Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/19-416_i4dj.pdf
Page Number: 32.0

12 

NESTLE USA, INC. v. DOE 

SOTOMAYOR, J., concurring
Opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J. 

Rep. No. 106–939, p. 93  (2000).  At bottom, then, there is 
simply no basis to infer from “congressional activity,” ante, 
at 8, that Congress has by implication grafted a truncated 
list of actionable torts onto the ATS that appears nowhere 
in the statutory text. 

*

*

* 

The First Congress chose to provide noncitizens a federal 
forum to seek redress for  law-of-nations violations, and it 
counted on federal courts to facilitate such suits by recog-
nizing causes of action for violations of specific, universal, 
and obligatory norms of international law.  I would not ab-
dicate  the  Court’s  obligation  to  follow  that  legislative  di-
rective.  Because I find no support for JUSTICE THOMAS’ po-
sition in the ATS or in this Court’s precedents, I do not join 
that portion of JUSTICE THOMAS’ opinion. 

—————— 
102–367, pt. 1, p. 3 (1991); accord, S. Rep. No. 102–249, p. 4 (1991).  The 
Reports cautioned that “claims based on torture or summary executions 
do not exhaust the list of actions that may appropriately be covered” by 
the  ATS,  which  “should  remain  intact  to  permit  suits  based  on  other 
norms that already exist or may ripen in the future into rules of custom-
ary international law.”  H. R. Rep. No. 102–367, at 4; accord, S. Rep. No. 
102–249, at 5.