although the

Pennsylvania state court tried and convicted De Longchamps for

an offense against the law of nations, which the Court of Oyer

and Terminer termed “in its full extent, . . . part of the law of”

Pennsylvania, De Longchamps, 1 U.S. (1 Dall.) at 116, the

events laid bare the impotence of the young nation. The

Continental Congress and the Secretary of Foreign Affairs

struggled to respond to an international incident over which the

federal government had no authority.31

31 “The Marbois Affair was a national sensation that attracted

the concern of virtually every public figure in America.” Sosa Legal

History Amicus Br. 105 (quoting Casto, Law of Nations, supra note

8, at 492). The Continental Congress could only require the Secretary

for Foreign Affairs John Jay to express the Congress’s “regret” and

“lament” over the incident and explain 

the difficulties that may arise on this head from the nature of

a federal union in which each State retains a distinct and

absolute sovereignity [sic] in all matters not expressly

delegated to Congress leaving to them only that of advising in

many of those cases in which other governments decree.

33 JOURNALS OF THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS 1774–1789, at 314

(John C. Fitzpatrick ed., 1933). The Secretary explained that

many allowances are to be made for a nation whose whole

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 60 of 151
61

In “a reprise of the Marbois affair,” Sosa, 542 U.S. at 717,

in December 1787, during the Constitutional Convention, a New

York constable entered the house of the Dutch Ambassador and

arrested one of his domestic servants. Sosa Legal History

Amicus Br. 105; Curtis A. Bradley, The Alien Tort Statute and

Article III, 42 VA. J. INT’L L. 587, 641 (2002). The Mayor of

New York City arrested the constable, as Secretary of Foreign

Affairs John Jay requested, but he cautioned that “neither

Congress nor our internal Legislature have yet passed any act

respecting a breach of the privileges of Ambassadors” and so the

nature and degree of punishment would depend on whether the

common law would recognize the breach. Bradley, The Alien

Tort Statute and Article III, supra at 641–42 (quoting 3DEP’T OF

STATE, THE DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE OF THE UNITED

STATES OF AMERICA 447 (1837)). Secretary Jay reported to the

Continental Congress that “the federal Government does not

appear . . . to be vested with any judicial Powers competent to

the Cognizance and Judgment of such Cases.” 34 JOURNALS OF

THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS 1774–1789, at 111 (Roscoe R.

Hill ed., 1937). 

James Madison lamented at the Constitutional Convention

that “[t]he files of Cong[ress] contain complaints already, from

almost every nation with which treaties have been formed. 

Hitherto indulgence has been shewn to us. This cannot be the

permanent disposition of foreign nations.” 1 THE RECORDS OF

attention till the present period has been engaged in the

pursuit of measures which were to determine their existence

as such, even tho they should be found deficient in those wise

provisions which experience has established among older

Nations.

Id. 

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 61 of 151
62

THE FEDERAL CONVENTION OF 1787, at 316 (Max Farrand ed.,

1937) (“FARRAND’S RECORDS”) (statement of James Madison). 

Opposing the New Jersey Plan to enhance the power of small

states, Madison asked: “Will it prevent those violations of the

law of nations & of Treaties which if not prevented must involve

us in the calamities of foreign wars? The tendency of the States

to [sic] these violations has been manifested in sundry

instances.” Id.32 Alexander Hamilton noted that “[t]he Union

will undoubtedly be answerable to foreign powers for the

conduct of its members,” THE FEDERALIST NO. 80, at 494, 495

(Alexander Hamilton) (Henry Cabot Lodge ed., 1888), and that

“[a]s the denial or perversion of justice by the sentences of

courts, as well as in any other manner, is with reason classed

among the just causes of war, it will follow that the federal

judiciary ought to have cognizance of all causes in which the

citizens of other countries are concerned,” id. Hamilton

emphasized that such jurisdiction was “not less essential to the

preservation of the public faith, than to the security of the public

tranquility.” Id. at 495–96.

The Judiciary Act of 1789 ensured that there would be no

gap in federal subject matter jurisdiction with regard to torts in

violation of treaties or the law of nations. It provided federal

jurisdiction for lawsuits brought by aliens for torts in violation

of the law of nations without textual limitation. By contrast, it

contained no grant of federal question jurisdiction in civil cases,

see Tel-Oren, 726 F.2d at 779 n.3 (Edwards, J., concurring), and

established diversity jurisdiction in the federal circuit courts

32 See also James Madison, Vices of the Political System of

the United States, reprinted in SELECTED WRITINGS OF JAMES

MADISON 36 (Ralph Ketcham ed., 2006); 2 DOCUMENTARY HISTORY

OF THE RATIFICATION OF THE CONSTITUTION 520 (Merrill Jensen ed.,

1976) (statement of James Wilson); 1 FARRAND’S RECORDS 24–25

(statement of Edmund Randolph), 164 (statement of James Madison).

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 62 of 151
63

subject to a $500 amount-in-controversy requirement, ch. 20,

§ 11, 1 Stat. at 78–79. As a consequence, aliens alleging

domestic common law or international non-tort claims,

including foreign creditors seeking to collect on debts owed by

U.S. citizens, were forced into state courts unless their suit was

for $500 or more, which had the practical effect of excluding

virtually all domestic tort lawsuits from the federal courts. See

Casto, Law of Nations, supra note 8, at 497–98 & n.168,

507–08. Clearly the Judiciary Act evidences that the First

Congress knew how to limit, or deny altogether, subject matter

jurisdiction over a class of claims and declined to do so with

respect to torts in violations of the law of nations and treaties

when brought by aliens. 

Exemplary of a purpose of the ATS is the case of Bolchos

v. Darrel, 3 F. Cas. 810.33 A French privateer, Bolchos, had

sailed a Spanish prize into the harbor at Charleston, South

Carolina. France was then at war with Spain and Great Britain. 

The vessel had a cargo of slaves, which were the property of a

Spanish subject who had mortgaged them to a British subject,

Savage. Savage’s agent, Darrel (a person of unknown

citizenship who was in Charleston at or after the time the vessel

made landfall), seized the slaves on behalf of Savage and sold

them. Bolchos filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the

District of South Carolina demanding recompense for the slaves

“as lawful prize,” invoking the Treaty of Amity and Commerce

between France and the United States, U.S.-Fr., Feb. 6, 1778, 8

Stat. 12, which provided that “[i]t shall be lawful for the ships of

war of either party, and privateers, freely to carry whithersoever

they please, the ships and goods taken from their enemies . . . ;

nor shall such prizes be arrested or seized, when they come to

and enter the ports of either party.” Id. art. XVII. Ownership of

33 See Thomas H. Lee, The Safe-Conduct Theory of the Alien

Tort Statute, 106 COLUM. L. REV. 830, 893 (2006). 

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 63 of 151
64

the slaves turned on the validity of the seizure of the Spanish

prize by the French privateer on the high seas. The district

court’s “doubt about admiralty jurisdiction over a suit for

damages . . . was assuaged by assuming that the ATS was a

jurisdictional basis for the court’s action,” Sosa, 542 U.S. at 720,

and the district court in 1795 ruled that the treaty with France

required judgment in favor of the French privateer.

Thus prior to the Constitutional Convention, when the new

nation was at risk of losing respect abroad because it could not

respond to violations of the law of nations, the Founders and the

First Congress recognized that the inability to respond to such

violations could lead to the United States’ entanglement in

foreign conflicts when a single citizen abroad offended a foreign

power by violating the law of nations. The Bradford and

Bolchos opinions are evidence of the realities of this concern. 

Attorney General Bradford could abide by the 1793

Proclamation of Neutrality by favoring neither France nor Great

Britain and prevent a U.S. citizen from entangling the United

States in the general conflict in Europe as a result of his

activities abroad, in Sierra Leone. Similarly, in Bolchos the

executive and legislative branches avoided expressing opinions

on the civil dispute between British and Spanish subjects

because the district court and the Supreme Court could

adjudicate such disputes by applying the law of nations. 

The historical context, in clarifying the text and purpose of

the ATS, suggests no reason to conclude that the First Congress

was supremely concerned with the risk that natural persons

would cause the United States to be drawn into foreign

entanglements, but was content to allow formal legal

associations of individuals, i.e., corporations, to do so.34

34 “A CORPORATION [] . . . is a collection of many individuals,

united into one body, . . . and vested, by the policy of the law, with

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 64 of 151
65

Considering as an example the facts of the Sierra Leone affair

involving a U.S. citizen abroad and Attorney General Bradford’s

1795 opinion, nothing would suggest that the First Congress

would have sought to prevent natural persons from causing

entanglements to which the United States was a party by

ransacking and plundering the holdings of the Sierra Leone

Company but been content to fight a war where the privateering

mission was funded or otherwise supported by a U.S.

corporation. Attorney General Bradford did not shy away from

the notion that the Sierra Leone Company could sue under the

ATS, never intimating that a corporation could not be a

defendant or would have to prove its capacity to sue under the

law of nations rather than the common law. 1 U.S. Op. Att’y

Gen. at 58–59. Neither did Congress shy from imposing

punishment for piracy in the early crime acts, referring to the

conduct of defendant “persons,” Crimes Act of 1790, § 10, 1

Stat. at 114; see also Act of May 15, 1820, ch. 3, § 3, 3 Stat. 600

(1820), a term referring both to individual and to corporate

entities, see 1 U.S.C. § 1 (defining “person” to include

corporations); cf. Beaston v. Farmers’ Bank of Del., 37 U.S. (12

Pet.) 102, 134 (1838). Nor did the district court in the Bolchos

case shy from applying the common law of agency (allowing

Bolchos to sue Darrel, an agent of a British citizen, Savage, who

held a mortgage from the actual owner, a Spanish subject). 

Thus, the historical context offers no reason to conclude that the

First Congress sought to prevent drawing the United States into

a dispute between Great Britain and France because the

defendant who had taken ownership and sold the ship’s cargo

was a natural person and not a corporation. In the words of

amici professors of federal jurisdiction and legal history:

the capacity of acting, in several respects, as an individual, particularly

. . . of suing and being sued.” 1 STEWART KYD, A TREATISE ON THE

LAW OF CORPORATIONS 13 (1793) (emphasis in original). 

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 65 of 151
66

To remedy the problems identified in the preceding

years, the ATS provided federal courts with

jurisdiction over “all causes” in violation of the law of

nations. The text demonstrates that the ATS was not

limited to criminal conduct and did not exclude

corporate defendants. Congress was focused not on

whether the acts were criminal or the defendant’s

identity but rather on the right that had been violated (a

right under “the law of nations or a treaty of the United

States”) and the plaintiff’s identity (“an alien”). 

Together, these two factors defined a class of cases

sufficiently important for Congress to grant jurisdiction

over “all causes where an alien sues for a tort only in

violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United

States.”

Kiobel Legal History Amicus Br. 6–7 (citations omitted)

(emphasis in original).

3. Corporate immunity also would be inconsistent with the

ATS because by 1789 corporate liability in tort was an accepted

principle of tort law in the United States. As early as 1774, Lord

Mansfield held that a corporation could be liable where it failed

to keep in repair a stream in consequence of which a person was

injured. Mayor of Lynn v. Turner, (1774) 98 Eng. Rep. 980

(K.B.). Early decisions of the several states support this

proposition. In Chesnut Hill & Springhouse Turnpike Co v.

Rutter, 4 Serg. & Rawle 6 (Pa. 1818), the Pennsylvania Supreme

Court considered the question of corporate liability in detail,

citing to Mayor of Lynn as well as the Year Books from the

reigns of Henry VI, Henry VII, and Henry VIII, id. at 17–18, and

concluding that it was “beyond doubt,” id. at 18, that a

corporation could be liable for the torts of its agents. The

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts similarly considered

“ancient law,” including the English Year Books relied on in

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 66 of 151
67

Chesnut Hill, and concluded that tort actions could be

maintained against corporations. Riddle v. Proprietors of

Merrimack River Locks & Canals, 7 Mass. 169, 186 (1810); see

also Townsend v. Susquehanna Turnpike Road Co., 6 Johns. 90

(N.Y. Sup. Ct. 1810). An 1832 treatise cites Chesnut Hill in

noting that “much learning will be found [in that case] on the

subject” of corporate torts and stating that “from the earliest

times to the present day, corporations have been liable for torts.” 

JOSEPH KINNICUT ANGELL & SAMUEL AMES, TREATISE ON THE

LAW OF PRIVATE CORPORATIONS AGGREGATE 222–23 & n.1

(1832). 

The notion that corporations could be held liable for their

torts, therefore, would not have been surprising to the First

Congress that enacted the ATS. In Trustees of Dartmouth

College v. Woodward, 17 U.S. (4 Wheat.) 518 (1819) (Story, J.),

the Supreme Court held that an “aggregate corporation, at

common law, is a collection of individuals, united into one

collective body, under a special name . . . possess[ing] the

capacity . . . of suing and being sued.” Id. at 667. A corporation 

is, in short, an artificial person, existing in

contemplation of law, and endowed with certain

powers and franchises which, though they must be

exercised through the medium of its natural members,

are yet considered as subsisting in the corporation

itself, as distinctly as if it were a real personage.

Id. The Court observed, moreover, that “a great variety of these

corporations exist, in every country governed by the common

law.” Id. at 668; see also 1 BLACKSTONE’S COMMENTARIES

*469. In Cook County, Ill. v. United States ex rel. Chandler, 538

U.S. 119 (2003), the Court assembled sources, including a 1793

treatise on the law of corporations, see supra note 34,

demonstrating the common law understanding that a corporation

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 67 of 151
68

is a juridical person with the capacity to sue and be sued. See

538 U.S. at 125–26. Thus it appears that the law in 1789 on

corporate liability was the same as it is today: “The general rule

of substantive law is that corporations, like individuals, are

liable for their torts.” White v. Cent. Dispensary & Emergency

Hosp., 99 F.2d 355, 358 (D.C. Cir. 1938); see also Daniels v.

Tearney, 102 U.S. 415, 420 (1880); Lyon v. Carey, 533 F.2d

649, 652–53 (D.C. Cir. 1976).

4. Neither does the law of the nations support corporate

immunity under the ATS where, for example, a corporation

operates as a front for piracy, engages in human trafficking, or

mass-produces poisons for purposes of genocide. The ICTY has

held that a crime against humanity, for example, requires acts

“instigated or directed . . . by any organization or group,” noting

the post-World War II development of customary international

law. Prosecutor v. Tadic, Case No. IT-94-1-T, Trial Chamber

Opinion and Judgement, ¶¶ 654–55 (May 7, 1997). Amici

international law scholars point to numerous international

treaties that explicitly state that juridical entities should be liable

for violations of the law of nations,35 while others do not

35 See, e.g., European Convention on the Prevention of

Terrorism, May 16, 2005, art. 10(1), C.E.T.S. No. 196 (2005);

Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime, Nov. 15, 2000,

art. 10(1), 2225 U.N.T.S. 209; Convention on Combating Bribery of

Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions, Dec.

17, 1997, art. 2, S. Treaty Doc. No. 105-43; Basel Convention on the

Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wasters and

Their Disposal, Mar. 22, 1989, art. 2(14), 1673 U.N.T.S. 57;

International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the

Crime of Apartheid, Nov. 3, 1973, art. I(2), 1015 U.N.T.S. 243; see

also Scheffer & Kaeb, supra note 24, at 359.

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 68 of 151
69

distinguish between natural and juridical individuals.36 See Brief

of Amici Curiae International Law Scholars in Support of

Plaintiffs-Appellants-Cross-Appellees at 7–10, Kiobel v. Royal

Dutch Petroleum Co., __F.3d__ , 2011 WL 338048 (2d Cir. Feb.

4, 2011) (No. 06-4800-cv) (“Kiobel Int’l Law Scholars Br.”). 

Amici also point to many authoritative actors and entities in the

United Nations’ human rights establishment concluding that

corporations are responsible for violations of the law of nations. 

Id. at 10–11 (citing, for example, the U.N. Human Rights

Committee and the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of All

Forms of Racial Discrimination).

Exxon’s reliance on the Report of the Special

Representative of the Secretary-General on the Issue of Human

Rights and Transnational Corporations and Other Business

Enterprises, U.N. Doc. A/HRC/4/35 (Feb. 19, 2007), is

misplaced. Its selective quotation from the report overlooks the

salient point. See Dis. Op. at 25. The report refers to many

states’ unwillingness to adopt domestic laws providing human

rights standards for corporations. Id. ¶ 44. But elsewhere the

report points to the “extension of responsibility for international

crimes to corporations under domestic law,” id. ¶ 22, and

specifically recognizes that the ATS provides such jurisdiction

against corporations, id. ¶¶ 23, 27. 

5. Exxon nonetheless maintains that the question of

corporate liability is to be answered by looking to customary

international law and because, it asserts, that law does not

recognize corporate liability the ATS does not provide a cause

of action against it. It relies principally on the Second Circuit’s

decision in Kiobel, which concluded that corporate liability “has

36 See, e.g., Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners

of War, Feb. 2, 1956, art. 3, 6 U.S.T. 3316, T.I.A.S. 3364, 75 U.N.T.S.

135. 

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 69 of 151
70

not attained a discernible, much less universal, acceptance

among nations of the world in their relations inter se.” 621 F.3d

at 145. Essentially, Exxon adopts the view of the majority in

Kiobel that (1) the moral responsibility for human rights

violations so heinous as to rise to the level of an “‘international

crime’ rest[s] solely with the individual men and women who

have perpetrated it,” id. at 119, and that (2) the absence of

corporate liability has been settled since Nuremberg when

Article 6 of the London Charter limited the military tribunal’s

jurisdiction to “individuals” and “members of organizations.” 

Appellees’ Br. 28; see Kiobel, 621 F.3d at 133–34. Exxon also

suggests that the ad hoc international tribunals – the ICTY and

the ICTR – and the ICC have jurisdiction over only natural

persons and that human rights treaties codifying international

human rights norms apply only to natural persons, citing, for

example, the Genocide and Torture Conventions.37

There are a number of problems with the analysis in Kiobel. 

Perhaps foremost, the Second Circuit looked to international law

to define who may be a defendant, but see Argentine Republic,

37 Exxon has waived any argument that enactment of the

TVPA preempted torture and extrajudicial killing claims under the

ATS by raising the argument only in a conclusory footnote. See

Appellees’ Br. 32 n.4. But see Dis. Op. at 28 n.11. “We need not

consider cursory arguments made only in a footnote,” Hutchins v.

District of Columbia, 188 F.3d 531, 539 n.3 (D.C. Cir. 1999) (en

banc). “‘It is not enough merely to mention a possible argument in the

most skeletal way, leaving the court to do counsel’s work.’” N.Y.

Rehab. Care Mgmt., LLC v. NLRB, 506 F.3d 1070, 1076 (D.C. Cir.

2007) (quoting Schneider v. Kissinger, 412 F.3d 190, 200 n.1 (D.C.

Cir. 2005)); see also FED. R. APP. P. 28(a)(9). Arguing as a policy

matter that corporate liability is “improper,” Appellees’ Br. 31–32, is

not the same as addressing whether the TVPA “occup[ies] the field,”

Sosa, 542 U.S. at 731, see also Appellees’ Br. 32 n.4; Dis. Op. at

29–30, to which Exxon devotes a single, conclusory sentence.

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 70 of 151
71

488 U.S. at 438, in concluding that “[b]ecause corporate liability

is not recognized as a ‘specific, universal, and obligatory’ norm,

it is not a rule of customary international law that we may apply

under the ATS.” Kiobel, 621 F.3d at 145 (quoting Sosa, 542

U.S. at 732) (citation omitted). Sosa neither addressed the

question presented by Exxon’s claim of corporate immunity, nor

provided precise guidance on which body of law a court must

draw to answer questions ancillary to the cause of action itself,

such as corporate liability. See supra Part III.B.1. The Second

Circuit’s approach overlooks the key distinction between norms

of conduct and remedies discussed by Professor Henkin and

Judge Edwards and instead conflates the norms and the rules

(the technical accoutrements) for any remedy found in federal

common law. And in so doing, the majority in Kiobel, id. at

128–29 & n.31, like Exxon, misreads footnote 20 in Sosa, on

which it primarily relies, to state that “whether a particular

defendant can be sued is . . . necessarily a question about the

‘scope of liability for a violation.’” Appellees’ Br. 31 (quoting

Sosa, 542 U.S. at 732 n.20).38 

In footnote 20, Sosa noted a consideration raised by a

comparison of Tel-Oren and Kadic v. Karadzic, 70 F.3d 232 (2d

Cir. 1995).39 Each case addressed whether certain forms of

38 See Scheffer & Kaeb, supra note 24, at 364–65.

39 Footnote 20 states in full:

A related consideration is whether international law extends

the scope of liability for a violation of a given norm to the

perpetrator being sued, if the defendant is a private actor such

as a corporation or individual. Compare Tel–Oren v. Libyan

Arab Republic, 726 F.2d 774, 791–795 (C.A.D.C. 1984)

(Edwards, J., concurring) (insufficient consensus in 1984 that

torture by private actors violates international law), with

Kadic v. Karadzíc, 70 F.3d 232, 239–241 (C.A.2 1995)

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 71 of 151
72

conduct were violations of international law only when done by

a state actor, or at least under color of state law or jointly with

a state, and not when done by a private actor.40 Nothing in either

opinion suggests that either court considered a dichotomy

between a natural and a juridical person, even though Tel-Oren

involved a juridical defendant, the Palestinian Liberation

Organization. The distinction between private and state actors

exists in international law, and amici international law scholars

point out the distinction has been recognized for centuries. See

Kiobel Int’l Law Scholars Br. 7. For instance, Section 404 of

the Restatement of Foreign Relations Law defines a limited set

of international crimes that are of “universal concern” that can

be committed by an individual, such as piracy, slave-trading, and

hijacking, whereas Section 702 defines those acts that violate

international law where a state as a matter of policy engaged in

them. Compare RESTATEMENT (THIRD) OF FOREIGN RELATIONS

LAW OF THE UNITED STATES § 404, with id. § 702. Footnote 20

appears to reference this dichotomy, which was briefed before

(sufficient consensus in 1995 that genocide by private actors

violates international law).

Sosa, 542 U.S. at 732 n.20.

40 In Tel-Oren, Judge Edwards concluded in 1984 that

although torture practiced by a state violated the law of nations, there

was no then-prevailing norm of customary international law that

torture practiced by a private actor with no imprimatur of the state

constituted a violation of the law of nations. Tel-Oren, 726 F.2d at

794–95 (Edwards, J., concurring). In Kadic, the Second Circuit

concluded in 1995 that a sufficient consensus existed that genocide

violated the law of nations regardless of whether it was conducted by

a state actor or a private individual. 70 F.3d at 241–42. 

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 72 of 151
73

the Supreme Court,41 as opposed to an argument about corporate

liability, which was not. As Judge Leval pointed out in Kiobel:

Far from implying that natural persons and

corporations are treated differently for purposes of civil

liability under [the] ATS, the intended inference of the

footnote is that they are treated identically. If the

violated norm is one that international law applies only

against States, then “a private actor [ ] such as a

corporation or an individual,” who acts independently

of a State, can have no liability for violation of the law

of nations because there has been no violation of the

law of nations. On the other hand, if the conduct is of

the type classified as a violation of the norms of

international law regardless of whether done by a State

or a private actor, then “a private actor [ ] such as a

corporation or an individual,” has violated the law of

nations and is subject to liability in a suit under the

ATS. The majority’s partial quotation out of context,

interpreting the Supreme Court as distinguishing

between individuals and corporations, misunderstands

the meaning of this passage.

621 F.3d at 166 (Leval, J., concurring) (emphasis in original). 

Corporate liability governs the legal consequences of a

relationship between a principal and an agent, see RESTATEMENT

(THIRD) OF AGENCY § 1.01 (2006), and for the reasons explained

by Professor Henkin and Judge Edwards, and endorsed in Sosa,

542 U.S. at 724, the technical accoutrements to the ATS cause

of action, such as corporate liability and agency law, are to be

41 See Brief of Amicus Curiae the European Commission in

Support of Neither Party at 10, Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, 542 U.S. 692

(2004) (No. 03-339), 2004 WL 177036.

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 73 of 151
74

drawn from federal common law, mindful that “in most cases

where a court is asked to state or formulate a common law

principle in a new context, there is a general understanding that

the law is not so much found or discovered as it is either made

or created.” Sosa, 542 U.S. at 725; see also id. at 726 (citing

Textile Workers, 353 U.S. at 456). Although Sosa may not

provide guidance on which particular body of law is to provide

answers to questions ancillary to the conduct underlying the

norm, it recognized that the tort cause of action under the ATS

is derived from federal common law, 542 U.S. at 720–21. In

other words, “[t]he position of international law on whether civil

liability should be imposed for violation of its norms is that

international law takes no position and leaves that question to

each nation to resolve.” Kiobel, 621 F.3d at 152 (Leval, J.,

concurring); see Sosa, 542 U.S. at 724. 

But taking the analysis of the majority in Kiobel on its own

terms regarding the proper source of law, it overlooks a source

of international law that would tend to confirm that liability

under the ATS is properly extended to corporate defendants.

Preliminarily it is to be noted that both Exxon and the majority

in Kiobel, 621 F.3d at 133–36, emphasize that German

corporations were not put on trial before the Nuremberg

tribunals following World War II. Asserting that “[t]he absence

of corporate liability for international human rights violations

has been settled since Nuremberg,” Appellees’ Br. 28, Exxon

maintains that although the Nuremberg tribunals charged

executives of I.G. Farbenindustrie A.G. (“I.G. Farben”) with

international crimes, German corporations were not put on trial. 

This, however, overlooks an important part of Nuremberg

history. 

Amici Nuremberg scholars point out that the history of

Nuremberg is more nuanced than Exxon suggests. Brief of

Amici Curiae Nuremberg Scholars in Support of PlaintiffsUSCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 74 of 151
75

Appellants-Cross-Appellees’ Petition for Rehearing and for

Rehearing En Banc at 3, Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co.,

__ F.3d __, 2011 WL 338048 (2d Cir. Oct. 15, 2010) (No. 06-

4800-cv) (“Kiobel Nuremberg Amicus Br.”). The Allies’

program for defeated Germany at the end of the war, amici note,

“had three components: what to do with the German state upon

defeat of the Third Reich, what to do with natural persons who

committed crimes, and what to do with the German economy

and its industrial cartels.” Id. The Allies (1) partitioned

Germany into zones; (2) dismantled Nazi Germany’s industrial

assets, public and private, and created a system of reparations for

injured individuals and states; and (3) prosecuted major war

criminals under the London Charter before an international

military tribunal constituted at Nuremberg, indicting among

others six Nazi organizations, designating three as criminal. 

Kiobel Nuremberg Amicus Br. 4–9. Control Council Law No.

9, ignored by Exxon and the majority in Kiobel, 621 F.3d at

134–35, directed the dissolution of I.G. Farben, and the disposal

of the assets “of what was regarded as the Allies’ principal

economic enemy.” Kiobel Nuremberg Amicus Br. 11. The

preamble to Law No. 9 proclaimed that “I.G. Farben[ ]

knowingly and prominently engaged in building up and

maintaining the German war potential.” Control Council Law

No. 9, Providing for the Seizure of Property Owned by I.G.

Farbenindustrie and the Control Thereof (Nov. 30, 1945),

reprinted in 1 ENACTMENTS 225. Thus, amici Nuremberg

scholars observe, the corporate death penalty enforced against

I.G. Farben was as much an application of customary

international law, on which Control Council Law No. 9 was

based, as the sentences imposed by the tribunals themselves: the

Allies determined that I.G. Farben had committed violations of

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 75 of 151
76

the law of nations and therefore destroyed it. Kiobel Nuremberg

Amicus Br. 11–12.42

Moreover, the failure to charge the defunct entity with

crimes was not based on the tribunals’ view that I.G. Farben had

not committed violations of international law or that other

corporations were immune from liability:

Where private individuals, including juristic persons,

proceed to exploit the military occupancy by acquiring

private property against the will and consent of the

former owner, such action, not being expressly justified

. . . , is in violation of international law. . . . Similarly

42 Exxon implicitly suggests that because the Nuremberg era

did not produce tribunal decisions embodying disapprobation of

corporate atrocities, corporate liability under the law of nations cannot

exist or be ascertained. But the doctrine of sources of international

law treats judicial decisions as secondary evidence of the law of

nations, and the conduct of nations as primary evidence. See ICJ

Statute, art. 38; 1 KENT’S COMMENTARIES 18; BIN CHENG, GENERAL

PRINCIPLES OF LAW AS APPLIED BY INTERNATIONAL COURTS AND

TRIBUNALS 23 (2006). Exxon flips this doctrine on its head, treating

judicial decisions as primary evidence. Amici Nuremberg Scholars

point out that the Allies also dissolved and liquidated a number of

insurance companies pursuant to Control Council Law No. 57 and

seized the assets of other German corporations, in some instance to

dissolve and liquidate them, pursuant to Control Council Laws Nos.

39 and 47. Kiobel Nuremberg Amicus Br. 14 & n.23. In Control

Council Law No. 2 the Allies abolished the Nazi Party, a noncorporate juridical entity, declared it illegal, and authorized

confiscation of its assets. Id. at 9. Other evidence indicates that

Nuremberg prosecutors concluded the prosecution of a corporation

was legally permissible. See generally Jonathan A. Bush, The

Prehistory of Corporations and Conspiracy in International Criminal

Law: What Nuremberg Really Said, 109 COLUM.L.REV. 1094 (2009).

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 76 of 151
77

where a private individual or a juristic person becomes

a party to unlawful confiscation of public or private

property by planning and executing a well-defined

design to acquire such property permanently,

acquisition under such circumstances subsequent to the

confiscation constitutes conduct in violation of

[international law].

The Farben Case, 8 TRIALS OF WAR CRIMINALS 1132–33. The

Tribunal continued:

[W]e find that the proof establishes beyond a

reasonable doubt that offenses against property as

defined in Control Council Law No. 10 were

committed by [I.G.] Farben, and that these offenses

were connected with, and an inextricable part of the

German policy for occupied countries as above

described. . . . The action of [I.G.] Farben and its

representatives, under these circumstances, cannot be

differentiated from acts of plunder or pillage

committed by officers, soldiers, or public officials of

the German Reich.

Id. at 1140.43

43 Former Ambassador Scheffer observes, much as Judge

Leval, that the majority in Kiobel not only misinterprets footnote 20

of Sosa, see Scheffer & Kaeb, supra note 24, at 364–65, but also

“misinterprets the famous statement in the Nuremberg judgment that,

‘Crimes against international law are committed by men, not by

abstract entities, and only by punishing individuals who commit such

crimes can the provisions of international law be enforced,’” id. at

362. He points out: “The Nuremberg judges were focusing on how to

create a new precedent in international law for prosecuting individuals

for violations of international law rather than rely only on the prior

practice in international law of holding nations responsible for such

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 77 of 151
78

Additionally, the Kiobel majority overlooked general

principles of international law as a proper source for the content

of international law. Amici state that corporate liability is a

universal feature of the world’s legal systems and that no

domestic jurisdiction exempts legal persons from liability. 

Kiobel Int’l Law Scholars Br. 12. Corporate personhood has

been recognized by the ICJ upon considering the “wealth of

practice already accumulated on the subject in municipal law,”

Barcelona Traction, Light & Power Co., 1970 I.C.J. 3, 38–39

(Feb. 20). Legal systems throughout the world recognize that

corporate legal responsibility is part and parcel of the privilege

of corporate personhood. In First National City Bank v. Banco

Para El Comercio Exterior de Cuba, 462 U.S. 611, 628–29 &

nn.19–21 (1983) (citing, inter alia, Barcelona Traction Light &

Power Co., 1970 I.C.J. at 38–39), the Supreme Court upheld a

counterclaim “aris[ing] under international law” against a Cuban

corporation for illegal expropriation, id. at 623 (citing The

Paquete Habana, 175 U.S. at 700), and observed that “the

principles governing this case are common to both international

law and federal common law, which in these circumstances is

necessarily informed both by international law principles and by

articulated congressional policies.” Id.; see Brief of Amici

Curiae Human Rights and Labor Organizations in Support of

Plaintiffs-Appellants’ Petition for Rehearing and for Rehearing

violations.” Id. “There is nothing in the Nuremberg judgment to

suggest that the Nuremberg judges made this statement to the

exclusion of either nations or corporations for purposes of civil

liability for such criminal conduct in violation of international law.” 

Id. at 362–63. Additionally, he points out, “the only way that the

Nuremberg prosecutors made their cases against the corporate

executives of Farben and Krupps was to establish that these

corporations had violated international law.” Id. at 363. He

concludes: “The Kiobel majority’s contention that corporations cannot

violate international law thus flies in the face of common sense, logic,

and the reality of the evidence presented at Nuremberg.” Id.

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 78 of 151
79

En Banc at 13–14, Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum __ F3d __,

2011 WL 338048 (2d Cir. Oct. 15, 2010) (No. 06-4800-cv)

(“Kiobel Human Rights Amicus Br.”). This understanding of

corporate personhood is directly contrary to the conclusion of

the majority in Kiobel.

Unlike the manner in which customary international law is

recognized through common practice or usage out of a sense of

legal obligation, a general principle becomes international law

by its widespread application domestically by civilized nations.44

See BIN CHENG, GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF LAW AS APPLIED BY

INTERNATIONAL COURTS AND TRIBUNALS 24 (2006); H.

LAUTERPACHT, PRIVATE LAW SOURCES AND ANALOGIES OF

INTERNATIONAL LAW 33–35 (1927); OSCAR SCHACHTER,

INTERNATIONAL LAW IN THEORY AND PRACTICE 50–55 (1991);

F.A. Mann, Reflections on a Commercial Law of Nations, 33

BRIT. Y.B.I.L. 20, 34–39 (1957). It includes “the principles of

44 General principles of international law, otherwise known

as the jus gentium, were developed by Roman jurists to provide rules

of law for the settlement of civil disputes between Roman citizens and

aliens and between aliens and aliens, because the Roman civil law

was applicable only in disputes between Roman citizens. 1

BLACKSTONE’S COMMENTARIES *44 n.8. Examples include principles

of procedure, the principle of a good-faith defense, and the principle

of res judicata, PERMANENT COURT OF INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE,

ADVISORY COMMITTEE OF JURISTS, PROCÈS-VERBAUX OF THE

PROCEEDINGS OF THE COMMITTEE JUNE 16TH-JULY 24TH, 1920, at

335, as well as statutes of limitations and laches, RESTATEMENT

(THIRD) OF FOREIGN RELATIONS LAW OF THE UNITED STATES § 102

cmt. l. See also Souffront v. La Compagnie Des Sucreries de Porto

Rico, 217 U.S. 475, 483–84 & n.† (1910); Banco Nacional de Cuba

v. Chem. Bank N.Y. Trust Co., 822 F.2d 230, 237 (2d Cir. 1987); 

Effect of Awards of Compensation Made by United Nations

Administrative Tribunal, 1954 I.C.J. 47, 53 (July 13).

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 79 of 151
80

private law administered in national courts where these are

applicable to international relations,” for

[p]rivate [domestic] law, being in general more

developed than international law, has always

constituted a sort of reserve store of principles upon

which the latter has been in the habit of drawing . . . for

the good reason that a principle which is found to be

generally accepted by civilized legal systems may

fairly be assumed to be so reasonable as to be

necessary to the maintenance of justice under any

system.

J.L. BRIERLY, THE LAW OF NATIONS 62–63 (6th ed. 1963). 

International law “borrow[s] from” the principles of private law

institutions for “an indication of legal policy or principle.” Id. at

63. General principles of international law thus offer further

support that corporate responsibility for the conduct of its agents

under a principle of respondeat superior is recognized in the law

of nations.

In sum, the majority in Kiobel not only ignores the plain

text, history, and purpose of the ATS, it rests its conclusion of

corporate immunity on a misreading of footnote 20 in Sosa

while ignoring Sosa’s conclusion that federal common law

would supply the rules regarding remedies, 542 U.S. at 721–22,

inasmuch as all claims under the ATS are federal common law

claims, see Mohammed v. Rumsfeld, __ F.3d __, 2011 WL

2462851, *7–10 (D.C. Cir. June 21, 2011), and also ignoring a

source of international law providing for corporate liability in all

legal systems. In joining this approach, the dissent’s analysis

suffers from the same flaws. See Dis. Op. at 22 n.9. As Judge

Leval noted, there is an inconsistency in selectively reading

international law:

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 80 of 151
81

Because international law generally leaves all aspects

of the issue of civil liability to individual nations, there

is no rule or custom of international law to award civil

damages in any form or context, either as to natural

persons or as to juridical ones. If the absence of a

universally accepted rule for the award of civil

damages against corporations means that U.S. courts

may not award damages against a corporation, then the

same absence of a universally accepted rule for the

award of civil damages against natural persons must

mean that U.S. courts may not award damages against

a natural person. But the majority opinion concedes (as

it must) that U.S. courts may award damages against

the corporation’s employees when a corporation

violates the rule of nations. Furthermore, our circuit

and others have for decades awarded damages, and the

Supreme Court in Sosa made clear that a damage

remedy does lie under the ATS. The majority opinion

[in Kiobel] is thus internally inconsistent and is

logically incompatible with both Second Circuit and

Supreme Court authority.

Kiobel, 621 F.3d at 152–53 (Leval, J., concurring). 

6. Finally, Exxon’s two other arguments for corporate

immunity under the ATS are unpersuasive. First, Exxon

maintains that because the Supreme Court has refused to

recognize corporate liability in lawsuits brought under Bivens v.

Six Unknown Federal Narcotics Agents, 403 U.S. 388 (1971),

for violations of the U.S. Constitution, see Corr. Servs. Corp. v.

Malesko, 534 U.S. 61, 63 (2001), this court by analogy should

similarly hold that corporations cannot be held liable for

violations of international law in ATS lawsuits. The analogy is

flawed, however, because it ignores crucial distinctions between

Bivens suits and ATS suits. Although the private right of action

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 81 of 151
82

recognized in Bivens lacked any statutory basis, see id. at 66–67,

the First Congress enacted the ATS with the understanding that

“the district courts would recognize private causes of action for

certain torts in violation of the law of nations,” Sosa, 542 U.S.

at 724. Because the judiciary’s exercise of common law powers

in ATS lawsuits has a firm statutory basis, unlike the Bivens line

of cases, the Supreme Court’s hesitancy “to extend Bivens

liability to any new context or new category of defendants,”

including corporations, in no way forecloses recognition of

corporate liability in ATS lawsuits. Malesko, 534 U.S. at 68. 

For example, in Malesko, the Court declined to extend Bivens to

impose corporate liability because the rationale underlying

Bivens, to deter individual government officials from

committing constitutional violations, was inconsistent in that

context with corporate liability. Id. at 63. By contrast, the

deterrence rationale for the ATS extends to any actor, natural or

juridical, who might entangle the United States in an

international incident through violation of the law of nations.

Second, Exxon maintains that because Congress refrained

from creating corporate liability in the TVPA, see Mohamad v.

Rajoub, 634 F.3d 604, 606–09 (D.C. Cir. 2011), this court also

should refrain from holding that there can be corporate liability

under the ATS. In Sosa, the Supreme Court observed that “the

general practice has been to look for legislative guidance before

exercising innovative authority over substantive law.” 542 U.S.

at 726. The guidance to be gleaned from Congress’s enactment

of the TVPA is, however, slight. The legislative history of the

TVPA shows only that: (1) A precursor to the TVPA would have

imposed liability on any “person who, under actual or apparent

authority of any foreign nation” subjected any other “person to

torture or extrajudicial killing,” H.R. 1417, 100th Cong. § 2 (as

referred to the H. Comms. on Foreign Affairs and the Judiciary,

Mar. 4, 1978); (2) the House Foreign Affairs Committee

amended this predecessor bill in June 1988 to replace the word

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 82 of 151
83

“person” with “individual” and in so doing a single Member

explained that the purpose was to make clear that the bill applies

“to individuals and not to corporations,” The Torture Victim

Protection Act: Hearing and Markup before the H. Comm. on

Foreign Affairs on H.R. 1417, 100th Cong. 87–88 (1988), see

also Brief of Amici Curiae University of Minnesota Law School

International Human Rights Clinic and Legal Scholars in

Support of Plaintiffs-Appellants-Cross-Appellees Seeking

Reversal (“U. Minn. Amicus Br.”) 13 n.2; and (3) when a later

Congress enacted the TVPA approximately four years later, the

statute continued to use the word “individual” rather than

“person,” see Bowoto v. Chevron Corp., 621 F.3d 1116, 1127

(9th Cir. 2010). This legislative history provides little guidance

on the subject of corporate liability. It does not indicate why the

House Foreign Affairs Committee in 1988 decided against

creating corporate liability in the TVPA. Neither does it indicate

whether the concerns motivating the Committee’s 1988 action

were shared by the later Congress that enacted the TVPA in

1992. See Dawson Chem. Co. v. Rohm & Haas Co., 448 U.S.

176, 204 (1980). 

In Sosa, the Supreme Court characterized the TVPA as

“supplementing” the ATS, not replacing it. 542 U.S. at 731.45

The legislative history of the TVPA is to the same effect. The

House and Senate Committee reports state that “[s]ection 1350

has other important uses and should not be replaced” by the

TVPA. S. Rep. No. 102-249, at 4 (1991); H.R. Rep. No. 102-

367, at 3 (1991), reprinted in 1992 U.S.C.C.A.N. 86. When

operating in a common law fashion, courts are guided by reason

and experience. Cf. FED. R. EVID. 501. Absent a clear

indication in either the text or the legislative history of the

45 Exxon has waived any argument that enactment of the

TVPA preempted torture and extrajudicial killing claims. See supra

note 37.

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 83 of 151
84

TVPA that Congress reached a considered judgment that

corporations should never be held liable for violations of the law

of nations, the court applies the rule suggested by both reason

and experience — that under established principles of agency

law, corporations can be held liable in ATS lawsuits for torts

committed by their agents. To the extent our dissenting

colleague concludes that allowing aliens to sue corporations in

federal courts for aiding and abetting torture and extrajudicial

killing while “U.S. citizens may not bring such suits” is a “rather

bizarre outcome,” Dis. Op. at 33, such an argument is better

addressed to Congress inasmuch as the ATS was designed to

afford greater jurisdictional protections to aliens.46

In sum, the court concludes, guided by Sosa, that under the

ATS, domestic law, i.e., federal common law, supplies the

source of law on the question of corporate liability. The law of

the United States has been uniform since its founding that

corporations can be held liable for the torts committed by their

agents. This is confirmed in international practice, both in

treaties and in legal systems throughout the world. Given that

the law of every jurisdiction in the United States and of every

civilized nation, and the law of numerous international treaties,

provide that corporations are responsible for their torts, it would

create a bizarre anomaly to immunize corporations from liability

for the conduct of their agents in lawsuits brought for

“shockingly egregious violations of universally recognized

46 The dissent’s suggested “principle in ATS cases,” Dis. Op.

at 30, and notion of “two filters,” id., would require the court to

address an issue (TVPA preemption) that Exxon has waived, see supra

note 37. In any event, the Supreme Court observed thirteen years after

enactment of the TVPA that “Congress has not in any relevant way

amended § 1350 or limited civil common law power by another

statute.” Sosa, 542 U.S. at 725 (emphasis added). 

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 84 of 151
85

principles of international law.” Zapata v. Quinn, 707 F.2d 691

(2d Cir. 1983). The analysis of the majority in Kiobel, 621 F.3d

at 130–35, by overlooking the distinction between norms and

technical accoutrements in searching for an international law

norm of corporate liability in customary international law,

misinterpreting Sosa in several ways, and selectively ignoring

relevant customary international law, is unpersuasive. The issue

of corporate liability has remained in the background during the

thirty years since the Second Circuit decided Filartiga, 630 F.2d

876, while numerous courts have considered cases against

corporations or other juridical entities under the ATS without

any indication that the issue was in controversy, whether in

ruling that ATS cases could proceed47 or that they could not on

other grounds.48 Exxon fails to show that a different approach

is warranted now.

IV.

 The TVPA provides:

47 See, e.g., Abdullahi v. Pfizer, Inc., 562 F.3d 163 (2d Cir.

2009); Sarei v. Rio Tinto, PLC, 550 F.3d 822 (9th Cir. 2008) (en

banc); Khulumani, 504 F.3d 254 (2d Cir.); Wiwa v. Royal Dutch

Petroleum Co., 226 F.3d 88 (2d Cir. 2000); Bowoto v. Chevron Corp.,

557 F. Supp. 2d 1080, 1091–1100 (N.D. Cal. 2008); John Roe I v.

Bridgestone Corp., 492 F. Supp. 2d 988, 1004–24 (S.D. Ind. 2007).

48 See, e.g., Ali Shafi, 2011 WL 2315028, at *2–8;

Presbyterian Church, 582 F.3d 244 (2d Cir.); Vietnam Ass’n for

Victims of Agent Orange v. Dow Chem. Co., 517 F.3d 104 (2d Cir.

2008); Flores v. S. Peru Copper Corp., 414 F.3d 233 (2d Cir); Beanal

v. Freeport-McMoran, Inc., 197 F.3d 161 (5th Cir. 1999); Carmichael

v. United Techs. Corp., 835 F.2d 109 (5th Cir. 1988); Iwanowa v.

Ford Motor Co., 67 F. Supp. 2d 424 (D.N.J. 1999). 

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 85 of 151
86

(a) Liability. – An individual who, under actual or

apparent authority, or color of law, of any foreign

nation – 

(1) subjects an individual to torture shall, in a civil

action, be liable for damages to that individual; or

(2) subjects an individual to extrajudicial killing shall,

in a civil action, be liable for damages to the

individual’s legal representative, or to any person who

may be a claimant in an action for wrongful death.

28 U.S.C. § 1350 note § 2(a). In Mohamad, 634 F.3d 604, this

court held, after oral argument in the instant case, that

Congress’s use of the word “individual” indicated that it did not

intend for the TVPA to apply to corporations or other

organizations. Id. at 606–09; see also Bowoto, 621 F.3d at

1126–27. Accordingly, the district court did not err in

dismissing appellants’ TVPA claims. See Doe I, 393 F. Supp.

2d at 28. 

As an alternative to their claim of Exxon’s direct liability

under the TVPA, appellants contend that they may sue Exxon

under the TVPA on a theory of aiding and abetting liability. 

They cite In re Nofziger, 956 F.2d 287 (D.C. Cir. 1992), where

the court stated the general proposition that in a criminal case

“one may be found guilty of aiding and abetting another

individual in his violation of a statute that the aider and abettor

could not be charged personally with violating.” Id. at 290

(citing Coffin v. United States, 156 U.S. 432, 447 (1895)). They

also cite 18 U.S.C. § 2(a), which provides that any person who

aids or abets a criminal offense is punishable as a principal. See

also Standefer v. United States, 447 U.S. 10, 18 n.11 (1980). 

There is a circuit split. The Eleventh Circuit has held that

private parties, including corporations, can be liable for aiding

and abetting violations of the TVPA. Aldana, 416 F.3d at

1247–48. The Ninth Circuit has held that corporations may not

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 86 of 151
87

be held directly liable under the TVPA and that, “[e]ven

assuming the TVPA permits some form of vicarious liability, the

text limits such liability to individuals, meaning in this statute,

natural persons.” Bowoto, 621 F.3d at 1128; see also Mohamad,

634 F.3d at 608–09.

Given this court’s holding in Mohamad, there is no basis in

the statutory text for permitting vicarious corporate liability. 

The authorities that appellants cite, indicating that Congress can

provide for aiding and abetting liability absent direct liability, do

not support the inference that Congress so provided in the

TVPA. Appellants point to no other provision in the TVPA that

colorably provides for such liability. Even assuming arguendo

that aiding and abetting liability is available under the TVPA,

the court’s precedent would limit such liability to natural

persons. See Mohamad, 634 F.3d at 608–09.49

V.

Exxon presents three additional arguments in contending

that appellants’ lawsuit is non-justiciable: First, the complaint

should be dismissed in deference to the foreign-policy views of

the Executive Branch. Second, adjudication of the complaint

would interfere with an international agreement supported by the

United States. Third, comity is owed to the legislative,

executive, or judicial acts of Indonesia.

49 To the extent the dissent unnecessarily addresses the issue

and concludes that there is no vicarious aiding and abetting liability

for natural persons under the TVPA, Dis. Op. at 31–32, this is

inconsistent with the Senate Judiciary Committee report, which states

that the statute permits “lawsuits against persons who ordered, abetted,

or assisted in . . . torture.” S. REP. NO. 102-249, at 8.

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 87 of 151
88

A.

In Sosa, the Supreme Court referenced the “policy of

case-specific deference to the political branches.” 542 U.S. at

733 n.21. The Court did not elaborate, although such deference

could implicate a number of the factors identified in Baker v.

Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 217 (1962).50 The Court, however, referred

to then-pending multi-district litigation involving class action

lawsuits for damages from corporations alleged to have

participated in, or abetted, the apartheid regime that formerly

controlled South Africa. 542 U.S. at 733 n.21 (citing In re S.

Afr. Apartheid Litig., 238 F. Supp. 2d 1379 (J.P.M.L. 2002)). 

South Africa objected that adjudication of the cases interfered

with its Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the United

States agreed. Id. But see infra note 56. “In such cases,” the

Court concluded, “there is a strong argument that federal courts

should give serious weight to the Executive Branch’s view of the

50 In Baker v. Carr, the Court identified six factors to guide

a court’s determination of whether a complaint presents a nonjusticiable question:

[1] a textually demonstrable constitutional commitment of the

issue to a coordinate political department; or [2] a lack of

judicially discoverable and manageable standards for

resolving it; or [3] the impossibility of deciding without an

initial policy determination of a kind clearly for nonjudicial

discretion; or [4] the impossibility of a court’s undertaking

independent resolution without expressing lack of the respect

due coordinate branches of government; or [5] an unusual

need for unquestioning adherence to a political decision

already made; or [6] the potentiality of embarrassment from

multifarious pronouncements by various departments on one

question.

369 U.S. at 217. 

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 88 of 151
89

case’s impact on foreign policy.” Sosa, 542 U.S. at 733 n.21. 

As the Court had elsewhere cautioned, “[m]atters relating to the

conduct of foreign relations . . . are so exclusively entrusted to

the political branches of government as to be largely immune

from judicial inquiry or interference.” Regan v. Wald, 468 U.S.

222, 242 (1984) (internal citation and quotation marks omitted);

see also Haig v. Agee, 453 U.S. 280, 292 (1981); Chicago & S.

Air Lines v. Waterman S.S. Corp., 333 U.S. 103, 111 (1948);

Oetjen v. Cent. Leather Co., 246 U.S. 297, 302 (1918). 

Similarly, this court has stated that the “Executive’s judgment

that adjudication by a domestic court would be inimical to the

foreign policy interests of the United States is compelling and

renders [a] case non-justiciable under the political question

doctrine.” Hwang Geum Joo v. Japan, 413 F.3d 45, 52 (D.C.

Cir. 2005); see also El-Shifa Pharm. Indus. Co. v. United States,

607 F.3d 836, 840 (D.C. Cir. 2010) (en banc); Bancoult v.

McNamara, 445 F.3d 427, 435 (D.C. Cir. 2006).

By letter of July 29, 2002, the Legal Adviser of the State

Department, in response to the district court’s inquiry, filed a

statement of interest that appellants’ lawsuit “would in fact risk

a potentially serious adverse impact on significant interests of

the United States.” The letter noted, however, that the

assessment was “necessarily predictive and contingent on how

the case might unfold in the course of litigation.” The letter

emphasized that the impact on U.S. foreign policy interests

“cannot be determined with certainty.” The State Department

attached a letter of July 15, 2002 from the Indonesian

Ambassador stating that Indonesia “cannot accept” a suit against

an Indonesian government institution, and that U.S. courts

should not be adjudicating “allegation[s] of abuses of human

rights by the Indonesian military.” In a supplemental statement

of July 14, 2003, the Justice Department referenced the views

expressed in the State Department’s 2002 letter while arguing

the legal point that the ATS is merely a jurisdictional statute and

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 89 of 151
90

that there is no private right of action under the ATS, a point

rendered moot by Sosa. By letter of July 15, 2005, the State

Department expressed “concerns” with the plaintiffs’ proposed

discovery plan of May 16, 2005 — not implemented by the

district court — which would have involved relatively broad

discovery that could extend to documents located in Indonesia. 

Doe I, 473 F.3d at 347. Upon dismissing the statutory claims on

their merits, see Doe I, 393 F. Supp. 2d at 24–27, the district

court explained:

The issues and parties in this case have been tailored to

a narrow[ ] question: did U.S. corporations in their

effort to secure their pipeline in Indonesia violate U.S.

state tort law? Litigation and discovery on this issue,

if conducted with care, should alleviate the State

Department’s concerns about interfering with

Indonesia’s sovereign prerogatives while providing a

means for plaintiffs to obtain relief through their

garden-variety tort claims. It should be feasible, for

instance, for plaintiffs to perpetuate testimony and

satisfy document discovery requirements outside

Indonesia.

Id. at 29–30.51 

In the prior interlocutory appeal, this court rejected Exxon’s

justiciability contention inasmuch as the State Department’s

2002 letter contained “several important qualifications.” Doe I,

51 The district court emphasized the general ambiguity of the

State Department’s 2002 letter, see Doe I, 393 F. Supp. 2d at 22–23,

and observed that a few months later it had ordered discovery to

commence on the common law claims, id. at 23. This suggests the

district court did not view the 2002 letter as presenting a justiciability

problem for either the federal statutory or the common law claims. 

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 90 of 151
91

473 F.3d at 354. “[T]he State Department’s letter [is] not [ ] an

unqualified opinion that this suit must be dismissed, but rather

[ ] a word of caution to the district court alerting it to the State

Department’s concerns.” Id. The court further noted that the

reference to “how the case might unfold in the course of

litigation” leads to the inference that “the State Department did

not necessarily expect the district court to immediately dismiss

the case in its entirety.” Id. Moreover, the court noted the

possibility that it had misinterpreted the letter, and invited the

State Department, if that were the case or if the Department had

additional concerns about the litigation, “to file further letters or

briefs with the district court expressing its views.” Id. The court

cited opinions from the Ninth and Eleventh Circuits rejecting

non-justiciability objections for ATS or common law tort

actions.52

The interlocutory appeal decided only that Exxon lacked a

“clear and indisputable” right to a writ of mandamus ordering

appellants’ common law tort claims to be dismissed under the

political question doctrine. Doe I, 473 F.3d at 357. Now this

court reviews de novo the district court’s decision to dismiss

52 This court cited Sarei v. Rio Tinto, PLC, 456 F.3d 1069

(9th Cir. 2006), vacated on other grounds, 487 F.3d 1193 (9th Cir.

2007) (en banc), where the State Department had filed a letter, stating

an ATS suit against non-state actors was, in the words of this court,

“simply a tort suit — which is constitutionally committed to the

judiciary.” Doe I, 473 F.3d at 354 (citing Sarei, 456 F.3d at 1079–82). 

This court also cited Linder v. Portocarrero, 963 F.2d 332 (11th Cir.

1992), where the Eleventh Circuit concluded that the political question

doctrine ought not prevent common law tort claims arising out of the

Nicaraguan civil war from going forward, id. at 337, noting that “[t]he

fact that the issues before us arise in a politically charged context does

not convert what is essentially an ordinary tort suit into a

non-justiciable political question,” id. (quoting Klinghoffer v. S.N.C.

Achille Lauro, 937 F.2d 44 (2d Cir. 1991)). 

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 91 of 151
92

those claims. See Lin v. United States, 561 F.3d 502, 505 (D.C.

Cir. 2009). Subsequent events persuade us that the considered

analysis by this court in Doe I is correct. The Supreme Court

denied Exxon’s petition for a writ of certiorari, 554 U.S. 909

(2008), which the United States opposed. The United States

stated that “[t]he district court carefully considered concerns

identified by the United States in its submissions to that court,”

noting dismissal of the federal law claims, “all claims against a

defendant indirectly owned by the Indonesian government,” and

the “limit[] [on] discovery in a manner intended to avoid

offending Indonesia’s sovereign interests.” Brief for the United

States as Amicus Curiae, Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Doe I, 554 U.S.

909 (2008) (No. 07-81), 2008 WL 2095734, at *8.53 Further,

that “[i]n light of that procedural history and the absence of a

request by the United States that the case be dismissed in its

entirety, the court of appeals reasonably regarded petitioners’

interlocutory appeal as one from the denial of a motion to

dismiss state-law tort claims based on an assertion by private

defendants, not by the Executive, that the litigation itself would

have adverse consequences for the Nation’s foreign policy

interests and thus raised separation-of-powers concerns.” Id.,

2008 WL 2095734, at *8–9 (emphasis added). Appellants also

cite an amicus brief filed by the United States before the Second

Circuit, emphasizing that the “requirement of an explicit request

for dismissal on foreign policy grounds by the Executive Branch

53 The United States’ amicus brief before the Supreme Court

stated that district court had “carefully considered concerns identified

by the United States” and “[l]argely on the basis of those concerns”

had dismissed the federal claims. 2008 WL 2095734, at *8. Both the

district court and this court concluded, however, that the State

Department’s 2002 letter was ambiguous and the text qualifying the

State Department’s position applied to all claims. See Doe I, 473 

F.3d at 354. Since appellants noted their appeals in 2009, the State

Department has not filed a statement of interest in this or the district

court.

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 92 of 151
93

is, in our view, critical.” Brief for the United States as Amicus

Curiae at 11, Balintulo v. Daimler AG, No. 09-2778-cv (2d Cir.

Nov. 30, 2009) (emphasis in original). The Executive Branch

has made no such request in the instant cases.

This court “grant[s] substantial weight” to State Department

statements regarding factual questions that are “at the heart of

the Department’s expertise.” In re Papandreou, 139 F.3d 247,

252 & n.2 (D.C. Cir. 1998). Currently the court has no occasion

to “decide what level of deference would be owed to a letter

from the State Department that unambiguously requests that the

district court dismiss a case as a non-justiciable political

question.” Doe I, 473 F.3d at 354 (emphasis in original). 

Before this court are only: (1) an ambiguous statement of

interest by the State Department in 2002 regarding the plaintiffs’

litigation, respecting both the federal statutory and non-federal

tort claims; (2) an amicus brief filed by the Solicitor General and

the State Department’s Legal Advisor emphasizing that the

statement of interest did not constitute an explicit request for

dismissal and affirming that the district court had mitigated the

concerns of the United States regarding discovery; (3) silence

from the United States in the years since the United States’

statement as amicus to the Supreme Court, notwithstanding this

court’s invitation in Doe I to file a further statement of interest;

and (4) an amicus brief filed by the United States in another

circuit emphasizing that the United States will make an explicit

request for dismissal when appropriate. Also lodged but not

filed in this court is a letter of January 24, 2011 from the

Indonesian Embassy expressing continuing objection to

plaintiffs’ lawsuits. Given the United States’ subsequent filings

— and subsequent silence — the court concludes that it did not

misinterpret the Legal Advisor’s 2002 statement of interest.54

54 The district court received expert testimony on the question

of the definitiveness or ambiguity of the 2002 statement of interest

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 93 of 151
94

Nonetheless, insofar as the court is reviving appellants’

ATS claims (minus the defendant owned in part by the

Indonesian government and those dismissed claims not

appealed), the court recognizes the United States had previously

expressed concern. Although the court lacks a sufficiently

unambiguous and recent statement from the United States

expressing concern as would justify dismissal of the ATS claims

on justiciability grounds, if the State Department were to

reassert concerns, as it has been invited to do, this court or, upon

remand, the district court in the first instance, must assess

whether they provide grounds for dismissing the complaints or

a part thereof, particularly with regard to the ATS claims. See

Dis. Op. at 39. 

B.

In August 2005, a Memorandum of Understanding Between

the Government of the Republic of Indonesia and the Free Aceh

Movement was signed as part of the Helsinki Accord. Exxon

characterizes the Memorandum as a peace treaty ending the

Aceh conflict and appellants’ claims as arising out of injuries

allegedly sustained during the civil war. By letter of February

1, 2007 to the State Department, the Indonesian Embassy

“reaffirm[ed] its position as contained in the previous

correspondence,” “highlight[ed]” the memorandum of

from Harold Hongju Koh, at the time a former Assistant Secretary of

State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor in the Clinton

Administration and former attorney-adviser in the Office of Legal

Counsel in the Justice Department in the Reagan Administration, who

in both capacities participated in the drafting of statements of interest

of the sort at issue here. Thereafter he was Dean of the Yale Law

School and is currently the Legal Advisor of the State Department. 

Dean Koh’s testimony supports the conclusion of this court in the

prior interlocutory appeal and now. See also Harold Hongju Koh,

Separating Myth from Reality About Corporate Responsibility

Litigation, 7 J. INT’L. ECON. L. 263 (2004).

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 94 of 151
95

understanding, and concluded that adjudication of appellants’

lawsuit “could be deemed as undermining the result of the

democratic process.” Exxon suggests continuation of this

litigation would also “necessarily embody a ‘lack of respect due’

to the Executive Branch’s support of the Helsinki Accord,”

Appellees’ Br. 65 (citing Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. at 217). 

Exxon marshals paltry support for its asserted domestic

doctrine of nonjusticiability based on interference with the peace

process. It relies on the proposition that “war-related claims,

including those not explicitly addressed, are extinguished by [a]

peace settlement,” id. at 64 (quoting Burger-Fischer v. Degussa

AG, 65 F. Supp. 2d 248, 274 (D.N.J. 1999) (alteration in

original), principally pointing to Ware v. Hylton, 3 U.S. (3 Dall.)

199, 230 (1796)). In Ware v. Hylton, a British subject sought to

recover a debt confiscated by the Commonwealth of Virginia

during the War of Independence, and Justice Chase wrote that

inasmuch as “the treaty of peace abolishes the subject of the war,

and that after peace is concluded, neither the matter in dispute,

nor the conduct of either party, during the war, can ever be

revived, or brought into contest again.” Id. at 230. This

principle was applied in Hwang Geum Joo v. Japan, 413 F.3d 45

(D.C. Cir. 2005), involving claims by women who had been

abducted and forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese Army

before and during World War II; both Japan and the State

Department filed statements that treaties between Japan and

Taiwan, South Korea, the Philippines, and China, respectively,

had resolved all civil claims. Id. at 52. This court relied on the

statement of the State Department that the claims had been

extinguished by treaty. Id. at 51–52. Exxon neither cites Hwang

Geum Joo nor addresses the fact that the State Department has

expressed no opinion regarding the 2005 Memorandum of

Understanding. Instead, Exxon cites Ware and Burger-Fischer,

which involved a class action lawsuit to recover compensation

and damages in connection with forced labor under the Nazi

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 95 of 151
96

regime. The district court concluded the civil claims had been

subsumed by remedies agreed to by the Allies and Germany

without reference to any statement by the State Department. Id.

at 279. Exxon also cites Section 902 comment i of the

Restatement of Foreign Relations Law.55

Exxon’s invocation of this doctrine founders on a

fundamental level. As demonstrated by the noted sources, the

basic principle is that a state has authority to bargain on behalf

of its citizens and, consequently, to bargain away its citizens’

civil claims. HENKIN, FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND THE

CONSTITUTION 299–300. Once an international settlement

agreement is finalized, the private claim becomes a “claim of the

state and is under the state’s control.” RESTATEMENT (THIRD)

OF FOREIGN RELATIONS LAW OF THE UNITED STATES § 902 cmt.

i. The flaw in Exxon’s reasoning is that the Free Aceh

Movement is not, and never was, a state. Appellants

consequently challenge the characterization of the Memorandum

of Understanding as a “treaty of peace,” and it is notable that

there is no statement by the Executive Branch that supports the

characterization. The principle articulated by Justice Chase and

55 See RESTATEMENT (THIRD) OF FOREIGN RELATIONS LAW

OF THE UNITED STATES § 902 cmt. i:

Like other claims for violation of an international obligation,

a state’s claim for a violation that caused injury to rights or

interests of private persons is a claim of the state and is under

the state’s control. The state may determine what individual

remedies to pursue, may abandon the claim, or settle it. The

state may merge the claim with other claims with a view to an

en bloc settlement. The claimant state may set these claims

off against claims against it by the respondent state. Any

reparation is, in principle, for the violation of the obligation

to the state, and any payment made is to the state.

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 96 of 151
97

the Restatement is that the citizens of once-warring countries

may rely on their respective sovereigns to enforce their claims

or not, if that proves a necessity of foreign relations. Following

the conflict, citizens of each sovereign may petition their own

governments to enforce their claims. Appellants have no such

recourse because the Free Aceh Movement is not a sovereign;

Aceh’s rebellion did not result in its independence from

Indonesia. Exxon cites no authority for the extension of the

doctrine articulated in Ware to domestic agreements and the

purpose underlying the doctrine would appear to have no

applicability when the agreement is not bargained by two

independent sovereigns. 

So understood, Exxon’s contention that the court must

afford respect to “the Executive Branch’s support” of the

Memorandum of Understanding, Appellees’ Br. 65, becomes no

more than an alternative approach to the case-specific deference

to the Executive Branch already discussed. The State

Department filed its only statement of interest three years before

the Memorandum of Understanding was signed, and the United

States made no reference to it in its amicus brief filed before the

Supreme Court. Thus, where Exxon’s first contention regarding

nonjusticiability was premised on ambiguity followed by

silence, Exxon’s second contention is premised on silence alone. 

C.

Exxon’s invocation of the doctrine of comity, citing Hilton

v. Guyot, 159 U.S. 113 (1895), fares no better. In Hilton, the

Supreme Court instructed that:

where there has been opportunity for a full and fair trial

abroad before a court of competent jurisdiction,

conducting the trial upon regular proceedings, after due

citation or voluntary appearance of the defendant, and

under a system of jurisprudence likely to secure an

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 97 of 151
98

impartial administration of justice between the citizens

of its own country and those of other countries, and

there is nothing to show either prejudice in the court, or

in the system of laws under which it was sitting, or

fraud in procuring the judgment, or any other special

reason why the comity of this nation should not allow

it full effect, the merits of the case should not, in an

action brought in this country upon the judgment, be

tried afresh, as on a new trial or an appeal, upon the

mere assertion of the party that the judgment was

erroneous in law or in fact.

Id. at 202–03. In other words, a foreign judgment ought to have

preclusive effect and be granted full credit and effect under the

principles of comity and international law. Id. at 206. Circuit

courts of appeals applying Hilton require adjudication of the

propriety of a foreign judicial decision, Phila. Gear Corp. v.

Phila. Gear de Mexico, S.A., 44 F.3d 187, 191 (3d Cir. 1994),

and where no proceeding has been conducted abroad, emphasize

the importance of an available foreign forum, see, e.g., UngaroBenages v. Dresdner Bank AG, 379 F.3d 1227, 1238–39 (11th

Cir. 2004); Bigio v. Coca-Cola Co., 239 F.3d 440, 454 (2d Cir.

2001); Jota v. Texaco Inc., 157 F.3d 153, 160 (2d Cir. 1998).

In effect, Exxon challenges the district court’s conclusion

that, assuming without deciding that the ATS has a prudential

exhaustion requirement, see Sosa, 542 U.S. at 733 n.21, the

plaintiffs were excused from meeting the requirement because

“it is apparent here that efforts to pursue this case in Indonesia

would be futile.” Doe I, 393 F. Supp. 2d at 25. Specifically, the

district court found that the plaintiffs, in response to an affidavit

from an Indonesian Supreme Court Justice that their claims

could be litigated in Indonesia, “effectively counter that they

risk the very real possibility of reprisals, including death, if they

pursue their claims there.” Id. The only circuit court of appeals

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 98 of 151
99

to address the question held that a prudential exhaustion

requirement does exist under international law and the ATS, but

that where “the United States ‘nexus’ is weak, courts should

carefully consider the question of exhaustion, particularly . . .

with regard to claims that do not involve matters of ‘universal

concern,’” and in so doing apply the usual domestic exhaustion

principles, including that “[t]he defendant bears the burden to

plead and justify an exhaustion requirement, including the

availability of local remedies.” Sarei, 550 F.3d at 832. The

“remedy must be available, effective, and not futile.” Id. 

Exxon’s contention regarding international comity thus

appears to be an attempt to reargue the issue of prudential

exhaustion, which it has not appealed, see supra Part II.A,

without challenging the district court’s finding that efforts to

pursue the case in Indonesia would be futile. In order to invoke

this doctrine, Exxon must either point to a legal proceeding in

Indonesia involving these particular plaintiffs to which the court

must defer or at least the availability of effective and non-futile

local remedies. See Bigio, 239 F.3d at 454. Exxon has done

neither.56

56 The dissent makes a related point, asserting that although

enacted to avoid conflict with foreign nations the ATS has caused the

opposite in recent years. Dis. Op. at 12–13. Yet the examples cited

in support of this assertion do not withstand examination. As regards

the South African apartheid, the dissent states that the ATS litigation

hampered the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa. 

Id. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Chairman of the Commission,

disagreed and filed letters with the district court and the Second

Circuit urging that the claims go forward. In re S. Afr. Apartheid

Litig., 617 F. Supp. 2d 228, 276 (S.D.N.Y. 2009). Following a later

ruling by the district court, the Justice Minister of South Africa wrote

the district court that in light of the limitation to claims “based on

aiding and abetting very serious crimes, such as torture, [and]

extrajudicial killing committed in violation of international law by the

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 99 of 151
100

VI.

The district court dismissed the common law claims for lack

of prudential standing. Doe VIII, 658 F. Supp. 2d 131. 

Appellants correctly contend that there is no per se rule against

standing for non-resident aliens in federal courts and that under

a case-by-case approach, upon applying the zone-of-interests

test, they have prudential standing to bring their claims. Exxon

disputes that appellants meet the zone-of-interests test, and

alternatively maintains that the district court erred in its choice

of law analysis and that principles of federal foreign affairs

preemption dispose of appellants’ claims. 

apartheid regime,” as contrasted with those corporations that “merely

did business with the apartheid government,” the court had addressed

South Africa’s concerns. Letter from J.T. Radebe, Minister of Justice

and Constitutional Development, to Hon. Shira A. Scheindlin, U.S.

Dist. Court, S. Dist. of N.Y. 1–2 (Sept. 1, 2009), quoted in Brief for

the United States as Amicus Curiae Supporting Appellees at 6–7,

Balintulo v. Daimler AG, No. 09-2778-cv (2d Cir. Nov. 30, 2009). As

regards Papua New Guinea, the Chief Secretary of the government

wrote to the district court on multiple occasions, reflecting the views

expressed by the Prime Minister to parliament, urging that the

litigation proceed. Sarei, 487 F.3d at 1199–1200. Indeed, in one

letter the Chief Secretary indicated that the only way that relations

between the United States and Papua New Guinea could be harmed

would be “if the litigation is discontinued.” Id. at 1207 n.15. The

objections by Canada in Presbyterian Church of Sudan v. Talisman

Energy, Inc., No. 01 Civ. 9882 (DLC), 2005 WL 2082846 (S.D.N.Y.

Aug. 30, 2005), and by the United Kingdom, Switzerland, and

Germany — as appended to the Brief for the United States as Amicus

Curiae in Support of Petitioners at apps. C–D, Am. Isuzu Motors, Inc.

v. Ntsbeza, 128 S. Ct. 2424 (2008) (No. 07-919) — were not to the

exercise of jurisdiction over events that took place in their countries

but to exercise of jurisdiction over corporations that were citizens of

those countries. See, e.g., id. at 7a–8a, 10a.

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 100 of 151
101

A. 

In dismissing the common law claims, the district court

relied on Berlin Democratic Club v. Rumsfeld, 410 F. Supp. 144

(D.D.C. 1976), which relied on an asserted “general rule that

non-resident aliens have no standing to sue in United States

courts.” Id. at 152. Appellants contend that neither that case nor

any subsequent case has established such a general rule, which

would be contrary to the rules of prudential standing and the

Framers’ intent. Neither Exxon nor amici supporting Exxon rely

in this court on Berlin Democratic Club or any per se rule. 

Instead they maintain appellants fail to show that they fall within

the zone of interests of D.C. common law because neither the

District of Columbia nor any state of the United States has any

interest in extending its law to reach the allegations of nonresidents involving foreign individuals within the territory of a

foreign sovereign, particularly when, they assert, the claims

concern acts of that sovereign’s military during a civil war. Our

analysis begins with a review of the standard for prudential

standing and then applies that standard to appellants’ tort claims.

Exxon’s decision not to rely on Berlin Democratic Club is

well founded. The Framers intended to permit aliens, resident

or otherwise, access to federal courts: Article III of the

Constitution conferred jurisdiction in the federal courts over

lawsuits “between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign

States, Citizens or Subjects.” U.S. CONST. art. III, § 2; see also

JPMorgan Chase Bank v. Traffic Stream (BVI) Infrastructure

Ltd., 536 U.S. 88, 95 (2002).57 The Judiciary Act of 1789

57 See also THE FEDERALIST NO. 80, at 494, 495, 500

(Alexander Hamilton) (Henry Cabot Lodge ed., 1888); 4 DEBATES IN

THE SEVERAL STATE CONVENTIONS ON THE ADOPTION OF THE

FEDERAL CONSTITUTION 546, 554 (Jonathan Elliott, ed., 1836)

(statement of James Madison); 2 id. at 492 (statement of James

Wilson); Brief for the United States as Amicus Curiae Supporting

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 101 of 151
102

authorized the federal courts to hear cases involving an alien

defendant. Judiciary Act of 1789, ch. 20, § 11, 1 Stat. 73, 78

(1789).58 The court in Berlin Democratic Club misread Johnson

v. Eisentrager, 339 U.S. 763 (1950), which concerned the

constitutional rights of alien enemies, id. at 769, 774, 776, and

took pains to distinguish alien friends, id. at 769 & n.2. The

authorities cited in Eisentrager for the proposition that “alien

enemies resident in the country of the enemy could not maintain

an action in its courts during the period of hostilities,” id. at 776,

make clear that the Supreme Court intended only to address

claims by enemy aliens. See id. at 774 n.6, 776–77. In Rasul v.

Bush, 542 U.S. 466 (2004), the Supreme Court rejected the

notion that its precedent “categorically excludes aliens detained

in military custody outside the United States from the ‘privilege

of litigation’ in U.S. courts,” id. at 484 (quoting Al Odah v.

United States, 321 F.3d 1134, 1139 (D.C. Cir. 2003)), and stated

that “Eisentrager itself erects no bar to the exercise of

federal-court jurisdiction over [ ] habeas corpus claims” brought

under 28 U.S.C. § 2241, id. The Court quoted Disconto

Gesellschaft, in which it had stated that “[a]lien citizens, by the

policy and practice of the courts of this country, are ordinarily

permitted to resort to the courts for the redress of wrongs and the

protection of their rights,” 208 U.S. at 578, and noted that “28

Petitioner at 2, JPMorgan Chase Bank v. Traffic Stream (BVI)

Infrastructure Ltd., 536 U.S. 88 (2002) (No. 01-651), 2001 WL

34092062, at *2. 

58 Every proposed version of the draft Judiciary Act provided

for alienage jurisdiction. See Brief of Amici Curiae of Arthur Miller,

Erwin Chemerinsky and Professors of Federal Jurisdiction and Legal

History in Support of Plaintiffs-Appellants-Cross-Appellees and

Reversal 13 (“Legal History Amicus Br.”) (citing Kevin R. Johnson,

Why Alienage Jurisdiction? Historical Foundations and Modern

Justification for Federal Jurisdiction over Disputes Involving

Noncitizens, 21 YALE. J. INT’L L. 1, 17 (1996)). 

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 102 of 151
103

U.S.C. § 1350 explicitly confers the privilege of suing for an

actionable ‘tort . . . committed in violation of the law of nations

or a treaty of the United States’ on aliens alone.” 542 U.S. at

484–85 (alteration in original).

To the extent the court in Berlin Democratic Club relied on

this court’s opinions, they have been qualified, if not overruled,

by subsequent Supreme Court decisions.59 In Kukatush Mining

Corp. v. SEC, 309 F.2d 647 (D.C. Cir. 1962), this court held that

a non-resident alien corporation, which transacted no business

and had no assets in the United States, lacked standing because

the court did not “ha[ve] jurisdiction of the subject res or with

the preferred rights under immigration laws.” Id. at 650. The

court acknowledged, however, “a definite trend to relax the

rigidities of the earlier cases.” Id.60 In Constructores Civiles de

59 The district court also cited Reyes v. Sec’y of Health, Educ.

& Welfare, 476 F.2d 910 (D.C. Cir. 1973), which addressed a 

substantive, not a procedural question, namely whether a non-resident

alien was protected by the Due Process Clause and the applicability of

the Constitution outside of the United States. Id. at 915 & n.8. The

district court also cited Justice Douglas’s dissent in Kleindienst v.

Mandel, 408 U.S. 771 (1972), “assuming, arguendo” that persons

outside the United States lacked standing to assert a First Amendment

claim of being excluded from entry based on protected speech, id. at

772 (Douglas, J., dissenting); the dissenting opinion rested on a

substantive question, namely whether the First Amendment applied

extraterritorially, id.

60 The court in Kukatush Mining read other opinions as

limited to their facts. For instance, the court read Disconto

Gesellschaft v. Umbreit, 208 U.S. 570, 578 (1908), and Russian

Volunteer Fleet v. United States, 282 U.S. 481, 489 (1931), as

concerning the present or prior existence of a res in the United States. 

See Kukatush Mining, 309 F.2d at 649–50. Similarly, this court read

Cia Mexicana De Gas S.A. v. Federal Power Commission, 167 F.2d

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 103 of 151
104

Centroamerica, S.A. v. Hannah, 459 F.2d 1183, 1190 (D.C. Cir.

1972), this court found circuit case law muddled and, noting the

Supreme Court’s admonition that “‘[a]lien citizens, by the policy

and practice of the courts of this country, are ordinarily

permitted to resort to the courts for the redress of wrongs and the

protection of their rights,’” id. (quoting Disconto Gesellschaft,

208 U.S. at 578) (alteration in original), concluded that the

question “depends upon the circumstances,” id. The court did

not suggest a test for judging the circumstances, id., but held

there was standing in view of the plaintiff’s substantial contacts

with a federal agency in Washington, D.C., the fact that the

money at issue originated from the U.S. Treasury in

Washington, D.C., and unlike in Kukatush Mining, the plaintiff

was not an alleged wrongdoer but sued “under a statute at least

arguably enacted for its own benefit [and] also for the American

people as a private attorney general,” id. at 1191. In Berlin

Democratic Club, the district court refused to adopt an

additional exception for a non-resident alien where the res was

not within a domestic court’s territorial jurisdiction or a nonresident alien had not applied for relief under a U.S. statute or

was not brought from abroad to be subject to a domestic

criminal prosecution. 410 F. Supp. at 152; see also id. at 153.

Before this court spoke again on the question of prudential

standing for a non-resident alien, the Supreme Court rendered a

series of decisions on prudential standing,61 ultimately adopting

the analysis in Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans

804 (5th Cir. 1948), and Estrada v. Ahrens, 296 F.2d 690 (5th Cir.

1961), as relying on idiosyncracies of administrative law. See

Kukatush Mining, 309 F.2d at 649–50.

61 E.g., Gladstone, Realtors v. Vill. of Bellwood, 441 U.S. 91,

99–100 (1979); Craig v. Boren, 429 U.S. 190, 193–94 (1976); Warth

v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 499–500 (1975).

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 104 of 151
105

United for Separation of Church and State, Inc., 454 U.S. 464

(1982). In an effort to clarify the line between constitutional and

prudential standing, the Court enumerated three “prudential

principles that bear on the question of standing”: (1) “the

plaintiff generally must assert his own legal rights and interests,

and cannot rest his claim to relief on the legal rights or interests

of third parties”; (2) courts ought to refrain from “adjudicating

‘abstract questions of wide public significance’ which amount

to ‘generalized grievances,’ pervasively shared and most

appropriately addressed in the representative branches”; and (3)

the “plaintiff’s complaint [must] fall within the zone of interests

to be protected or regulated by the statute or constitutional

guarantee in question.” Id. at 474–75 (internal citations and

quotation marks omitted). 

Since Valley Forge this court has imposed no special

disability on non-resident alien status in addressing standing to

bring constitutional claims. In Cardenas v. Smith, 733 F.2d 909

(D.C. Cir. 1984), the court characterized Kukatush Mining as

identifying a non-exhaustive list of situations in which a nonresident alien may bring suit, and Constructores Civiles as

signaling a “relaxation of rigidities” in adopting a “case-by-case

analytical approach.” Id. at 916. Applying the zone-of-interests

test of Valley Forge, the court inquired whether the interest

asserted by the plaintiff “enjoys the protection of the Fourth and

Fifth Amendments,” the substantive basis for the plaintiff’s suit,

and acknowledged that “the inquiry tends to meld into the

question of whether [the plaintiff] has a cause of action to

enforce these Amendments.” Id. at 915. “It is beyond

peradventure,” the court noted, “that a foreign nonresident,

non-hostile alien may, under some circumstances, enjoy the

benefits of certain constitutional limitations imposed on United

States actions.” Id. In DKT Memorial Fund v. Agency for

International Development, 887 F.2d 275 (D.C. Cir. 1989), the

court again decided the prudential standing question based on

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 105 of 151
106

the substantive question of the territorial reach of the

constitutional protection: the court looked at the merits of the

plaintiff’s claim to determine whether the First Amendment

protected the conduct of the non-resident aliens. Id. at 284–85.

Consequently, regardless of whether Berlin Democratic

Club was correctly decided based on authority in this circuit at

the time, this court now analyzes prudential standing on a caseby-case basis based on the zone of interests of the law providing

the basis for the plaintiff’s cause of action. The court has not

identified any special rule governing the prudential standing of

non-resident aliens. To the extent the zone-of-interests test is

dependent on a “peek at the merits,” Emergency Coal. to Defend

Educ. Travel v. U.S. Dep’t of the Treasury, 545 F.3d 4, 11 (D.C.

Cir. 2008), the substantive question will be whether a

constitutional, statutory, or common law protection has

extraterritorial reach or reaches non-resident aliens.

B.

The test for prudential standing “is not meant to be

especially demanding,” and there “need be no indication of

[legislative] purpose to benefit the would-be plaintiff.” Clarke

v. Sec. Indus. Ass’n, 479 U.S. 388, 399 (1987). The question

whether appellants would have prudential standing under the

zone-of-interests test, assuming it applies,62 turns on what law

62 For purposes of this appeal the court assumes without

deciding that the zone-of-interests test, developed as a matter of

administrative law, see Clarke, 479 U.S. at 400 n.16, applies to a

cause of action sounding in tort. The court has described the zone-ofinterests test for administrative claims as “a gloss on the judicial

review provision of the Administrative Procedure Act.” PDK Labs.

Inc. v. DEA, 362 F.3d 783, 791 (D.C. Cir. 2004). The First Circuit has

held that prudential standing is demonstrated when a plaintiff either

satisfies the zone-of-interests test or “show[s] that the harm of which

he complains amounts to a ‘common law’ injury, such as a tort.” 

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 106 of 151
107

provides the basis for the cause of action under District of

Columbia choice of law rules, which the parties agree apply. On

cross-appeal Exxon challenges the district court’s choice of law

analysis, and our review is de novo, Felch v. Air Florida, Inc.,

866 F.2d 1521, 1523 (D.C. Cir. 1989).63

“To determine which jurisdiction’s substantive law governs

a dispute, District of Columbia courts blend a ‘governmental

interests analysis’ with a ‘most significant relationship’ test.” 

Oveissi v. Islamic Republic of Iran, 573 F.3d 835, 842 (D.C. Cir.

2009) (quoting Hercules & Co., Ltd. v. Shama Rest. Corp., 566

A.2d 31, 40–41 & n.18 (D.C. 1989)). “Under the governmental

interests analysis[,] . . . [a court] must evaluate the governmental

policies underlying the applicable laws and determine which

jurisdiction’s policy would be most advanced by having its law

applied to the facts of the case under review.” Id. (quoting

Hercules, 566 A.2d at 41) (alterations in original). “To

determine which jurisdiction has the most significant

relationship to a case, a court must consider . . . : (1) ‘the place

where the injury occurred’; (2) ‘the place where the conduct

Munoz-Mendoza v. Pierce, 711 F.2d 421, 425 (1st Cir. 1983).

63 Contrary to appellants’ suggestion, the choice of law issue

is properly before the court. In the Notice of Cross-Appeal, Exxon

stated it appealed from “any . . . orders that have merged into the

[district court’s September 30, 2009] judgment.” One such order is

the district court’s choice of law ruling, which Exxon also included in

its list of rulings under review. See Exxon Mobil’s Certificate as to

Parties, Rulings, & Related Cases 3. Exxon’s intent to seek review of

the district court’s choice of law ruling “can be fairly inferred” from

its notice of appeal and its certificate of rulings under review. 

LaRouche’s Comm. for a New Bretton Woods v. FEC, 439 F.3d 733,

739 (D.C. Cir. 2006). The court need not address appellants’ motion

to dismiss the cross-appeal because Exxon states it was filed only as

a precautionary measure. Appellees’ Br. 2.

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 107 of 151
108

causing the injury occurred’; (3) ‘the domicil[e], residence,

nationality, place of incorporation and place of business of the

parties’; and (4) ‘the place where the relationship, if any,

between the parties is centered.’” Id. (quoting RESTATEMENT

(SECOND) OF CONFLICT OF LAW § 145(2) (1971)).

The District of Columbia courts follow section 145 of the

Restatement, see Rymer v. Pool, 574 A.2d 283, 286 (D.C. 1990),

a comment to which states: “When certain contacts involving a

tort are located in two or more states with identical local law

rules on the issue in question, the case will be treated for

choice-of-law purposes as if those contacts were grouped in a

single state.” RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF CONFLICT OF LAW

§ 145, cmt. i; see also Simon v. United States, 341 F.3d 193, 198

n.3 (3d Cir. 2003). The district court concluded that there was

no conflict among the laws of the District of Columbia,

Delaware, New Jersey, and Texas, except as to the wrongful

death claim as to which the district court applied Delaware

law.64 These are the jurisdictions in which Exxon is a legal

resident and where appellants allege some of the tortious

conduct occurred. The district court, however, compared the

interest of the United States in applying District of Columbia

law to the interest of Indonesia. See Doe I v. Exxon Mobil

64 Appellants suggest that the choice of law analysis cannot

proceed because Exxon failed to demonstrate a “true conflict.” 

“Where each state would have an interest in the application of its own

law to the facts, a true conflict exists and the law of the jurisdiction

with the stronger interest will apply.” In re Estate of Delaney, 819

A.2d 968, 987 (D.C. 2003) (quoting Biscoe v. Arlington Cnty., 738

F.2d 1352, 1360 (D.C. Cir. 1984)); see also Herbert v. District of

Columbia, 808 A.2d 776, 779 (D.C. 2002); Kaiser-Georgetown Cmty.

Health Plan, Inc. v. Stutsman, 491 A.2d 502, 509 (D.C. 1985). 

Appellants do not suggest that Indonesia has no interest in the

application of its laws to their cases.

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 108 of 151
109

Corp., No. Civ.A.01-1357, 2006 WL 516744, at *2 (D.D.C.

Mar. 2, 2006). But the foreign affairs interest of the United

States identified by the district court — that “the leader of the

free world[ ] has an overarching, vital interest in the safety,

prosperity, and consequences of the behavior of its citizens,

particularly its super-corporations conducting business in one or

more foreign countries,” id., does not necessarily reflect the

interests of the several states. Rather the court must compare the

interests of the three states, and the interest of the forum District

of Columbia, with the interests of Indonesia. The district court

correctly observed that such a comparison “tilt[s] in favor of

Indonesia.” Id.

“[S]ubject only to rare exceptions, the local law of the state

where conduct and injury occurred will be applied to determine

whether the actor satisfied minimum standards of acceptable

conduct and whether the interest affected by the actor’s conduct

was entitled to legal protection.” RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF

CONFLICT OF LAWS § 145 cmt. d; see also Drs. Groover,

Christie & Merritt, P.C. v. Burke, 917 A.2d 1110, 1117 (D.C.

2007). The place of injury is accorded particular importance “in

the case of personal injuries and of injuries to tangible things.” 

Washkoviak v. Student Loan Mkg. Ass’n, 900 A.2d 168, 182

(D.C. 2006) (quoting RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF CONFLICT OF

LAWS § 145 cmt. f). The district court concluded that “[s]ome

(perhaps most) of the conduct occurred in Indonesia, although

plaintiffs argue that ExxonMobil knew about and participated,

indeed directed, from the United States the allegedly culpable

conduct to the detriment of plaintiffs.” Doe I, 2006 WL 516744,

at *1. Other than decision-making, for purposes of the nonfederal tort claims all conduct causing injury occurred in

Indonesia according to the complaint. The plaintiffs are citizens

of and reside in Indonesia. The defendants, at the time the Doe

I complaint was filed in 2001, were incorporated in the United

States: one corporate defendant had its principal place of

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 109 of 151
110

business in Indonesia and three in various U.S. states. The

citizenship of the corporate defendant with its principal place of

business in Indonesia at the time the Doe VIII complaint was

filed in 2007 remains in dispute. The district court found that

“[t]he relationship between [Exxon] and plaintiffs is likely

centered in Indonesia.” Id.

In view of the importance that the Restatement places on the

place of injury, which District of Columbia choice of law rules

follow, RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF CONFLICT OF LAWS § 145

cmt. d; Rymer, 574 A.2d at 286, and the fact that the remaining

factors weigh in favor of a choice of Indonesian law, we hold

that Indonesian law applies to appellants’ non-federal claims. 

Exxon’s objection that Indonesian law should not apply due to

considerations of international comity concerns the content of

Indonesian law, not its applicability under District of Columbia

choice of law rules. Exxon relies on dictum in Phillips v. Eyre,

(1870) 6 L.R.Q.B. 1 at 30–31 (Eng.), for the proposition that

comity would support recognizing a general amnesty issued by

the foreign jurisdiction upon whose law the court relies. It

points to the objection of the Indonesian Embassy, which refers

to an agreement to establish a human rights court and a

commission for truth and reconciliation, but does not refer to

either the implementation of that agreement, the exclusivity of

that remedy, or amnesty for any party. None of the experts on

Indonesian law presented to the district court referred to the

remedies cited by the Embassy and their status and applicability

are uncertain.

C.

Because Indonesian law applies under District of Columbia

choice of law rules, the court need not address Exxon’s federal

preemption argument regarding District of Columbia and

Delaware law. To the extent Exxon suggested during oral

argument that appellants’ non-federal tort claims would be

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 110 of 151
111

preempted if Indonesian law applies, the authorities it cites in its

brief are inapposite, relating to the “supremacy of the national

power in the general field of foreign affairs” and to the need to

prevent the legislatures of the states from conducting foreign

policy, Hines v. Davidowitz, 312 U.S. 52, 62–63 (1941); see also

Zschernig v. Miller, 389 U.S. 429, 440–41 (1968); Saleh, 580

F.3d at 12–13. Otherwise, the argument is forfeited because it

is not presented in Exxon’s briefs. See N.Y. Rehab. Care Mgmt.,

LLC v. NLRB, 506 F.3d 1070, 1076 (D.C. Cir. 2007) (quoting

Schneider v. Kissinger, 412 F.3d 190, 200 n.1 (D.C. Cir. 2005));

see also FED. R. APP. P. 28(a)(9).

VII.

Exxon contends that the Doe VIII complaint, which is based

on diversity jurisdiction, 28 U.S.C. § 1332, should be dismissed

for lack of complete diversity between plaintiffs and defendants. 

Complete diversity requires that no two parties on opposite sides

of an action can be citizens of the same state. See Strawbridge

v. Curtiss, 7 U.S. (3 Cranch) 267, 267 (1806). The diversity

statute does not confer subject matter jurisdiction over a lawsuit

between an alien on one side, and an alien and a U.S. citizen on

the other side. See Saadeh v. Farouki, 107 F.3d 52, 61 (D.C.

Cir. 1997). The Doe VIII complaint alleges that the plaintiffs are

Indonesian citizens, Doe VIII Compl. ¶¶ 6–9, and that defendant

Exxon Mobil of Indonesia (“EMOI”), is incorporated in the

Cayman Islands with its principal place of business in Indonesia. 

Id. ¶ 16.

The district court did not reach Exxon’s diversity

objections. We agree with appellants that EMOI’s non-diversity

would not mandate dismissal because the district court, were it

to find that EMOI is a non-diverse party, could dismiss EMOI,

permitting appellants to proceed against Exxon Mobil

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 111 of 151
112

Corporation. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 21 permits

dismissal of “jurisdictional spoilers” and creates a “fiction that

[the dismissal] relates back to the date of the complaint,” In re

Lorazepam & Clorazepate Antitrust Litig., 631 F.3d 537, 542

(D.C. Cir. 2011). We therefore remand this issue to the district

court. 

Accordingly, we affirm the dismissal of appellants’ TVPA

claims, we reverse the dismissal of the ATS claims at issue in

this appeal, along with the dismissal of appellants’ non-federal

tort claims, and we remand the cases to the district court.

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 112 of 151
KAVANAUGH, Circuit Judge, dissenting in part: 

Plaintiffs are Indonesian citizens who allege that they (or 

their family members) were imprisoned, beaten, abused, and 

in some cases killed in Indonesia by Indonesian soldiers. 

Plaintiffs claim that the Indonesian soldiers violated 

customary international norms against torture, extrajudicial 

killing, and prolonged detention. The Indonesian soldiers 

provided security for an American corporation, Exxon. In 

this case, plaintiffs did not sue Indonesia or Indonesian 

officials. Rather, they sued Exxon under the Alien Tort 

Statute, or ATS, for aiding and abetting the Indonesian 

officials’ tortious conduct. 

The ATS grants federal district courts jurisdiction over 

“any civil action by an alien for a tort only, committed in 

violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United 

States.” 28 U.S.C. § 1350. In cases such as this where no 

U.S. treaty is involved, the substantive content of an ATS 

claim is determined by reference to customary international 

law, also commonly called the law of nations. See Sosa v. 

Alvarez-Machain, 542 U.S. 692 (2004). Customary 

international law is a kind of international common law. It is 

a body of sometimes difficult-to-ascertain rules and principles 

that arise informally from the general and consistent practice 

of nations, and that have been recognized and enforced in 

international tribunals such as the post-World War II tribunal 

at Nuremberg. 

In the District Court, Judge Oberdorfer dismissed 

plaintiffs’ ATS claims. Doe I v. Exxon Mobil Corp., 393 F. 

Supp. 2d 20, 24-27 (D.D.C. 2005). I would affirm Judge 

Oberdorfer’s decision for any of four independent reasons.1

 

 1

 In addition to their ATS claims, plaintiffs have asserted 

claims under the federal Torture Victim Protection Act and state 

tort law. I agree with the majority opinion’s decision to affirm 

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 113 of 151
2 

First, under the presumption against extraterritoriality, 

the ATS does not apply to conduct that occurred in foreign 

nations – such as this suit, which concerns conduct that 

occurred in Indonesia. A “longstanding principle of 

American law” dictates that “legislation of Congress, unless a 

contrary intent appears, is meant to apply only within the 

territorial jurisdiction of the United States.” EEOC v. 

Arabian American Oil Co. (ARAMCO), 499 U.S. 244, 248 

(1991). The presumption helps the United States avoid 

conflicts with other nations, which of course have a strong 

interest in policing and regulating conduct in their own 

countries. The ATS contains no textual indication that it was 

meant to apply to conduct in foreign countries. Moreover, the 

ATS’s historical purpose was to avoid conflicts with foreign 

governments. It did so by providing redress for foreign 

citizens who suffered injuries within the United States or on 

the high seas. As this case exemplifies – given Indonesia’s 

strenuous and repeated objections to a U.S. court’s 

entertaining plaintiffs’ suit – extending the ATS to conduct 

that occurs in foreign countries creates rather than avoids 

conflicts with foreign nations and thus runs directly counter to 

 

dismissal of the TVPA claims. I also agree with the majority 

opinion’s decision to remand the state-law claims, including for a 

careful analysis of whether those claims are preempted under the 

foreign affairs preemption doctrine. See American Ins. Ass’n v. 

Garamendi, 539 U.S. 396, 422-23 (2003); Zschernig v. Miller, 389 

U.S. 429 (1968); Hines v. Davidowitz, 312 U.S. 52 (1941); Saleh v. 

Titan Corp., 580 F.3d 1, 11-12 & 12 n.8 (D.C. Cir. 2009); see also 

Chamber of Commerce of the United States v. Whiting, 131 S. Ct. 

1968, 1983 (2011) (describing “uniquely federal areas of 

regulation” and citing Garamendi and Crosby v. Nat’l Foreign 

Trade Council, 530 U.S. 363, 373-74 (2000), as examples of 

federal authority over foreign affairs). 

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 114 of 151
3 

both the presumption against extraterritoriality and the ATS’s 

design and purpose. 

Second, as the Second Circuit recently held, the ATS 

does not apply to claims against corporations. See Kiobel v. 

Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., 621 F.3d 111 (2d Cir. 2010). In 

Sosa, the Supreme Court stated that courts in ATS cases must 

determine whether customary international law “extends the 

scope of liability for a violation of a given norm to the 

perpetrator being sued.” 542 U.S. at 732 n.20. Customary 

international law does not recognize corporate liability. That 

means plaintiffs’ ATS claims against a corporation (Exxon) 

cannot go forward. Moreover, the Supreme Court in Sosa 

emphasized the need for judicial restraint, “great caution,” 

and “vigilant doorkeeping” in ATS cases. Id. at 725-29. 

Given the Supreme Court’s admonition, it would be quite odd 

for a U.S. court to allow a customary international law-based 

ATS claim against a corporation when no international 

tribunal has allowed a customary international law claim 

against a corporation. 

Third, even if customary international law established 

corporate liability for torture and extrajudicial killing, we still 

should not allow plaintiffs’ ATS claims for those violations to 

go forward because doing so would be incongruous with the 

Torture Victim Protection Act. The Supreme Court has 

indicated that courts should exercise judicial restraint and 

interpret the open-ended language of the ATS by reference to 

analogous congressionally enacted causes of action. See 

Sosa, 542 U.S. at 731. Plaintiffs assert that the ATS and 

customary international law give aliens a cause of action for 

torture and extrajudicial killing. The analogous Torture 

Victim Protection Act gives U.S. citizens a cause of action for 

torture and extrajudicial killing. But the TVPA does not 

allow corporate liability or aiding and abetting liability. In 

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 115 of 151
4 

exercising the restraint mandated by the Supreme Court in 

ATS cases, we must follow Congress’s approach to 

fashioning the TVPA for U.S. citizens and similarly fashion 

the ATS for aliens. Under the majority opinion’s contrary 

approach, an alien can sue a corporation in a U.S. court for 

aiding and abetting torture and extrajudicial killing, but a U.S. 

citizen cannot sue the same corporation in the same U.S. court 

for the exact same aiding and abetting of torture and 

extrajudicial killing. That makes little sense and is, to put it 

charitably, a strange reading of congressional intent and 

Supreme Court precedent. 

 Fourth, the Supreme Court has required us to interpret 

the open-ended language of the ATS so as to avoid conflict 

with the Nation’s foreign policy – and therefore, to heed 

Executive Branch statements of interest in ATS cases. See 

Sosa, 542 U.S. at 733 n.21. Following Sosa, courts must 

dismiss ATS cases when the Executive Branch reasonably 

explains that the suit would harm U.S. foreign policy 

interests. Here, the Executive Branch has repeatedly stated 

that allowing these ATS claims to proceed would harm the 

United States’ relationship with Indonesia – an assertion 

backed up by several pointed letters that the Government of 

Indonesia has submitted directly to this Court and the District 

Court. The Executive Branch has explained that damage to 

the United States’ relationship with Indonesia would in turn 

impair American national security and foreign policy with 

respect to the ongoing war against al Qaeda, a war in which 

Indonesia is a key ally. Judge Oberdorfer heeded those 

concerns and, in light of them, properly dismissed plaintiffs’ 

ATS claims.2

 

 2

 Plaintiffs base their claims on underlying customary 

international law norms against torture, extrajudicial killing, and 

prolonged detention. From a lower court’s perspective in an ATS 

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 116 of 151
5 

 Exercising the caution mandated by the Supreme Court in 

ATS cases, I would dismiss the ATS claims for any of those 

four independent reasons. In my judgment, permitting these 

ATS claims to proceed jumps the rails of proper judicial 

restraint. 

 

case, there may be as many as seven currently cognizable 

customary international law norms: what one might call the 

“Blackstone three” plus the “Breyer four.” The original Blackstone 

three are offenses against ambassadors, violations of safe conducts, 

and piracy. Sosa, 542 U.S. at 715. The Breyer four – which Justice 

Breyer identified but the Court as a whole has not yet taken a 

position on – are torture, genocide, crimes against humanity, and 

war crimes. Id. at 762 (Breyer, J., concurring). Because plaintiffs 

assert a torture claim – which is one of the Breyer four and at this 

point almost certainly has become a customary international law 

norm cognizable in ATS cases against state actors at least – 

plaintiffs’ suit satisfies that threshold requirement for an ATS 

claim. Cf. id. at 738 (dismissing suit because no cognizable 

customary international law norm alleged). For that reason, unlike 

in Sosa, we must consider the various other arguments raised by 

Exxon against plaintiffs’ ATS claim for torture. It seems doubtful, 

however, that the other two norms asserted by plaintiffs – 

extrajudicial killing and prolonged detention, which are not among 

the Blackstone three or the Breyer four – would be cognizable in an 

ATS suit against any defendant. Because the majority opinion is 

remanding the ATS suit to the District Court, it will be up to that 

court on remand to assess whether the ATS extends to claims for 

extrajudicial killing and prolonged detention. 

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 117 of 151
6 

I 

First, I would dismiss the ATS claims because the torts 

alleged here occurred in Indonesia and the ATS does not 

extend to conduct that occurred in foreign lands.3 

 3

 Somewhat surprisingly, no court of appeals has analyzed 

whether the ATS applies to conduct that took place in a foreign 

nation. In its recent opinion on ATS corporate liability, the Second 

Circuit expressly left this question open and suggested that it “very 

well could conclude that the ATS does not apply extraterritorially, 

and thus we would dismiss this and the vast majority of recent ATS 

suits on the ground that the violations of customary international 

law alleged by plaintiffs originated or took place in a foreign 

country.” Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., 621 F.3d 111, 143 

n.44 (2d Cir. 2010) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also id. 

at 117 n.10. One Ninth Circuit judge who has addressed the issue 

stated that the ATS should not apply to conduct that occurred on 

foreign land. See Sarei v. Rio Tinto, PLC, 625 F.3d 561, 563-64 

(9th Cir. 2010) (Kleinfeld, J., dissenting). In Sosa, the 

extraterritoriality issue was raised, but the Court did not reach it 

because the Court rejected the ATS claim on other grounds. Only 

Justice Breyer alluded to the extraterritoriality issue, and he did so 

only briefly. See Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, 542 U.S. 692, 761-63 

(2004) (Breyer, J., concurring). 

It is true that some courts of appeals, without any analysis of 

extraterritoriality, have permitted ATS suits even though the 

underlying tortious conduct occurred in foreign countries. See, e.g., 

Hilao v. Estate of Marcos, 25 F.3d 1467 (9th Cir. 1994); Filartiga 

v. Pena-Irala, 630 F.2d 876 (2d Cir. 1980). We are of course not 

bound by decisions of other courts of appeals. Moreover, those 

cases contain no judicial analysis of the extraterritoriality question 

and thus provide no persuasive arguments for accepting the 

extraterritorial application of the ATS. See Arizona Christian 

School Tuition Organization v. Winn, 131 S. Ct. 1436, 1448-49 

(2011) (conclusion assumed sub silentio in prior cases is not 

precedent). And the fact that some of those cases have been on the 

books for several years does not add materially to their persuasive 

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 118 of 151
7 

 It is a “longstanding principle of American law ‘that 

legislation of Congress, unless a contrary intent appears, is 

meant to apply only within the territorial jurisdiction of the 

United States.’” EEOC v. Arabian American Oil Co. 

(ARAMCO), 499 U.S. 244, 248 (1991) (quoting Foley Bros., 

Inc. v. Filardo, 336 U.S. 281, 285 (1949)). Because Congress 

“ordinarily legislates with respect to domestic, not foreign 

matters,” courts presume that statutes do not apply to conduct 

in foreign lands unless an “affirmative intention of the 

Congress clearly expressed” indicates otherwise. Morrison v. 

Nat’l Australia Bank Ltd., 130 S. Ct. 2869, 2877 (2010). 

The presumption against extraterritoriality “serves to 

protect against unintended clashes between our laws and those 

of other nations which could result in international discord.” 

ARAMCO, 499 U.S. at 248. The presumption avoids the 

“serious risk of interference with a foreign nation’s ability 

independently to regulate its own commercial affairs.” F. 

Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd. v. Empagran S.A., 542 U.S. 155, 

165 (2004). “Foreign conduct is generally the domain of 

foreign law,” and “courts should assume that legislators take 

account of the legitimate sovereign interests of other nations 

when they write American laws.” Microsoft Corp. v. AT & T, 

550 U.S. 437, 455 (2007) (internal quotation marks and 

alteration omitted). 

 The presumption against extraterritoriality is focused on 

the site of the conduct, not the identity of the defendant. See, 

e.g., Morrison, 130 S. Ct. at 2884 (the transactions that a 

 

force. See Milner v. Dep’t of the Navy, 131 S. Ct. 1259, 1268 

(2011) (“immaterial” that an incorrect doctrine “has been 

consistently relied upon and followed for 30 years” in the lower 

courts).

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 119 of 151
8 

statute “seeks to regulate” must occur domestically) (internal 

quotation marks omitted). That a defendant is a U.S. citizen 

thus does not mitigate the force of the presumption. In 

ARAMCO, for example, the Supreme Court held that Title VII 

did not regulate the foreign employment practices of two 

Delaware corporations. 499 U.S. at 247, 259. And in 

Morrison, the Supreme Court dismissed a securities suit 

against both foreign and U.S. corporations for misconduct in 

connection with securities traded on foreign exchanges. 130 

S. Ct. at 2875-76, 2888.4

 4

 The majority opinion cites Steele v. Bulova Watch Co., 344 

U.S. 280 (1952), and Pasquantino v. United States, 544 U.S. 349 

(2005), in claiming that “the calculus can change where a U.S. 

citizen is a cause of the harm.” Maj. Op. at 27-28. But the 

Supreme Court discussed both of those cases in ARAMCO and 

Morrison, and the Supreme Court’s analysis does not support the 

majority opinion’s use of those cases here. The Supreme Court 

determined that the presumption against extraterritoriality applied 

the same way in all four cases, and the defendant’s citizenship did 

not affect the extraterritoriality analysis. ARAMCO and Morrison

make crystal clear that the American identity of the defendant does 

not defeat the presumption against extraterritoriality. In Steele, 

moreover, the statute under consideration applied to “all commerce 

which may lawfully be regulated by Congress,” and that “express[] 

state[ment]” in the statutory text rebutted the presumption against 

extraterritoriality regardless of the identity of the defendant. See 

Morrison, 130 S. Ct. at 2886 n.11; ARAMCO, 499 U.S. at 252-53. 

In Pasquantino, the conduct at issue occurred entirely within the 

United States, and the Supreme Court therefore did not need to give 

the statute any extraterritorial effect – again, focusing on the 

defendant’s conduct, not his citizenship. See Morrison, 130 S. Ct. 

at 2887; Pasquantino, 544 U.S. at 371. 

The Supreme Court has also ruled that the presumption against 

extraterritoriality bars a suit based on foreign conduct even when a 

U.S. citizen defendant took some actions in the United States 

related to the foreign conduct. In ARAMCO, for example, the Title 

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 120 of 151
9 

That canon of construction is deeply rooted. In 1824, for 

example, the Supreme Court instructed that “however general 

and comprehensive the phrases used in our municipal laws 

may be, they must always be restricted in construction, to 

places and persons, upon whom the Legislature have authority 

and jurisdiction.” The Apollon, 22 U.S. 362, 370 (1824) 

(Story, J.); see also Rose v. Himely, 8 U.S. 241, 279 (1808) 

(Marshall, C.J.); Murray v. Schooner Charming Betsy, 6 U.S. 

64, 118 (1804) (Marshall, C.J). 

The canon remains to this day an essential part of the 

Supreme Court’s jurisprudence. The Court has invoked it 

repeatedly in recent years. See, e.g., Morrison, 130 S. Ct. at 

2877 (2010); Small v. United States, 544 U.S. 385, 388 

(2005); ARAMCO, 499 U.S. at 248 (1991). 

 In applying the presumption against extraterritoriality, we 

“look to see whether language in the [relevant Act] gives any 

indication of a congressional purpose to extend its coverage 

beyond places over which the United States has sovereignty 

or has some measure of legislative control.” ARAMCO, 499 

U.S. at 248 (alteration in original) (internal quotation marks 

omitted). “When a statute gives no clear indication of an 

 

VII defendant – who allegedly discriminated against an employee 

working in Saudi Arabia – originally hired that employee in 

Houston. 499 U.S. at 247. And in Morrison, the allegedly 

deceptive conduct – which affected securities transactions abroad – 

occurred in Florida. 130 S. Ct. at 2883-84. As the Morrison Court 

explained, “it is a rare case of prohibited extraterritorial application 

that lacks all contact with the territory of the United States. But the 

presumption against extraterritorial application would be a craven 

watchdog indeed if it retreated to its kennel whenever some

domestic activity is involved in the case.” Id. at 2884. 

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 121 of 151
10 

extraterritorial application, it has none.” Morrison, 130 S. Ct. 

at 2878. 

Here, the sparse text of the ATS does not support 

application of the law to conduct in foreign lands. The ATS 

refers to conduct committed in “violation of the law of nations 

or a treaty of the United States.” To be sure, such conduct 

can occur worldwide. But as the Supreme Court has 

explained, the mere fact that statutory language could 

plausibly apply to extraterritorial conduct does not suffice to 

overcome the presumption against extraterritoriality. 

Otherwise, most statutes, including most federal criminal 

laws, would apply extraterritorially and cover conduct 

occurring anywhere in the world. In Morrison and ARAMCO, 

the Supreme Court recognized that commonsense point and 

ruled that “broad jurisdictional language” and statutory 

references to acts occurring in “foreign commerce” did not 

suffice to overcome the presumption against 

extraterritoriality. See Morrison, 130 S. Ct. at 2882 

(interpreting § 10(b) of the Exchange Act); ARAMCO, 499 

U.S. at 251 (interpreting Title VII); see also Small, 544 U.S. 

at 389-91 (statutory phrase “convicted in any court” refers 

only to convictions in domestic courts). 

Nor does the ATS’s specific reference to alien plaintiffs 

establish that the statute applies extraterritorially. That 

language merely ensures that alien plaintiffs can sue under 

customary international law for injuries suffered within the 

United States. Similarly, in ARAMCO, the statute covered 

aliens, but the Supreme Court said the statute did not apply to 

extraterritorial conduct. See 499 U.S. at 255 (Title VII did not 

apply abroad although the statute protected aliens working in 

the United States). 

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 122 of 151
11 

 The ATS’s historical context likewise provides no basis 

for rebutting the presumption against extraterritoriality. 

Indeed, the ATS’s background provides affirmative evidence 

reinforcing the conclusion that the statute does not apply to 

conduct occurring in foreign countries. 

Under the Articles of Confederation, which were in effect 

from 1781 until the U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1788, the 

U.S. Government lacked authority to remedy or prevent 

violations of the law of nations. Two incidents during that 

period involving foreigners mistreated in the United States

highlighted the problem created by this legal vacuum. In the 

“Marbois Affair” of 1784, the Secretary of the French Legion, 

a French ambassador of sorts, was assaulted on a street in 

Philadelphia. See William R. Casto, The Federal Courts’ 

Protective Jurisdiction Over Torts Committed in Violation of 

the Law of Nations, 18 CONN. L. REV. 467, 491-92 (1986). 

And in 1787, a New York City constable entered the home of 

a Dutch ambassador and arrested one of the ambassador’s 

servants, violating the ambassador’s diplomatic privileges. 

See id. at 494. Both torts violated a customary international 

law norm – namely, infringements on the rights of 

ambassadors. Yet Congress was powerless to ensure redress 

for either violation of the law of nations. The impotence of 

the national government in turn generated conflict with 

foreign nations concerned that their citizens could not obtain 

legal redress for certain injuries suffered in the United States. 

See, e.g., Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, 542 U.S. 692, 717 n.11 

(2004). 

After ratification of the Constitution in 1788, the First 

Congress addressed this problem in 1789 by enacting the 

Alien Tort Statute, which was part of Section 9 of the 

Judiciary Act of 1789. See id. at 717. The statutory text 

allowed aliens to sue for torts committed in violation of the 

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 123 of 151
12 

law of nations or a U.S. treaty. The ATS’s primary purpose 

was to ensure federal redress for incidents like the two 

described above and thereby avoid unnecessary conflicts with 

foreign nations. See id. at 715-20. The First Congress was 

concerned about aliens who were injured in the United States 

in violation of customary international law, but who had no 

redress in federal court. But there is no evidence that 

Congress was concerned about remedying aliens’ injuries that 

occurred in foreign lands. And there is no particular reason 

that Congress would have been concerned about aliens injured 

in foreign lands. Remedies for such injuries could be 

provided, after all, by foreign sovereigns under their 

countries’ laws.5

 It would be very odd to think that the 

Congress of 1789 wanted to create a federal tort cause of 

action enforceable in U.S. court for, say, a Frenchman injured 

in London. 

The purpose and background of the ATS – avoiding 

conflict with foreign nations – thus reinforce the presumption 

against extraterritoriality. And modern ATS litigation further 

demonstrates the continuing vitality of the concerns that 

undergird the presumption. The goal of the presumption 

against extraterritoriality, like the goal of the ATS, is to avoid 

conflict with foreign nations. But recent ATS cases based on 

acts that occurred in foreign nations have often engendered

conflict with other sovereign nations, rather than avoided it. 

The Government of Indonesia, for example, has strenuously 

 5

 To be clear, the point here is not that plaintiffs must exhaust 

their remedies in foreign nations’ legal systems – here, Indonesia’s 

– before bringing claims under the ATS. Contra Maj. Op. at 25-26. 

Rather, the point here is that a foreign sovereign can decide whether 

and how to redress an injury that occurs within its territory. And 

that traditional understanding of sovereignty explains why 

Congress in 1789 would not choose to extend this U.S. tort law to 

conduct occurring in foreign lands. 

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 124 of 151
13 

and repeatedly objected to this lawsuit. The Government of 

South Africa complained for six years that an extraterritorial 

ATS case litigated in the Second Circuit interfered with the 

operation of its post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation 

Commission. See Sosa, 542 U.S. at 733 n.21. The Canadian 

government objected to an ATS suit brought against a 

Canadian corporation for conduct that occurred in Sudan, 

explaining that the suit interfered with Canada’s foreign 

relations. See Presbyterian Church of Sudan v. Talisman 

Energy, Inc., No. 01-9882, 2005 WL 2082846, at *1-2 

(S.D.N.Y. Aug. 30, 2005). The Government of Papua New 

Guinea objected for at least two years to an ATS suit against a 

mining corporation that operated on the island, complaining 

that the litigation had “potentially very serious social, 

economic, legal, political and security implications” for Papua 

New Guinea and would impair its relations with the United 

States. See Sarei v. Rio Tinto, 487 F.3d 1193, 1199 (9th Cir. 

2007), rev’d on unrelated grounds en banc, 550 F.3d 822 

(2008). And several other nations – including the United 

Kingdom, Switzerland, and Germany – have complained that 

the ATS improperly interferes with their rights to regulate 

their citizens and conduct in their own territory. See 

Developments in the Law: Extraterritoriality, 124 HARV. L.

REV. 1226, 1283 (2011).6 

This laundry list shows that something is palpably awry 

in the modern ATS litigation juggernaut. The problem stems 

in large part from extension of the ATS to conduct occurring 

in foreign lands. The presumption against extraterritoriality 

was designed, in part, to prevent such overreaching and 

 6

 That is not to say that foreign governments always have 

laudable motives when objecting. But that’s not the relevant issue. 

The ATS and the presumption against extraterritoriality were 

designed to avoid conflict with foreign nations, and modern ATS 

litigation has thwarted that purpose. 

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 125 of 151
14 

thereby avoid this kind of international discord. See 

ARAMCO, 499 U.S. at 248. As its history reveals, the ATS 

shared the same broad purpose. Stretching the ATS to cover 

conduct in other countries thus has managed to flout the 

purposes of both the ATS itself and the longstanding 

presumption against extraterritoriality. Courts may – and 

indeed, under binding Supreme Court precedent, must – 

adhere to and apply the settled presumption against 

extraterritoriality, and thereby avoid creating this kind of 

unnecessary international discord.7

 

To be sure, the interaction of the ATS and the 

presumption against extraterritoriality does raise one 

analytical wrinkle, although it’s not presented in this case: 

Does the ATS apply to conduct on the high seas – that is, 

conduct neither in the territory of the United States nor in the 

territory of a foreign country? I believe the better answer is 

yes, and that the presumption against extraterritoriality is 

overcome to that limited extent in ATS cases. The Supreme 

Court noted in Sosa that piracy was one of the three causes of 

action contemplated by the First Congress when it passed the 

ATS. 542 U.S. at 720. “[P]iracy, by the law of nations, is 

robbery upon the sea”; it cannot, as a definitional matter, 

occur on U.S. soil. United States v. Smith, 18 U.S. 153, 162 

(1820) (Story, J.). (The other two causes of action originally 

available under the ATS – offenses against ambassadors and 

violations of safe conducts – can occur in the United States.) 

Because we know that Congress intended the ATS to cover 

piracy and because piracy occurs on the high seas, it follows 

 7

 To the extent an individual commits an offense abroad and 

then flees to the United States as a fugitive from the foreign 

nation’s legal process, the traditional international relations tool to 

address that situation is extradition. At this point, of course, the 

United States has extradition treaties with most other nations of the 

world. See 18 U.S.C. §§ 3181-3196. 

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 126 of 151
15 

that Congress intended the ATS to apply to conduct on the 

high seas. 

Applying the ATS to conduct on the high seas does not 

pose the risk of conflicts with foreign nations that the 

presumption against extraterritoriality and the ATS itself were 

primarily designed to avoid. The high seas are 

jurisdictionally unique. They are “the common highway of all 

nations,” governed by no single sovereign. The Apollon, 22 

U.S. at 371. As a result, the high seas may fall within the 

jurisdiction of the federal courts even when foreign countries 

and foreign territorial waters do not. See, e.g., American 

Banana Co. v. United Fruit Co., 213 U.S. 347, 355-56 (1909) 

(“No doubt in regions subject to no sovereign, like the high 

seas, or to no law that civilized countries would recognize as 

adequate, such countries may treat some relations between 

their citizens as governed by their own law, and keep, to some 

extent, the old notion of personal sovereignty alive. They go 

further, at times, and declare that they will punish anyone, 

subject or not, who shall do certain things, if they can catch 

him, as in the case of pirates on the high seas.”) (internal 

citations omitted); The Apollon, 22 U.S. at 371 (distinguishing 

“foreign ports and territories” from “places where our 

jurisdiction is complete, . . . our own waters, or . . . the 

ocean”); Breach of Neutrality, 1 U.S. Op. Att’y Gen. 57, 58 

(1795) (crimes committed in foreign country “are not within 

the cognizance of our courts,” but “crimes committed on the 

high seas are within the jurisdiction of the district and circuit 

courts of the United States”). 

That distinction between foreign lands and the high seas 

makes good sense, particularly as applied to the ATS. 

Tortious conduct that occurs in a foreign nation’s territory is 

regulated by the foreign sovereign. Tortious conduct on the 

high seas, by contrast, is regulated by no nation in particular. 

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 127 of 151
16 

See Smith, 18 U.S. at 162 (describing “the general practice of 

all nations in punishing all persons, whether natives or 

foreigners, who have committed [piracy] against any persons 

whatsoever, with whom they are in amity”). Although the 

United States risks offending foreign nations by regulating 

conduct occurring in those foreign countries, it performs 

something of an international public service by supplying a 

customary international law cause of action in federal court 

against illegal conduct on the high seas. Cf. The Marianna 

Flora, 24 U.S. 1, 40 (1825) (pirates “are, in truth, the 

common enemies of all mankind”) (Story, J.). The ATS, 

designed to smooth and improve the United States’ relations 

with foreign nations, thus quite sensibly may be interpreted to 

extend to conduct on the high seas but not to conduct in 

foreign countries.8

 

 8

 The central point here is that piracy typically occurs on the 

high seas, not in a nation’s territory. Moreover, extending a cause 

of action to conduct on the high seas poses no risk of conflict with 

foreign nations. It follows that applying the ATS to conduct on the 

high seas is consistent with the goals of the ATS and the 

presumption against extraterritoriality. The majority opinion says 

that persons could aid or instigate piracy from foreign land or 

commit piracy in foreign territorial waters. See Maj. Op. at 15, 17 

n.7, 22 & n.10. The majority opinion reasons that the ATS thus 

must extend to conduct on foreign land. In my view, such a 

theoretical possibility is far too thin a reed to overcome the 

presumption against extraterritoriality and extend the ATS to 

conduct on foreign land. “Characteristically [piracy] has been 

regarded as an offence of the open seas,” not in a nation’s territory. 

Edwin D. Dickinson, Is the Crime of Piracy Obsolete?, 38 HARV.

L. REV. 334, 336-37 (1925); see, e.g., U.S. CONST. art. I, § 8 

(“Congress shall have Power . . . To define and punish Piracies and 

Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law 

of Nations”); 4 WILLIAM BLACKSTONE, COMMENTARIES *72 (“The 

offence of piracy, by common law, consists in committing those 

acts of robbery and depredation upon the high seas, which, if 

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 128 of 151
17 

Early cases mentioning the ATS, though few in number, 

confirm that the statute applies to conduct in the United States 

or on the high seas, but not to conduct in foreign nations. In 

the decade after the ATS’s passage, the two reported cases 

that discussed the statute dealt with conduct that occurred in 

the United States or on the high seas. See Bolchos v. Darrel, 

3 F. Cas. 810 (No. 1,607) (D.S.C. 1795) (ATS provides 

jurisdiction when wrongful seizure occurred at U.S. port and 

“original cause arose at sea”); Moxon v. The Fanny, 17 F. 

Cas. 942, 948 (No. 9,895) (D. Pa. 1793) (owners of British 

ship sought damages for its seizure in U.S. waters by a French 

privateer; ATS does not apply because suit was not “for a tort 

only”). 

Attorney General Bradford’s 1795 opinion about an 

incident in Sierra Leone also supports this distinction between 

(i) conduct in the United States or on the high seas and (ii) 

conduct in foreign lands. The Bradford opinion considered 

whether the United States could criminally prosecute an 

 

committed upon land, would have amounted to felony there.”); 

Sosa, 542 U.S. at 719 (“Consider, too, that the First Congress was 

attentive enough to the law of nations to recognize certain offenses 

expressly as criminal, including the three mentioned by Blackstone. 

See An Act for the Punishment of Certain Crimes Against the 

United States, § 8, 1 Stat. 113-114 (murder or robbery, or other 

capital crimes, punishable as piracy if committed on the high seas) . 

. . .”) (emphasis added); id. at 749 (Scalia, J., concurring) (“That 

portion of the general common law known as the law of nations 

was understood to refer to the accepted practices of nations in their 

dealings with one another (treatment of ambassadors, immunity of 

foreign sovereigns from suit, etc.) and with actors on the high seas 

hostile to all nations and beyond all their territorial jurisdictions 

(pirates).”) (emphasis added).

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 129 of 151
18 

individual for acts committed on the high seas and in Sierra 

Leone. The opinion also mentioned civil liability under the 

ATS. The opinion is best read to say that the ATS applies to 

conduct in the United States or on the high seas. It does not 

say that the ATS extends to conduct in foreign lands. 

Because the opinion’s meaning has been the subject of some 

debate in ATS cases, compare Maj. Op. at 19-21, with Kiobel 

v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., 621 F.3d 111, 142 n.44 (2d 

Cir. 2010), I reproduce the relevant portion in its entirety 

here: 

So far, therefore, as the transactions complained of 

originated or took place in a foreign country, they are 

not within the cognizance of our courts; nor can the 

actors be legally prosecuted or punished for them by the 

United States. But crimes committed on the high seas

are within the jurisdiction of the district and circuit 

courts of the United States; and, so far as the offence 

was committed thereon, I am inclined to think that it 

may be legally prosecuted in either of those courts, in 

any district wherein the offenders may be found. But 

some doubt rests on this point, in consequence of the 

terms in which the ‘Act in addition to the act for the 

punishment of certain crimes against the United States’ 

[the Neutrality Act of 1794] is expressed. But there can 

be no doubt that the company or individuals who have 

been injured by these acts of hostility have a remedy by 

a civil [ATS] suit in the courts of the United States; 

jurisdiction being expressly given to these courts in all 

cases where an alien sues for a tort only, in violation of 

the laws of nations, or a treaty of the United States; and 

as such a suit may be maintained by evidence taken at a 

distance, on a commission issued for that purpose, the 

difficulty of obtaining redress would not be so great as 

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 130 of 151
19 

in a criminal prosecution, where viva voce testimony 

alone can be received as legal proof. 

1 U.S. Op. Att’y Gen. at 58-59 (first and second emphases 

added). When the Bradford opinion finally mentions the 

ATS, it is focused on acts “committed on the high seas,” not 

on acts that occurred in a foreign country. The Second Circuit 

recently analyzed the Bradford opinion and reached the same 

conclusion: “Attorney General Bradford circumscribes his 

opinion, appearing to conclude that the Company could not

bring suit for the actions taken by the Americans in a foreign 

country, but rather, could sue only for the actions taken by the 

Americans on the high seas.” Kiobel, 621 F.3d at 142 n.44 

(internal quotation marks omitted). To the extent an opinion 

of one Attorney General matters to judicial interpretation of 

the ATS, the Bradford opinion supports the view that the ATS 

applies to conduct in U.S. territory and on the high seas, but it 

does not support the conclusion that the ATS extends to 

conduct in foreign countries. 

 In sum, the presumption against extraterritoriality bars 

ATS suits based on conduct in foreign lands. The ATS 

contains no “indication of a congressional purpose to extend 

its coverage” to conduct occurring in foreign lands. 

ARAMCO, 499 U.S. at 248. And the ATS’s history provides 

affirmative evidence supporting its limited geographic scope. 

The First Congress was, for good reason, primarily concerned 

about torts against aliens that occurred within the United 

States and on the high seas. Extending the ATS to conduct 

that occurs in foreign countries not only violates the 

presumption against extraterritoriality, but runs counter to the 

ATS’s broad purpose of avoiding conflict with foreign 

nations. Applying the bedrock presumption against 

extraterritoriality would alleviate the serious discord with 

foreign nations that has arisen in recent years as courts have 

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 131 of 151
20 

extended the ATS to conduct occurring in foreign lands. I 

would dismiss plaintiffs’ ATS claims – which are based on 

conduct that occurred in Indonesia – because the ATS does 

not apply to conduct that occurred within a foreign country. 

II 

Second, and in the alternative, I would dismiss plaintiffs’ 

ATS claims because the ATS does not apply to claims against 

corporations. In cases such as this where no U.S. treaty is 

involved, claims under the ATS are defined and limited by 

customary international law, and customary international law 

does not extend liability to corporations. 

The ATS allows alien plaintiffs to bring tort claims for 

violations of customary international law norms that are 

“accepted by the civilized world and defined with a specificity 

comparable to” the three original norms thought to be 

cognizable under the ATS: offenses against ambassadors, 

violations of safe conducts, and piracy. Sosa v. AlvarezMachain, 542 U.S. 692, 725 (2004). As the Supreme Court 

directed: “Whatever the ultimate criteria for accepting a cause 

of action subject to jurisdiction” under the ATS, “federal 

courts should not recognize private claims under federal 

common law for violations of any international law norm with 

less definite content and acceptance among civilized nations 

than the historical paradigms [offenses against ambassadors, 

violations of safe conducts, and piracy] familiar when [the 

ATS] was enacted.” Id. at 732. The Court emphasized that 

courts must exercise “great caution” and “vigilant 

doorkeeping” in ATS cases. Id. at 728-29. 

The Supreme Court has said that we look to customary 

international law not only for the substantive content of the 

tort but also for the categories of defendants who may be sued. 

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 132 of 151
21 

Id. at 732 n.20. This is done “on a norm-specific basis.” Ali 

Shafi v. Palestinian Authority, No. 10-7024, slip op. at 14 

(D.C. Cir. June 14, 2011); see also Tel-Oren v. Libyan Arab 

Republic, 726 F.2d 774, 791-95 (D.C. Cir. 1984) (Edwards, J., 

concurring). 

In particular, the Court in Sosa stated that customary 

international law determines whether only state actors may be 

liable for violating a customary international law norm (as 

was the traditional approach), or whether private actors such 

as corporations or private individuals also may be liable for 

violating a given norm. As the Court explained, whether an 

ATS claim can be brought against a corporation or a private 

individual depends on “whether international law extends the 

scope of liability for a violation of a given norm to the 

perpetrator being sued, if the defendant is a private actor such 

as a corporation or individual.” 542 U.S. at 732 n.20 

(emphasis added). Later in the opinion, the Court underscored 

that customary international law defines who can be sued; the 

Court said that the plaintiff in Sosa needed to show that the 

defendant “was acting on behalf of a government” when he 

allegedly violated a norm, for otherwise the plaintiff “would 

need a rule broader still” to establish ATS liability. Id. at 737 

(emphasis added). Like footnote 20, that later sentence in 

Sosa indicated quite clearly that customary international law 

answers the question of who may be sued in ATS cases. 

Justice Breyer reiterated the same point in his Sosa 

concurrence: To qualify for recognition under the ATS, a 

norm of international law “must extend liability to the type of 

perpetrator (e.g., a private actor) the plaintiff seeks to sue.” 

Id. at 760 (Breyer, J., concurring). 

The Supreme Court has thus required that we look to 

customary international law to determine what categories of 

defendants can be liable for violating a particular norm. See 

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 133 of 151
22 

Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum, 621 F.3d 111, 127-28 (2d 

Cir. 2010). As applied to this case, Sosa requires us to 

determine “whether international law extends the scope of 

liability” for aiding and abetting torture, extrajudicial killing, 

and prolonged detention “to the perpetrator being sued” – 

here, a corporation. Sosa, 542 U.S. at 732 n.20. 

To support an ATS claim against a corporation, it would 

not be sufficient to show that customary international law 

prohibits torture, extrajudicial killing, and prolonged detention 

when committed by state actors. It likewise would not be 

sufficient to show that customary international law recognizes 

corporate liability for some violations, but not for aiding and 

abetting torture, extrajudicial killing, and prolonged detention. 

Rather, for plaintiffs to maintain their claims, customary 

international law must impose liability against corporations 

for aiding and abetting torture, extrajudicial killing, or 

prolonged detention.9

 It does not. In fact, customary 

 9

 Because customary international law governs this issue, 

foreign nations’ domestic laws are not relevant here, contrary to a 

suggestion in the majority opinion. See Maj. Op. at 78-80. “[T]he 

fact that a legal norm is found in most or even all ‘civilized nations’ 

does not make that norm a part of customary international law.” 

Kiobel, 621 F.3d at 118. “[T]hat corporate criminal liability has 

recently obtained greater acceptance in Europe – although 

interesting as a matter of comparative law – does not demonstrate 

that corporate liability has attained the status of a norm of 

customary international law.” Id. at 141 n.43 (citing Filartiga v. 

Pena-Irala, 630 F.2d 876, 888 (2d Cir. 1980), for the proposition 

that customary international law consists of norms that are ‘‘of 

mutual, and not merely several, concern’’) (internal citations 

omitted). The Supreme Court itself underscored this point in Sosa, 

holding that a claim for arbitrary detention was not cognizable 

under the ATS even though the alleged detention was illegal under 

Mexican law. Sosa, 542 U.S. at 736-37; see also id. at 737 n.28 

(“Sosa might well have been liable under Mexican law”). In any 

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 134 of 151
23 

international law does not impose liability against 

corporations at all. 

Customary international law generally extends liability to 

states, as well as to individuals who act under color of state 

law or aid and abet states. For most customary international 

law norms, customary international law does not extend 

liability to individuals who act independently of state 

involvement. (Piracy is a prominent exception; customary 

international law imposes liability on private individuals for 

piracy.) Most importantly for present purposes, customary 

international law does not extend liability to corporations. As 

the Second Circuit accurately stated, “[t]he concept of 

corporate liability for violations of customary international 

law has not achieved universal recognition or acceptance as a 

norm in the relations of States with each other.” Kiobel, 621 

F.3d at 149; see also id. at 186 (Leval, J., concurring) (“It is 

true that international law, of its own force, imposes no 

liabilities on corporations or other private juridical entities.”). 

A brief review of customary international law 

convincingly demonstrates that, as the Second Circuit 

concluded, there is no corporate liability in customary 

international law, much less corporate liability for violations 

of the norms alleged here. 

 

event, there is no consensus in foreign nations’ legal systems that 

corporations can be liable for violations of the kind alleged here. 

See Report of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General 

on the Issue of Human Rights and Transnational Corporations and 

Other Business Enterprises ¶ 34, U.N. Doc. A/HRC/4/35 (Feb. 19, 

2007) (“At national levels, there is enormous diversity in the scope 

and content of corporate legal responsibilities regarding human 

rights.”). 

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 135 of 151
24 

Traditionally, legal rights and duties under international 

law applied primarily to sovereign states. See 1 

RESTATEMENT (THIRD) OF THE FOREIGN RELATIONS LAW OF 

THE UNITED STATES § 101 (1987) (Reporters’ Notes). The 

Nuremberg trials following World War II “for the first time 

made explicit and unambiguous” that “individuals are 

responsible” for the commission of international crimes. 

Robert H. Jackson, Final Report to the President Concerning 

the Nurnberg War Crimes Trial, reprinted in 20 TEMP. L.Q. 

338, 342 (1946). No corporations were charged or convicted 

in the Nuremberg trials, however, even though many 

corporate executives were individually tried. See Jonathan A. 

Bush, The Prehistory of Corporations and Conspiracy in 

International Criminal Law: What Nuremberg Really Said, 

109 COLUM. L. REV. 1094, 1098 (2009). Although numerous 

executives of the German company I.G. Farben were charged 

at the U.S. military tribunal, the Tribunal stated that “the 

corporate defendant, Farben, is not before the bar of this 

Tribunal and cannot be subjected to criminal penalties in these 

proceedings” because “corporations act through individuals.” 

8 TRIALS OF WAR CRIMINALS BEFORE THE NUERNBERG 

MILITARY TRIBUNALS UNDER CONTROL COUNCIL LAW NO. 10 

1153 (1952). Indeed, the London Charter, which established 

the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, provided 

jurisdiction for the tribunal to “try and punish” only 

“individuals or . . . members of organizations.” Agreement 

for the Prosecution and Punishment of the Major War 

Criminals of the European Axis art. 6, Aug. 8, 1945, 59 Stat. 

1544, 82 U.N.T.S. 280; see also id. art. 9-10 (Tribunal may 

declare that “the group or organization of which the individual 

was a member was a criminal organization,” which 

designation may serve as proof in a subsequent trial of an 

individual “for membership therein.”). 

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 136 of 151
25 

Every international tribunal since Nuremberg that has 

enforced customary international law has followed this path, 

extending liability to individuals but not to corporations. To 

take the most prominent examples, the International Criminal 

Tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia have 

jurisdiction only over “natural persons.” See Kiobel, 621 F.3d 

at 136. 

A recent U.N. Report noted the “absence of an 

international accountability mechanism” for corporate 

conduct. Report of the Special Representative of the 

Secretary-General on the Issue of Human Rights and 

Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises 

¶ 21, U.N. Doc. A/HRC/4/35 (Feb. 19, 2007). The U.N. 

Report concluded that “States have been unwilling to adopt 

binding international human rights standards for 

corporations.” Id. ¶ 44. As a result, “[b]efore the current 

round of cases in U.S. courts, no corporation had ever been 

charged with or convicted for an international war crime or 

similar offense.” Bush, Prehistory of Corporations at 1098. 

The Second Circuit recently summarized the state of the 

law this way: 

Looking to international law, we find a jurisprudence, 

first set forth in Nuremberg and repeated by every 

international tribunal of which we are aware, that 

offenses against the law of nations (i.e., customary 

international law) for violations of human rights can be 

charged against States and against individual men and 

women but not against juridical persons such as 

corporations. As a result, although customary 

international law has sometimes extended the scope of 

liability for a violation of a given norm to individuals, it 

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 137 of 151
26 

has never extended the scope of liability to a 

corporation. 

Kiobel, 621 F.3d at 120. 

In short, the content of an ATS claim is governed by 

customary international law, and customary international law 

does not provide liability against corporations for torture, 

extrajudicial killing, or prolonged detention (or aiding and 

abetting thereof). Even assuming that there were hints in 

customary international law of corporate liability for certain 

customary international law violations, it surely cannot be said 

that corporate liability for the norms alleged in this case has 

been established with the specificity and widespread 

acceptance required by Sosa for ATS cases.10 

Plaintiffs agree that customary international law does not 

extend liability to certain categories of defendants. Plaintiffs 

acknowledge, for example, that customary international law, 

except with respect to certain norms such as piracy, does not 

 10 Although it does not explain the relevance of this point to its 

analysis or conclusion in this case, the majority opinion says in 

passing that the “law of nations” referred to in the ATS is distinct 

from customary international law. See Maj. Op. at 43 n.23. But 

courts and leading scholars equate the two terms. See, e.g., Curtis 

A. Bradley, State Action and Corporate Human Rights Liability, 85 

NOTRE DAME L. REV. 1823, 1824 (2010) (“For a variety of reasons, 

the alleged international law violation in ATS cases is almost 

always a violation of the ‘law of nations,’ also known today as 

‘customary international law,’ rather than a violation of a treaty.”); 

William A. Fletcher, Congressional Power Over the Jurisdiction of 

Federal Courts: The Meaning of the Word “All” in Article III, 59 

DUKE L.J. 929, 944 (2010) (“The law of nations was what we today 

call customary international law.”). The substance and relevance of 

footnote 23 of the majority opinion are thus somewhat unclear. 

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 138 of 151
27 

impose liability on private individuals who act independently 

of state involvement. And plaintiffs recognize that when 

customary international law does not extend liability to private 

individual defendants for violations of a given norm, U.S. 

courts cannot allow ATS suits against private individual 

defendants for violations of that customary international law 

norm. 

Despite acknowledging that we should follow customary 

international law in determining when private parties may be 

liable in ATS cases for violations of a given norm, plaintiffs 

say we should not follow customary international law in 

determining whether one particular category of private parties 

– corporations – may be liable in ATS cases. Rather, 

plaintiffs say that, notwithstanding the clear limits of 

customary international law, we should feel free to fashion a 

broader federal common-law rule allowing liability against 

corporations in ATS cases. 

Plaintiffs’ position frankly makes little sense. Either 

customary international law determines which categories of 

defendants may be liable under the ATS, or it does not. In 

Sosa, the Supreme Court resolved that question. The Court 

stated that customary international law does in fact determine 

which categories of defendants may be liable in ATS cases on 

a norm-by-norm basis. See 542 U.S. at 732 n.20, 737. Our 

Court has said the same. See Ali Shafi, No. 10-7024, slip op. 

at 13-14; Tel-Oren, 726 F.2d at 791-95 (Edwards, J., 

concurring). Applying that principle here should not be 

complicated – other than for the inconvenient fact that it does 

not lead to plaintiffs’ desired result with respect to corporate 

liability. 

The approach of plaintiffs and the majority opinion 

produces a very odd result: A defendant who would not be 

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 139 of 151
28 

liable in an international tribunal for violation of a particular 

customary international law norm nonetheless may be liable in 

a U.S. court in an ATS suit for violation of that customary 

international law norm. In light of Sosa’s direction, I agree 

with the Second Circuit that such a result is simply 

“inconceivable.” Kiobel, 621 F.3d at 122. 

In sum, customary international law does not provide 

corporate liability for aiding and abetting torture, extrajudicial 

killing, or prolonged detention. Therefore, plaintiffs cannot 

maintain their ATS claims against Exxon, a corporation. 

 

III 

 

Third, and also in the alternative, even if customary 

international law established corporate liability for aiding and 

abetting torture and extrajudicial killing, we still should not 

allow plaintiffs’ ATS claims for those violations to go forward 

because doing so would be incongruous with the Torture 

Victim Protection Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1350 note.11

In 1992, Congress passed and President Bush signed the 

Torture Victim Protection Act. That Act supplies a civil cause 

of action to American citizens, as well as aliens, for torture 

and extrajudicial killing. Americans can sue under the TVPA, 

just as aliens can sue under the ATS. But the TVPA does not 

provide for corporate liability, and it does not provide for 

aiding and abetting liability. As I will explain, because the 

 11 The majority opinion asserts that Exxon forfeited this claim. 

See Maj. Op. at 83 n.45. But Exxon devoted a page in the text of its 

brief to arguing that “[i]t would be wholly improper for courts to 

create a federal common-law cause of action under the ATS 

broader than the directly analogous action established by 

Congress,” the TVPA. Exxon Br. at 31-32. I address that argument 

here. 

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 140 of 151
29 

TVPA does not provide for corporate liability or aiding and 

abetting liability in suits by U.S. citizens, we should interpret 

the ATS likewise not to provide for corporate liability or 

aiding and abetting liability in analogous suits by aliens.

12 

Why should we pay attention to the limits in the TVPA’s 

causes of action for torture and extrajudicial killing when 

fashioning the contours of ATS causes of action for torture 

and extrajudicial killing? Recall that customary international 

law is notoriously vague and somewhat ill-defined. There is 

no book or code that tells us the content of customary 

international law; indeed, it is often unclear who is even 

making customary international law. Modern customary 

international law thus sometimes has a make-it-up-as-you-goalong feel to it. See Curtis A. Bradley & Jack L. Goldsmith, 

Customary International Law as Federal Common Law: A 

Critique of the Modern Position, 110 HARV. L. REV. 815, 839-

41 (1997) (describing the numerous sources and rapidly 

changing content of customary international law). Indeed, 

even back at the Constitutional Convention, Gouverneur 

Morris noted that international law principles were “often too 

vague and deficient to be a rule” without implementing 

legislation by the Congress. 2 THE RECORDS OF THE FEDERAL 

CONVENTION OF 1787, at 615 (Max Farrand ed., rev. ed. 

1937). That reality poses difficulty for U.S. courts trying to 

figure out the content of customary international law for 

purposes of an ATS suit. And that difficulty in turn poses a 

risk that courts will be left with little more than their own 

policy preferences when determining the scope of an 

ATS/customary international law claim. 

 12 As an alternative to their aiding and abetting claim, plaintiffs 

have also asserted that Exxon acted under color of Indonesian law 

and was, in effect, a state actor. However, plaintiffs have failed to 

argue that Exxon acted under color of law as defined by customary 

international law. 

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 141 of 151
30 

All of this is good reason for judicial restraint in ATS 

cases. Indeed, in Sosa, the Supreme Court emphasized the 

paramount need for judicial restraint, “great caution,” and 

“vigilant doorkeeping” in ATS cases, and the Court outlined 

several principles of restraint that must guide the Judiciary. 

See Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, 542 U.S. 692, 725-33 (2004). 

For example, as discussed above in Part II of this opinion, the 

Court insisted that the Judiciary recognize only those 

customary international law norms that are sufficiently 

definite and widely accepted. 

Relevant to the present discussion, the Court also 

emphasized that courts should “look for legislative guidance 

before exercising innovative authority over substantive law” 

in ATS cases. Id. at 726. The Court pointed out that 

Congress by direct or indirect command may scale back 

customary international law norms otherwise cognizable in 

ATS cases. See id. at 731 (Congress may “shut the door to the 

law of nations” either “explicitly, or implicitly by treaties or 

statutes that occupy the field”); see also id. at 760 (Breyer, J., 

concurring) (“Congress can make clear that courts should not 

recognize any such norm, through a direct or indirect 

command or by occupying the field”). 

What this means is that plaintiffs in ATS cases must pass 

through two filters with respect to the substance of their 

claims. First, they must show that their alleged claim against 

the defendant is firmly grounded in customary international 

law. Second, they also must show that Congress has not cast 

doubt on their asserted ATS claim by direct or indirect 

command. 

In my view, Sosa’s emphasis on judicial restraint and on 

the role of Congress dictates the following interpretive 

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 142 of 151
31 

principle in ATS cases: When Congress has enacted a statute 

that gives U.S. citizens a cause of action for tortious conduct 

that is also a violation of customary international law, then the 

statutory limits on U.S. citizens’ recovery under that statute 

should presumptively apply to aliens’ recovery under the ATS 

as well. That interpretive principle avoids the bizarre result 

that would ensue if aliens – but not U.S. citizens – could bring 

suit in U.S. court for the same injuries caused by the same 

defendants. 

Applying this Sosa-based interpretive principle, 

corporations should not be liable in ATS cases based on 

alleged torture or extrajudicial killing. The Torture Victim 

Protection Act authorizes “a civil action for recovery of 

damages from an individual who engages in torture or 

extrajudicial killing” and who acts “under actual or apparent 

authority, or color of law, of any foreign nation.” Pub. L. No. 

102-256, 106 Stat. 73 (1992) (codified at 28 U.S.C. § 1350, 

note) (emphasis added). As this Court recently held, the 

TVPA’s text and structure establish that corporations are not

proper defendants in TVPA suits. Mohamad v. Rajoub, 634 

F.3d 604, 607-08 (D.C. Cir. 2011); see also Bowoto v. 

Chevron Corp., 621 F.3d 1116 (9th Cir. 2010). The word 

“individual” in the TVPA carries “its ordinary meaning,” 

which “encompasses only natural persons and not 

corporations or other organizations.” Mohamad, 634 F.3d at 

607; see also 1 U.S.C. § 1 (Dictionary Act) (the word 

“person” includes “corporations, companies, associations, 

firms, partnerships, societies, . . . as well as individuals”) 

(emphasis added). 

 Under the Sosa-based interpretive principle, plaintiffs’ 

ATS claims for torture and extrajudicial killing are barred not 

just because the TVPA provides no corporate liability, but 

also because the TVPA provides no aiding and abetting 

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 143 of 151
32 

liability. Plaintiffs are suing Exxon under an aiding and 

abetting theory. But the text of the TVPA does not provide 

for aiding and abetting liability, and the Supreme Court has 

made crystal clear that there can be no civil aiding and 

abetting liability unless Congress expressly provides for it. 

See Central Bank of Denver, N.A. v. First Interstate Bank of 

Denver, N.A., 511 U.S. 164 (1994). Because liability for 

aiding and abetting torture and extrajudicial killing does not 

exist under the TVPA, courts should not allow liability for 

aiding and abetting torture and extrajudicial killing under the 

ATS. 

 

To be clear, the TVPA does not alter or affect the 

contours of ATS suits based on customary international law 

norms other than torture and extrajudicial killing. See Sosa, 

542 U.S. at 728. The TVPA was not intended to generally 

preempt or displace all ATS suits. See id. (TVPA’s 

“legislative history includes the remark that [the ATS] should 

‘remain intact to permit suits based on other norms that 

already exist or may ripen in the future into rules of customary 

international law’”) (quoting H.R. Rep. No. 102-367, pt. 1, p. 

4 (1991)). But the TVPA does reflect a specific congressional 

decision about when and under what circumstances U.S. 

citizens (and aliens) may sue for torture and extrajudicial 

killing. It would be odd and incongruous to disregard those 

limits in defining when aliens may sue for torture and 

extrajudicial killing under the ATS. Put simply, Sosa told 

courts in ATS cases to look to Congress for guidance, and 

Congress has specifically delineated what limits should attach 

to civil suits for torture and extrajudicial killing. Consistent 

with that direction in Sosa, we should follow the TVPA when 

fashioning the contours of the famously vague ATS. And it 

makes eminent sense to fashion the ATS so that aliens cannot 

recover in U.S. court for torture and extrajudicial killing in 

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 144 of 151
33 

circumstances where U.S. citizens could not recover in U.S. 

court for torture and extrajudicial killing.13 

The majority opinion discounts the relevance of the 

TVPA to our analysis here. By doing so, however, the 

majority opinion produces the rather bizarre outcome that 

aliens may sue corporations in U.S. courts for aiding and 

abetting torture and extrajudicial killing, but U.S. citizens may

not sue U.S. corporations for aiding and abetting torture and 

extrajudicial killing. In my view, it is implausible to think 

that Congress intended such a discrepancy. And it is 

inconsistent with Sosa to enshrine such a discrepancy into 

ATS case law. Because the TVPA does not provide corporate 

liability or aiding and abetting liability for torture and 

extrajudicial killing, the ATS likewise does not provide 

corporate liability or aiding and abetting liability for torture 

and extrajudicial killing.14 

 13 The TVPA was not redundant with the ATS for at least three 

reasons. First, the TVPA gives a cause of action to U.S. citizens 

and aliens, not just to aliens. Second, the TVPA supplies a cause of 

action for extrajudicial killing, which is likely not a cognizable 

customary international law violation in ATS cases because it is not 

one of the Blackstone three or the Breyer four. See supra note 2. 

Third, at the time the TVPA was enacted in 1992, it was unclear 

whether any causes of action could be asserted under the ATS 

without further congressional action. See, e.g., Tel-Oren v. Libyan 

Arab Republic, 726 F.2d 774 (D.C. Cir. 1984) (disagreement 

between Judges Edwards and Bork on this issue). The TVPA 

eliminated some uncertainty by definitively establishing causes of 

action for torture and extrajudicial killing. 

14 The TVPA provides a cause of action for torture and 

extrajudicial killing. The analysis in this section thus precludes 

plaintiffs’ ATS claims based on those two asserted customary 

international law norms. Plaintiffs also claim a third alleged 

customary international law norm – prolonged detention. The 

TVPA does not speak to prolonged detention or put limits on it. 

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 145 of 151
34 

 

IV 

Fourth, and again in the alternative, I would affirm the 

District Court’s dismissal of plaintiffs’ ATS claims because 

the Executive Branch has reasonably explained that 

adjudicating those ATS claims would harm U.S. foreign 

policy interests. 

 In Sosa, as noted above, the Supreme Court emphasized 

that lower courts must exercise judicial restraint in ATS cases. 

Part of that restraint, the Court said, is “a policy of casespecific deference to the political branches” that applies in 

cases touching on the foreign relations of the United States. 

Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, 542 U.S. 692, 733 n.21 (2004). In 

“such cases,” the Court instructed, “there is a strong argument 

that federal courts should give serious weight to the Executive 

Branch’s view of the case’s impact on foreign policy.” Id.; 

see also id. at 760-61 (Breyer, J., concurring) (“courts should 

give ‘serious weight’ to the Executive Branch’s view of the 

impact on foreign policy that permitting an ATS suit will 

likely have in a given case or type of case”). The Court added 

that courts considering ATS cases should be “particularly 

wary of impinging on the discretion of the Legislative and 

Executive Branches in managing foreign affairs.” Id. at 727. 

The judicial restraint dictated by Sosa footnote 21 means 

the following: When the Executive Branch reasonably 

 

But that alleged norm is not one of the Blackstone three or the 

Breyer four, and thus is not likely a customary international law 

norm cognizable in ATS cases. The prolonged detention claim thus 

likely fails at the threshold, as did the asserted arbitrary detention 

norm in Sosa itself. See supra note 2. In any event, the prolonged 

detention claim fails for any of the other three alternative reasons 

set forth in Parts I, II, and IV of this opinion. 

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 146 of 151
35 

explains that adjudication of a particular lawsuit would 

adversely affect U.S. foreign policy interests, the court should 

dismiss the lawsuit. See id. at 733 n.21; cf. Republic of 

Austria v. Altmann, 541 U.S. 677, 702 (2004) (“[S]hould the 

State Department choose to express its opinion on the 

implications of exercising jurisdiction over particular

petitioners in connection with their alleged conduct, that 

opinion might well be entitled to deference as the considered 

judgment of the Executive on a particular question of foreign 

policy.”); Crosby v. Nat’l Foreign Trade Council, 530 U.S. 

363, 386 (2000) (regarding state legislation regulating foreign 

commerce with Burma: “[R]epeated representations by the 

Executive Branch supported by formal diplomatic protests and 

concrete disputes are more than sufficient to demonstrate that 

the state Act stands in the way of Congress’s diplomatic 

objectives.”); Hwang Geum Joo v. Japan, 413 F.3d 45, 52 

(D.C. Cir. 2005) (“The Executive’s judgment that adjudication 

by a domestic court would be inimical to the foreign policy 

interests of the United States is compelling and renders this 

case nonjusticiable under the political question doctrine.”). 

The theory behind Sosa footnote 21 is straightforward. 

Congress created a tort cause of action for aliens based on 

customary international law, a kind of international common 

law. Congress did so in order to benefit America’s foreign 

relations. But if an ATS suit would harm the Nation’s foreign 

relations – as assessed and explained by the Department of 

State or Department of Justice as representative of the 

President of the United States – then the courts have no 

business ignoring that statement of interest, thereby 

threatening the Nation’s foreign relations and thwarting 

Congress’s intent in the ATS. 

 Plaintiffs’ case against Exxon has been pending for a 

decade, and the Executive Branch has repeatedly expressed its 

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 147 of 151
36 

views on the ATS claims. The Executive has reasonably and 

consistently stated that adjudication of plaintiffs’ ATS claims 

would harm U.S. foreign policy interests. 

In July 2002, the State Department filed a statement of 

interest with the District Court stating that this case would 

interfere with the U.S. Government’s foreign policy goals. 

That letter explained: 

[T]he Department of State believes that adjudication 

of this lawsuit at this time would in fact risk a potentially 

serious adverse impact on significant interests of the 

United States, including interests related directly to the 

on-going struggle against international terrorism. It may 

also diminish our ability to work with the Government 

of Indonesia (“GOI”) on a variety of important 

programs, including efforts to promote human rights in 

Indonesia. 

. . . . 

 With respect to this litigation, it is the Department’s 

considered opinion that adjudication at this time could 

adversely affect United States interests in two ways, 

recognizing that such effects cannot be determined with 

certainty. First, the GOI may respond to the litigation by 

curtailing cooperation with the United States on issues 

of substantial importance to the United States. Second, 

the litigation’s potential effects on Indonesia’s economy 

could in turn adversely affect important United States 

interests. 

Letter from William H. Taft, IV, Legal Adviser, Department 

of State, to The Honorable Louis F. Oberdorfer, United States 

District Court for the District of Columbia 1-2 (July 29, 2002) 

(footnote omitted). 

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 148 of 151
37 

 In 2003, the Department of Justice submitted a 

“Supplemental Statement of Interest” addressing some of the 

legal issues raised by plaintiffs’ claims. That statement 

explained that the U.S. Government’s concerns about the 

litigation required that the District Court dismiss the ATS 

claims: 

It remains the United States’ position that adjudication 

of this case would raise foreign policy and national 

security concerns for the reasons articulated in the State 

Department’s letter. Those concerns can be avoided by 

holding, as the United States contends, that the ATS 

does not create an independent right of action. 

Supplemental Statement of Interest of the United States of 

America at 2, Doe I v. Exxon Mobil Corp., 393 F. Supp. 2d 20 

(D.D.C. 2005). 

In the District Court, Judge Oberdorfer paid careful 

attention to the Executive Branch’s stated concerns and 

dismissed plaintiffs’ ATS claims, in part to avoid 

“adjudicating the actions of the Indonesian government.” Doe 

I v. Exxon Mobil Corp., 393 F. Supp. 2d 20, 26-27 (D.D.C. 

2005). Exxon then asked this Court to entertain an 

interlocutory appeal or grant a writ of mandamus compelling 

the District Court to dismiss plaintiffs’ D.C. tort claims as 

well. This Court declined to do so. See Doe v. Exxon Mobil 

Corp., 473 F.3d 345 (D.C. Cir. 2007). The Court’s opinion 

focused on plaintiffs’ D.C. tort claims – the only issue 

presented – and did not evaluate either the Executive Branch’s 

statement of interest with respect to the ATS claims or the 

District Court’s decision to dismiss the ATS claims. 

Exxon petitioned for certiorari with respect to the D.C. 

tort claims, and the Government filed an amicus brief urging 

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 149 of 151
38 

the Supreme Court to deny the writ. Brief for the United 

States as Amicus Curiae at 8-9, Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Doe, 

554 U.S. 909 (2008) (No. 07-81). In so doing, the 

Government’s brief – which was signed by the Solicitor 

General and the Legal Adviser to the Department of State – 

reiterated the U.S. Government’s position on the ATS claims: 

 The District Court “reach[ed] the result the United 

States had advocated with respect to respondents’ 

ATS claims” when it dismissed those claims. Id. at 8. 

 “Moreover, the United States had said that its 

‘concerns can be avoided by holding * * * that the 

ATS does not create an independent right of action,’ 

and the district court responded by granting 

petitioners’ motion to dismiss the ATS and TVPA 

claims, which were premised on alleged violations of 

international law by the Indonesian government.” Id.

at 16 (quoting Supplemental Statement of Interest of 

the United States of America at 2, Doe I v. Exxon 

Mobil Corp., 393 F. Supp. 2d 20). 

 “[A]s a result of the district court’s rulings narrowing 

the scope of respondents’ suit, the case now presents 

neither of the particular situations discussed in Sosa 

and Altmann. In Sosa, the Court addressed the 

deference owed to the Executive Branch by the courts 

in exercising their federal-common-law-making 

authority under the ATS with respect to claims 

alleging violations of international law. Here, the 

district court dismissed respondents’ claims under the 

ATS, as the United States had requested, as well as 

those under the TVPA.” Id. at 17-18 (internal citation 

omitted). 

The U.S. Government’s amicus brief to the Supreme 

Court thus plainly stated that the Executive Branch opposed 

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 150 of 151
39 

the ATS claims and that the District Court correctly dismissed 

plaintiffs’ ATS claims in light of the Executive Branch’s 

concerns. That amicus brief was the Executive Branch’s last 

statement on this lawsuit. 

 In sum, in 2002, 2003, and 2008, the Executive Branch 

reasonably explained that the court would harm U.S. foreign 

policy interests if it allowed plaintiffs’ ATS claims to proceed. 

The Executive Branch has never retracted the statements. 

Judge Oberdorfer followed Sosa’s instruction to give “serious 

weight to the Executive Branch’s view of the case’s impact on 

foreign policy,” and he dismissed the ATS claims. 542 U.S. 

at 733 n.21. In light of Sosa footnote 21, I would affirm Judge 

Oberdorfer’s decision. 

 The majority opinion disagrees. In my judgment, the 

majority opinion does not give proper weight to the Executive 

Branch statements about the ATS claims. To be sure, it is 

possible that the Supreme Court didn’t mean what it said in 

Sosa footnote 21. And it is possible that the Executive Branch 

no longer believes what it said in 2002, 2003, and 2008. On 

the current record, however, there can be little doubt under 

Sosa footnote 21 that the Executive Branch’s clear and 

consistent statements require dismissal of the ATS claims. On 

remand, the District Court still can (and in my view, should) 

invite the Executive Branch to state or clarify its views once 

again. If the Executive Branch reiterates its objection to the 

ATS claims, then the District Court should dismiss those 

claims. 

* * * 

 

I respectfully dissent. 

 

USCA Case #09-7125 Document #1317431 Filed: 07/08/2011 Page 151 of 151