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Page Number: 19

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NESTLE USA, INC. v. DOE 

GORSUCH, J., concurring 

that goal while advancing this country’s foreign policy in-
terests—poses “delicate” and “complex” questions involving 
“large elements of prophecy . . . for which the Judiciary has
neither aptitude, facilities nor responsibility.”   Chicago  & 
Southern Air Lines, Inc. v. Waterman S. S. Corp., 333 U. S. 
103, 111 (1948) (Jackson, J., for the Court).  Were we to cre-
ate new causes of action, we would risk doing exactly what 
Congress adopted the ATS to avoid:  complicating or even
rupturing  this  Nation’s  foreign  relationships.    When  it 
comes to responsibility in this area, the Constitution could 
not be clearer.  It invests Congress with the power to “define 
and punish . . . Offences against the Law of Nations” and to
“regulate Commerce with foreign Nations.”  Art. I, §8.  To 
the President belongs the responsibility of resolving diplo-
matic disputes and commanding the Armed Forces.  Art. II, 
§§2–3.  The Judiciary is assigned no comparable role.  See 
Jesner, 584 U. S., at ___ (opinion of GORSUCH, J.).  Respect-
ing all this, the Court has never purported to create a new 
cause of action under the guise of the ATS.  Now would be 
an exceedingly strange time to start. 

Admitting this much would make cases like the one be-
fore  us  easy.  The  plaintiffs  seek  a  new  cause  of  action. 
There may be compelling reasons for adopting one, or per-
haps some diplomatic concern militating against it.  But no 
one suggests that the plaintiffs’ cause of action was among
those the ATS was originally understood to allow.  Nor does 
anyone suggest that Congress has authorized it.  To know 
that  should  be  enough  to  know  that  any  debate  over  the 
plaintiffs’ proposed cause of action belongs before lawmak-
ers, not judges.

Making this clear would have other virtues too.  It would 
get this Court out of the business of having to parse out ever
more convoluted reasons why it declines to exercise its as-
sumed  discretion  to  create  new  ATS  causes  of  action.  It 
would  absolve  future  parties  from  years  of  expensive  and