Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-10-07024/USCOURTS-caDC-10-07024-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Ali Mahmud Ali Shafi
Appellant
Lamia Ali Shafi
Appellant
Palestinian Authority
Appellee
Palestinian Liberation Organization
Appellee
Shirin Ali Shafi
Appellant

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued October 15, 2010 Decided June 14, 2011

No. 10-7024

ALI MAHMUD ALI SHAFI, INDIVIDUALLY AND AS NATURAL

GUARDIAN OF PLAINTIFF LAMIA ALI SHAFI, ET AL.,

APPELLANTS

v.

PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY, ALSO KNOWN AS PALESTINIAN

NATIONAL AUTHORITY, ALSO KNOWN AS PALESTINIAN

INTERIM SELF-GOVERNMENT AUTHORITY AND PALESTINIAN

LIBERATION ORGANIZATION,

APPELLEES

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:09-cv-00006)

Robert J. Tolchin argued the cause and filed the briefs

for appellants.

Laura G. Ferguson argued the cause for appellees. With

her on the brief was Kevin G. Mosley. Richard A. Hibey and

Mark J. Rochon entered appearances.

Before: SENTELLE, Chief Judge, ROGERS, Circuit Judge,

and WILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge.

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Opinion for the Court filed by Chief Judge SENTELLE.

Concurring opinion filed by Circuit Judge ROGERS.

Concurring opinion filed by Senior Circuit Judge

WILLIAMS.

SENTELLE, Chief Judge: Appellant Ali Mahmud Ali

Shafi and his wife, Shirin Ali Shafi, filed this action against the

Palestinian Authority (PA) and the Palestinian Liberation

Organization (PLO), seeking to recover damages under the

Alien Tort Statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1350. The Shafis alleged in the

district court and argued before us that the torture and “physical

and mental abuse” of Ali Shafi is actionable under that statute,

and also claimed on behalf of their minor child a derivative

negligence claim under Israeli law. The district court dismissed

the actions for failure to state a claim within the jurisdiction

conferred by the ATS. For the reasons set forth below, we

affirm the judgment of the district court and further conclude

that the district court did not err in declining to exercise pendent

jurisdiction over the alleged negligence claim under Israeli law.

I.

The Shafis brought this action in the United States

District Court for the District of Columbia seeking to recover

under the Alien Tort Statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1350 (ATS), for events

allegedly occurring between 2001 and 2002. According to the

allegations of the complaint, which we, like the district court,

are required to accept as true for purposes of the consideration

of a motion to dismiss, Ali Shafi, a Palestinian, served as an

agent and confidential informant for Israel for many years,

ending in 1994 when he moved from the West Bank to Israel. 

Widespread violence broke out several years later in the West

Bank, the Gaza Strip, and Israel. This violence, which lasted

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from September 2000 until 2005, is referred to in the complaint

as the “Intifada.”1

 In September of 2001, in the midst of the

Intifada, Ali Shafi and his family returned to the West Bank to

visit his mother. On the night of September 21, Ali Shafi was

arrested by PA security officers and taken to a PA security

service building, where he was stripped, handcuffed, questioned

about his activities on Israel’s behalf, and ultimately beaten. 

Severe beatings and other forms of physical torture continued

for several months. During this period, Ali Shafi was not

provided with a change of clothing and was not permitted to

bathe. 

Three and a half months into his imprisonment, Ali Shafi

received a visit from representatives of the Red Cross. After this

visit, the physical abuse of Ali Shafi by the PA security guards

intensified. Then, in January 2002, Palestinian leader Raed al

Karmi—whom Israel had accused of masterminding violent

attacks against Israelis— was killed in an explosion in the West

Bank. PA officers accused Ali Shafi of having provided

information and assistance leading to the assassination of al

Karmi, and demanded a confession. Eventually, after continued

beatings, Ali Shafi signed the confession that had been prepared

for him and was formally charged by the PA with the

assassination of al Karmi and with spying for Israel. After a

trial that lasted half an hour, Ali Shafi admitted the charges in

hopes that he would be given a lenient sentence. Instead he was

sentenced to death. In March 2002, while awaiting transfer from

the prison in Qalqilya to Ramallah for his execution, Ali Shafi

escaped from captivity during an Israeli invasion of Qalqilya. 

Seven years later, the Shafis initiated this action.

1

This period of violence is more properly termed the “Second

Intifada.” The First Intifada began in 1987 and ended in 1993. See,

e.g., Demian Casey, Note, Breaking the Chain of Violence in Israel

and Palestine, 32 Syracuse J. Int’l L. & Com. 311, 314 (2006).

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Appellees moved to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6) for

failure to state a claim for relief, Rule 12(b)(1) for lack of

subject matter jurisdiction, and Rule 12(b)(2) for lack of

personal jurisdiction. The district court granted the motions to

dismiss, not passing on the personal jurisdiction argument, but

determining that appellants had not pled any claim for relief

within the subject matter jurisdiction granted by the Alien Tort

Statute. We agree and affirm.

II.

We will dispense rather quickly with the first argument

offered by the appellees in the district court and before us as a

basis for dismissal. They argue that the Torture Victim

Protection Act of 1991 (TVPA) provides the only cause of

action available to victims of torture in preemption of any right

that might have otherwise existed as a common law claim within

the jurisdiction granted by the ATS. The TVPA creates a civil

action against “an individual who, under actual or apparent

authority, or color of law, of any foreign nation” subjects an

individual to torture or extrajudicial killing. 28 U.S.C. § 1350

note. The Act also requires exhaustion of remedies. Appellees’

argument is that by enacting this specific remedy, Congress

intended to take torture cases out of the general jurisdiction

conferred by the ATS and therefore preempt actions such as the

present one brought under the more general statute. They then

reason that because the defendants are not individuals acting

under actual or apparent authority or color of law, the current

action cannot be maintained under the TVPA. Therefore, they

contend, it must be dismissed.

The district court decided that the TVPA did not preempt

the present claims, but proceeded to determine that they must be

dismissed for failure to state claims within the jurisdiction

conferred by the ATS in any event. We think it unnecessary to

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explore the preemption issue. All parties agree that the present

claims do not seek relief under the TVPA. The district court

held, and we will ultimately affirm, that they do not state claims

under the ATS. We therefore see no reason to belabor the

interpretation of the TVPA, which does not apply to the present

action; nor need we explore the question of preemption, as the

ATS claims will be dismissed in any event. We therefore

proceed to an analysis of appellants’ claims under the ATS. 

III.

In analyzing the ATS and considering its applicability to

the claims of the Shafis, we note first the narrowness of its

language. The statute does no more than grant to the district

courts “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.” 28 U.S.C. § 1350. The statute creates no

jurisdiction over any general actions for tort or otherwise against

private actors under domestic law of this or any other nation, but

applies only to torts committed in violation of the laws of

nations or in violation of a treaty of the United States. We will

not spend much time or ink in rehashing the general history of

the Act, as the Supreme Court has fairly recently provided a

very full discussion in Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, 542 U.S. 692

(2004). We commend to the reader that decision for a full and

scholarly treatment, while we confine our discussion to the

portions of Sosa determinative of this case, along with other

precedents relevant to the issue before us. 

Both claims by the Shafis depend upon the same

fundamental question: Does the ATS provide jurisdiction in the

district court over a civil action by an alien for torture

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committed by nonstate actors such as the PLO?2

 We previously

considered this question in Tel-Oren v. Libyan Arab Republic,

726 F.2d 774 (D.C. Cir. 1984). Although the named party

defendant in Tel-Oren was a nation state, the decision dealt with

claims against the PLO, one of the two nonstate actors before us

in the present controversy. In a brief per curiam opinion, we

affirmed the decision of the district court dismissing the claims

brought against the PLO under the ATS. Id. at 775. The district

court had dismissed on dual grounds, one of which was the

subject matter jurisdiction question we consider today. The per

curiam opinion does not differentiate between the two bases, but

provides at least an authoritative framework for the dismissal

ordered by the district court herein.

Each of the three judges on the Tel-Oren court filed a

separate opinion, and the three opinions differ significantly in

their rationale. However, each of those separate opinions reach

the same conclusion on the controlling question. As Judge

Edwards put it: “I do not believe the law of nations imposes the

same responsibility or liability on non-state actors, such as the

PLO, as it does on states and persons acting under color of state

law.” Id. at 776. He therefore “vote[d] to affirm the District

Court’s dismissal for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.” Id. at

798.

Judge Bork differed from Judge Edwards in detail,

specifically in that he read Judge Edwards’s opinion as

supporting the proposition that the ATS, in addition to providing

jurisdiction, created a cause of action. Id. at 801. Judge Bork

believed that the ATS did not create “a cause of action sufficient

to support jurisdiction under [the ATS].” Id. at 799.

2

Here we discuss the two principal claims of the Shafis. We

will discuss the alleged pendent claim of the minor Ali Shafi child

separately below.

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Thus, the two judges who directly addressed the question

held that, contrary to the arguments of appellants in that case

and in this, the ATS does not impose the same liability for

torture on nonstate actors as on nation states, and therefore, the

ATS does not provide jurisdiction against such defendants.3

The third member of the Tel-Oren court agreed in

affirming the dismissal, but would have done so on arguably

broader grounds. He was of the view that the case was

nonjusticiable, as it was controlled by the political question

doctrine. Id. at 823 (Robb, J., concurring). In short, the TelOren court, although diverse in approach, all provided support

for the proposition that torture claims against nonstate actors

were not within the jurisdictional grant of the ATS. Had nothing

occurred between the announcement of that decision in 1984

and the entry of our decision today, circuit precedent would

compel that we affirm the dismissal ordered by the district court.

The relevant events between 1984 and today not only do not

change our decision from the one entered in Tel-Oren, but

support a continuation of that precedent. 

One intervening event discussed by the parties need not

be considered. Congress enacted the TVPA in 1992, but as we

note above, we need not construe that Act as the jurisdictional

issue governed by the ATS provides a sufficient rule of decision

for the question before us. However, of great relevance to our

inquiry is the Supreme Court’s decision in Sosa v. AlvarezMachain, 542 U.S. 692 (2004). In that case, Sosa, a Mexican

national, was one of a group of bounty hunters, who “abducted

Alvarez” in Mexico and took him “to El Paso, Texas, where he

was arrested by federal officers.” Id. at 698. After being

3

Judges Edwards and Bork differed in their rationales and

likely as to the scope of potential liability for ATS claims other than

torture.

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acquitted of the underlying criminal charge against him, Alvarez

returned to Mexico but brought suit in the United States against

Sosa alleging, inter alia, a claim “under the ATS, for a violation

of the law of nations.” Id. at 698. Justice Souter, writing for the

Court, entered a thorough and scholarly analysis of the history

and effect of the Alien Tort Statute. The Sosa opinion first

addressed a question not answered by the per curiam opinion in

Tel-Oren. That is, Alvarez argued that the ATS “was intended

not simply as a jurisdictional grant, but as authority for the

creation of a new cause of action for torts in violation of

international law.” Id. at 713. The Sosa Court found that

reading “implausible” and held that “the statute was intended as

jurisdictional in the sense of addressing the power of the courts

to entertain cases concerned with a certain subject.” Id. at 713-

14.

Having established the fundamental nature of the power

granted in the ATS, the Sosa Court nonetheless rejected the

position of defendant Sosa that “the ATS was stillborn because

there could be no claim for relief without a further statute

expressly authorizing adoption of causes of action.” Id. at 714. 

Therefore, the Court went on to consider what claims for relief

courts could entertain under the jurisdictional grant of the ATS. 

In conducting that analysis, the Court considered the state of the

common law and international law at the time of the first

enactment of the ATS in the Judiciary Act of 1789. After

careful analysis, the Court concluded “that the First Congress

understood that the district courts would recognize private

causes of action for certain torts in violation of the law of

nations.” Id. at 724. The Court “found no basis” for believing

that Congress contemplated any examples of such torts beyond

three primary offenses theretofore identified by Blackstone: (1)

violation of safe conducts; (2) infringement of the rights of

ambassadors; and (3) piracy. Id. Three Justices, concurring

separately, believed that only those three causes of action would

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be cognizable under the ATS to this day. See id. at 739-51

(Scalia, J., concurring, joined by Rehnquist, C.J., and Thomas,

J.). The majority, however, left open the possibility that nothing

“categorically preclude[s] federal courts from recognizing a

claim under the laws of nations as an element of common law.” 

Id. at 725. While this might lend hope to appellants’ cause

before us, the Court went on to caution 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. 

The Court then set out five reasons for exercising caution

in this area. First, the understanding of the common law has

changed since the ATS was enacted in 1789. At that time, the

prevailing conception of the common law was of a binding body

of law that existed separate and apart from the positive laws of

any jurisdiction; now, “there is a general understanding that the

law is not so much found or discovered as it is either made or

created.” Id. In other words, a judicial determination whether

an alleged violation of international law constitutes a violation

of common law actionable under the ATS is largely an exercise

of discretion rather than an exercise in construing pre-existing,

binding law. See id. at 720-21, 725-26. Second, as the

prevailing conception of the common law has changed over

time, so too has the prevailing conception of the role of the

courts in making it. Since Erie Railroad Company v. Tompkins,

304 U.S. 64 (1938), “the general practice has been to look for

legislative guidance before exercising innovative authority over

substantive law.” 542 U.S. at 726.

The final three reasons provided by the Sosa Court—all

related to the proper role of the judiciary in our tripartite

government—are particularly compelling. The Court’s third

reason is that the decision to create a private right of action for

violation of an international norm is better left to the legislature. 

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Id. at 727. “Even when Congress has made it clear by statute

that a rule applies to purely domestic conduct,” the Court said,

“we are reluctant to infer intent to provide a private cause of

action where the statute does not supply one expressly.” Id.

Fourth and relatedly, the potential foreign relations

consequences of making violations of international norms

actionable in United States federal court “should make courts

particularly wary of impinging on the discretion of the

Legislative and Executive Branches in managing foreign

affairs.” Id. Courts should exercise “great caution” in allowing

suits that would involve them in passing judgment on the

behavior of foreign governments towards their own citizens. Id.

at 727-28. Finally, the Court observed that “modern indications

of congressional understanding of the judicial role in the field

[of international law] have not affirmatively encouraged greater

judicial creativity.” Id. at 728. Congress has not seemed eager

to give the courts more latitude in defining violations of

international human rights law. Id.

Having set forth its reasons for directing judicial caution

in considering the recognition of claims beyond the historic

three categories of Blackstone, the Sosa Court went on to give

some guidance for the exercise of that caution by lower courts

considering allegations of such new torts against the law of

nations. “[W]e are persuaded 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 (citing United States v. Smith, 18 U.S. (5 Wheat.) 153, 163

n.h (1820) (illustrating the specificity with which the law of

nations defined piracy)). Conspicuously, the Supreme Court

noted that “[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

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such as a corporation or an individual.” Id. at n.20. In so doing,

the Supreme Court cited Judge Edwards’s concurrence from TelOren for the proposition that there was insufficient consensus in

1984 that torture by private actors violates international law.4 

Applying its cautious standard, the Sosa Court held that

the forceful abduction of Alvarez did not constitute a tort

cognizable under the statute. As the Court noted, Alvarez’s

approach “would support a cause of action in federal court for

any arrest, anywhere in the world, unauthorized by law of the

jurisdiction in which it took place.” Id. at 736. Similarly, the

proposition advanced by the appellants before us could open the

doors of the federal courts to claims against nonstate actors

anywhere in the world alleged to have cruelly treated any alien. 

To recognize such a sweeping claim would hardly be consistent

with the standards of caution mandated by the Sosa Court. 

We are advertent to the argument of appellants that other

circuits may have taken a broader view of the governing

questions. As we noted in note 4, supra, Kadic v. Karadzic, 70

F.3d 232 (2d Cir. 1995), did conclude that a sufficient

international consensus existed to support the implication of a

claim for relief within the jurisdiction conferred by the ATS for

genocide by nonstate actors. Also, the Eleventh Circuit in

Estate of Amergi ex rel. Amergi v. Palestinian Authority, 611

F.3d 1350 (11th Cir. 2010), took an arguably broader view than

we now express. However, neither of these binds us. Tel-Oren

and especially Sosa do. We further note that the Eleventh

Circuit, in dealing with the Common Article 3 question which

4

We note that the Supreme Court in footnote 20 offered for

comparison with Judge Edwards’s Tel-Oren opinion the opinion of the

Second Circuit in Kadic v. Karadzic, 70 F.3d 232, 239-41 (2d Cir.

1995), which concluded that genocide by private actors did violate

international law.

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we discuss infra, recognized that “Common Article 3 is

exceedingly broad and at times vague; to afford ATS

jurisdiction for each and every violation of its wide-ranging

provisions would violate the command of Sosa that federal

courts exercise ‘vigilant doorkeeping.’” Id. at 1363.

The Shafis offer two grounds for distinguishing their

complaint from the claims asserted in Tel-Oren and Sosa. 

Neither is persuasive. In their first claim for relief, they assert

that the defendants’ conduct is in violation of international

norms because it took place as part of an “armed conflict”

within the meaning of international law, and that the use of

torture breaches peremptory rules of armed conflict reflected in

Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. Common

Article 3 applies “[i]n the case of an armed conflict not of an

international character occurring in the territory of one of the

High Contracting Parties.” It mandates that non-combatants

“shall in all circumstances be treated humanely,” and it

explicitly prohibits “violence to life and person, in particular . . .

cruel treatment and torture.” The first difficulty with the Shafis’

claim is that it is not obvious that Common Article 3 applies

under the circumstances they have alleged. The amended

complaint describes the Intifada as occurring in Israel, the West

Bank, and the Gaza Strip. Although Israel is a High Contracting

Party to the Geneva Conventions, the PLO is not,5

 and the status

5

In June 1989, the PLO submitted documents to the

government of Switzerland, purporting to accede to the Geneva

Conventions on behalf of the State of Palestine. The Swiss

Government (in its capacity as depository of the Conventions) rejected

this attempt at accession, and informed the PLO that “[d]ue to the

incertainty [sic] within the international community as to the existence

or the non-existence of a State of Palestine,” the Swiss Government

was not able to determine whether the accession was valid. See Note

of Information, Government of Switzerland, Berne, Sept. 13, 1989.

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of the PLO and the nature of Israeli relations with the territory

wherein the alleged torture took place, are subjects of continuing

dispute. These claims fit well within the reasons provided by

the Sosa Court for the cautious approach.

The Supreme Court made clear in Sosa that “the

determination whether a norm is sufficiently definite to support

a cause of action should (and, indeed, inevitably must) involve

an element of judgment about the practical consequences of

making that cause available to litigants in the federal courts.” 

Sosa, 542 U.S. at 732-33. The potential foreign relations

consequences of making violations of international law, as

alleged by the Shafis, actionable in the courts of the United

States “should make courts particularly wary of infringing on

the discretion of the legislative and executive branches in

managing foreign affairs.” Id. at 726. 

Finally, the Shafis argue that “the [Palestinian

Authority’s] conduct violated universally recognized and

applicable norms of international customary law prohibiting

torture by a public official.” App. Br. 22. That argument cannot

prevail. Appellants are advancing a theory that nonstate actors

can nonetheless be public officials. We need not decide whether

that is a possibility, as there is clearly no sufficiently universal

norm of international law supporting such a concept to support

the creation of an ATS cause of action for torture against a

nonstate actor, even if that actor falls into the appellants’

proposed expanded category of “public official.” 

We do not purport to decide that the ATS can create no

actions against private actors. Sosa makes clear that the analysis

of whether “international law extends the scope of liability . . .

to the perpetrator being sued, if the defendant is a private actor”

pertains to the “given norm” being analyzed. 542 U.S. at 732

n.20. This conclusion is also evident from Sosa’s treatment of

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Judge Edwards’s Tel-Oren concurrence, which acknowledged

a clear trend toward individual responsibility for violations of

international law norms, 726 F.2d at 794-95 (Edwards, J.,

concurring), specifically considered whether “torture today is

among the handful of crimes to which the law of nations

attributes individual responsibility,” id. at 795, and concluded

that it was not, id. As Sosa noted, Judge Edwards’s conclusion

was based on the “insufficient consensus in 1984 that torture by

private actors violates international law.” 542 U.S. at 732 n.20

(citing Tel-Oren, 726 F.2d at 791-95 (Edwards, J., concurring)). 

As noted above, Sosa contrasted this conclusion with the Second

Circuit’s conclusion that there was a “sufficient consensus in

1995 that genocide by private actors violates international law.” 

Id. (citing Kadic v. Karadzic, 70 F.3d 232, 239-41 (2d

Cir.1995)). By citing these two opinions, the Court apparently

did not mean to suggest that one was right and the other wrong,

or that both erred in considering the sufficiency of the

international law consensus for private actor liability on a normspecific basis; rather, by highlighting the lapse of eleven years

and the difference in the claims alleged, Sosa underscores the

context-dependent nature of the ATS analysis.

A categorical bar of ATS suits against nonstate actors

would be at odds with Sosa and with Judge Bork’s Tel-Oren

concurrence in another crucial respect. In providing his

“thoughts as to the possible original intention” underlying the

ATS, 726 F.2d at 815 (Bork, J., concurring), Judge Bork cited

Blackstone’s statement of the 18th-century paradigms of the

“principal offenses against the law of nations”: violation of safe

conducts, infringement of the rights of ambassadors, and piracy,

726 F.2d at 813 (citing 4 BLACKSTONE’S COMMENTARIES *68,

*72), with particular emphasis on piracy, id. at 813-15 & 814

n.23. Indeed, that piracy is among the core causes of action

contemplated by Congress in enacting the ATS appears beyond

dispute, see Sosa, 542 U.S. at 724 (majority opinion), 749

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(Scalia, J., concurring in part), 760 (Breyer, J., concurring in

part); Tel-Oren, 726 F.2d at 781 (Edwards, J., concurring). Yet

piracy in violation of the law of nations is by definition

perpetrated by nonstate actors: “‘A pirate is one who roves the

sea in an armed vessel without any commission or passport from

any prince or sovereign state, solely on his own authority, and

for the purpose of seizing by force, and appropriating to himself

without discrimination, every vessel he may meet.’” United

States v. Smith, 18 U.S. (5 Wheat.) 153, 163 n.h (1820) (Story,

J.) (quoting 2 M.D.A. AZUNI, THE MARITIME LAW OF EUROPE

§ V:3 (1806)); see also Sosa, 542 U.S. at 732 (citing Smith’s

definition of law of piracy); Tel-Oren, 726 F.2d at 814 n.23

(Bork, J., concurring) (“‘[Piracy] could not be committed by

nations.’”) (quoting G.H. HACKWORTH, DIGEST OF

INTERNATIONAL LAW § 203 (1941)). The concept underlying

the ATS as a statute affording a civil remedy against piracy thus

cannot be reconciled with the notion that the statute only

recognizes claims against state actors. A second of Blackstone’s

principal offenses of the law of nations – infringement of the

rights of ambassadors – was also addressed in Sosa, which

stated that the enactment of the ATS was in part a “respon[se]”

to “a concern over the inadequate vindication of the law of

nations” after a nonstate actor assaulted a French diplomat in

Philadelphia (the “Marbois Affair”). 542 U.S. at 716-17. A

view of the ATS that only recognizes claims against state actors

thus finds no support in Judge Bork’s or Judge Edwards’s TelOren opinions, in Sosa, or in the widely accepted understanding

of Congress’s intent in enacting the statute.

That all said, it remains the case that applying the

cautious approach dictated by Sosa, and consistent with the

separate opinions of Judges Edwards and Bork in Tel-Oren, we

must hold that the district court properly dismissed this action. 

As the Supreme Court noted in Sosa, Judge Edwards observed

in Tel-Oren that there was in 1984 an “insufficient consensus

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. . . that torture by private actors violates international law.” 542

U.S. at 732 n.20. In 2011 it remains the case that appellants

have shown us no such consensus. The complaint does not state

a claim cognizable within the jurisdictional grant of the Alien

Tort Statute.

IV.

The Shafis’ third claim is a claim of negligence, brought

in the name of Ali Shafi’s minor daughter against both

defendants under the law of the state of Israel. The Shafis

brought this claim pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1367, which allows

a district court to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over any

claims related to claims over which the court has original

jurisdiction. After dismissing the Shafis’ ATS claims, the

district court dismissed the negligence claim as well, noting that

§ 1367(c) gave it permission to do so. 

“Whether to retain jurisdiction over pendent . . . claims

after the dismissal of the federal claims is a matter left to the

sound discretion of the district court that we review for abuse of

discretion only.” Shekoyan v. Sibley Int’l, 409 F.3d 414, 423

(D.C. Cir. 2005) (internal quotation marks omitted). We can

hardly say that the district court abused its discretion by

declining to hear this claim. The claim arose from events in

another nation. The claim is made under the laws of that other

nation. All parties are citizens of other nations and have no

connection with the United States or specifically, with the

District of Columbia. Again, we must affirm the decision of the

district court.

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Conclusion

For the reasons set forth above, we affirm the judgment

of the district court dismissing all claims.

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ROGERS, Circuit Judge, concurring: I join the court’s

opinion and write separately only to add a note of caution with

regard to going beyond the Supreme Court’s decision in Sosa v.

Alvarez-Machain, 542 U.S. 692 (2004), by reading too much

into Sosa’s reference to the three norms of conduct identified by

Blackstone as violations of international law prior to 1789. 

Although there is some historical evidence that the ATS as

originally conceived was designed to prevent international

incidents and harms to the foreign relations standing of the new

nation, id. at 715–16, no evidence has been identified to suggest

that there is any talismanic quality to the so-called “Blackstone

three,” Concurring Op. at 1 (Williams, J.). Indeed, in Sosa, the

Supreme Court recognized that other norms could be identified. 

See 542 U.S. at 732. Our concurring colleague does not suggest

there is any authority in the ATS’s 230-year history for requiring

that Blackstone’s “three” bear a “family resemblance,”

Concurring Op. at 1 (Williams, J.), to one another or to these

other norms, offering only one possible way of characterizing

the analysis based on the premise—a dubious premise, given

Sosa—that without such resemblance the “three” provide “little

guidance for assessing candidates for ATS recognition,” id.

It would appear more prudent to take Sosa on its own terms. 

As noted, the Supreme Court cited Blackstone’s “three” merely

as “historical paradigms” of norms that possessed sufficiently

“definite content and acceptance” at the time of the statute’s

enactment. 542 U.S. at 732; see also id. at 724. Separately,

Sosa discussed the historical basis for the ATS, including the

Marbois incident and other events surrounding the enactment of

the Judiciary Act of 1789, id. at 716–19, as well as the reasons

for judicial caution before recognizing an ATS cause of action,

id. at 725–28; see Op. at 9–10. Consequently, there is no basis

for concluding that Sosa prevents courts from recognizing an

international law norm unless its lineage can be traced to

Blackstone’s “three.” It is, therefore, just as plausible, and

likely more so, to conclude that Blackstone’s “three” were

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distinct and independent norms of international law as it existed

in 1789, each of which may provide some insight regarding the

definiteness a norm developed after 1789 must possess to justify

recognition under the ATS.

Advisory or speculative musings on an issue neither briefed

nor argued nor necessary to resolve the instant appeal seem

particularly odd when the proffered analysis is bereft of

substantive grounding. Indeed, in acknowledging the need to

“expand[] the scope of the hypothetically triggered conflict to

include international incidents more generally,” or to “inquir[e]

whether the defendant’s alleged behavior might provoke war if

the United States occupied no more than an average position in

global power rankings,” Concurring Op. at 4 (Williams, J.), our

concurring colleague attempts to introduce vague and slippery

concepts into the ATS analysis. This despite Sosa’s emphasis

on the “definite content and acceptance” required of an

international law norm, 542 U.S. at 732, its discouraging of

“judicial creativity,” id. at 728, and its concern for “impinging

on the discretion of the Legislative and Executive Branches in

managing foreign affairs,” id. at 727. Considering traditional

principles of judicial restraint, especially in light of Sosa’s

specific grounds for caution in the ATS context, id. at 725-28,

further judicial analysis of the scope of the ATS is best

postponed until the issue is ripe.

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WILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge, concurring: I concur in 

the court’s opinion. But I think that in the context of this case 

it is appropriate to probe a little more into the meaning of the 

Alien Tort Statute (“ATS”), 28 U.S.C. § 1350. In Sosa v. 

Alvarez-Machain, 542 U.S. 692 (2004), the Court made clear 

that a current international law norm, if it is to find a home 

under the ATS, must have no “less definite content and 

acceptance . . . than the historical paradigms familiar when 

§ 1350 was enacted.” Id. at 732. The Court was referring to 

the three offenses against the law of nations that Blackstone 

had identified as rules “overlapp[ing] with the norms of state 

relationships,” namely “violation of safe conducts, 

infringement of the rights of ambassadors, and piracy.” Id. at 

715. There are two key features of the Court’s use of 

Blackstone to infer criteria for international law norms that 

might give rise to ATS claims. First, the opinion clearly sets 

forth definiteness as only a minimum criterion (one of several) 

for acceptance under the ATS: “Whatever the ultimate 

criteria for accepting a cause of action . . . , we are persuaded 

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 . . . .”). Id. at 

732 (emphasis added). Second, though the Court clearly 

showed interest in analogizing from the three offenses, the 

opinion does not link the Blackstone three into an 

intellectually coherent family of wrongs. But unless the 

Blackstone examples exhibit some sort of family resemblance, 

they provide little guidance for assessing candidates for ATS 

recognition. 

It seems to me that the unifying feature of the three 

offenses is that their punishment protects and facilitates the 

system of international relations arising out of the 

Westphalian view of national sovereignty, particularly with 

respect to the avoidance and termination of war. Piracy 

involves a rejection of the Westphalian system itself—pirates 

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remove themselves from the national building blocks of 

international society (and hence are enemies of all mankind). 

See 4 WILLIAM BLACKSTONE, COMMENTARIES *71 (noting 

that the pirate has “renounced all the benefits of society and 

government, and has reduced himself afresh to the savage 

state of nature, by declaring war against all mankind, all 

mankind must declare war against him”). Safe conducts, as 

Blackstone notes, were a matter of “public faith”—a promise 

by the sovereign that the entire nation needed to maintain—

violation of which may “be a just ground of a national war.” 

Id. at *68-*69. Offenses against ambassadors are an affront to 

the foreign sovereign himself, “as [ambassadors] represent the 

persons of their respective masters, who owe no subjection to 

any laws but those of their own country . . . .” 1 WILLIAM 

BLACKSTONE, COMMENTARIES *253. Both of these, 

moreover, facilitate negotiation among sovereigns, enabling 

them to head off war and, once war has begun, to bring it to 

an end. 

The system of international relations implied from the 

Blackstone three, then, is one in which the threat of war 

among sovereigns is fully recognized, but international law, 

especially safe conducts and the rights of ambassadors, protect 

the system of diplomacy and intercourse among sovereign 

nations, and thereby curb the risk of war or its prolongation. 4 

WILLIAM BLACKSTONE, COMMENTARIES *66-*68 (“The law 

of nations is a system of rules . . . to decide all disputes, to 

regulate all ceremonies and civilities, and to insure the 

observance of justice and good faith, in that intercourse which 

must frequently occur between two or more independent 

states, and the individuals belonging to each. This general 

law is founded upon this principle, that different nations ought 

in time of peace to do one another all the good they can, and 

in time of war as little harm as possible, without prejudice to 

their own real interests. . . . [O]ffences against this law are 

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principally incident to whole states or nations, in which case 

recourse can only be had to war . . . .”). 

The ATS’s ability to ensure adequate “vindication of the 

law of nations,” Sosa, 542 U.S. at 717, fits this paradigm 

nicely. The concern was that U.S. citizens might engage in 

incidents that could embroil the young nation in war and 

jeopardize its status or welfare in the Westphalian system. Id. 

at 715-18. Similarly, foreign violators, if sufficiently linked 

to the United States, could create an incident threatening the 

United States’s peace. Indeed, under the Confederation, a 

French adventurer had assaulted a representative of France, 

one Francis Barbe Marbois, in Philadelphia. Lacking any 

national power over the miscreant, the Continental Congress 

directed the Secretary for Foreign Affairs to tell Marbois that 

“Congress have heard with extreme regret that an insult has 

been offered to one of the servants of his most Christian 

Majesty” and to explain how the federal character of the union 

impeded any direct punitive action. Kenneth C. Randall, 

Federal Jurisdiction over International Law Claims: Inquiries 

into the Alien Tort Statute, 18 N.Y.U. J. INT’L L. & POL. 1, 25

(1985). Sosa in effect reads the adoption of the ATS (with 

other provisions) as the framers’ response to these 

international hazards. 542 U.S. at 715-20. 

For cases against American citizens violating the law of 

nations, there would likely be jurisdiction over violations of 

norms where the offense (especially if unpunished) would 

expose the United States to the risk of war, and perhaps to 

other comparable risks. That principle obviously would 

encompass an American’s assault on a foreigner present in the 

U.S. under a safe conduct (or anywhere in the world under a 

U.S.-issued safe conduct). Other international law violations 

by Americans meeting the definiteness test and risking 

America’s exposure to foreign conflict might also fit. 

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As to cases against foreigners, violations of the law of 

nations would be actionable under the ATS if they matched 

piracy as an affront to Westphalian sovereignty itself, or if the 

foreign perpetrator were linked to the United States by 

residence or by some other feature such that American 

disregard of the offense might cause serious blame to fall on 

the United States. Thus Blackstone, speaking of safe conduct 

violations, points to “the interest as well as duty of the 

government, under which [violators] live, to animadvert upon 

them with a becoming severity, that the peace of the world 

may be maintained.” 4 WILLIAM BLACKSTONE,

COMMENTARIES *68 (emphasis added).

To be sure, given the United States’s current military and 

economic position, few states would respond to a Marboislike incident by declaring war. But the Westphalian 

framework can be adapted—either by expanding the scope of 

the hypothetically triggered conflict to include international 

incidents more generally, or by inquiring whether the 

defendant’s alleged behavior might provoke war if the United 

States occupied no more than an average position in global 

power rankings.

Of course, Sosa’s insistence on prudential concerns forms 

an additional overlay on this conceptual framework, as it 

would on any. Even where plaintiffs can demonstrate a 

definite norm (and, under this conceptual framework, one that 

meets the Westphalian purpose), a court would still have to 

consider the practical consequences of recognizing a cause of 

action under the ATS.

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