Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/19-416_i4dj.pdf
Page Number: 22

2 

NESTLE USA, INC. v. DOE 

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

I 
A 
Included in the Judiciary Act of 1789, the ATS gave fed-
eral courts “cognizance . . . of all causes where an alien sues 
for a tort only in violation of the law of nations or a treaty 
of the United States.”  Act of Sept. 24, 1789, §9, 1 Stat. 77. 
The ATS does not list the torts that fall within its purview. 
Rather,  the  statute  was  “ ‘enacted  on  the  understanding 
that [federal] common law would provide a cause of action 
for [a] modest number of international law violations.’ ”  Ki-
obel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., 569 U. S. 108, 115 (2013) 
(quoting Sosa, 542 U. S., at 724; some alterations in origi-
nal).  Three such torts were “probably on minds of the men 
who drafted the ATS”: “violation of safe conducts, infringe-
ment of the rights of ambassadors, and piracy.”  Id., at 715 
(citing 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of Eng-
land 68 (1769)). 

Unsurprisingly,  the  domestic  and  international  legal 
landscape has changed in the two centuries since Congress 
enacted the ATS.  On the one hand, this Court in Erie R. 
Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U. S. 64 (1938), “denied the existence 
of  any federal  ‘general’ common  law.”  Sosa,  542  U. S.,  at 
726  (quoting  304  U. S.,  at  78).  Erie  thus  foiled  the  First 
Congress’ expectation “that the common law would,” of its 
own accord, “provide a cause of action for the modest num-
ber of international law violations,” 542 U. S., at 724, that 
qualify as “tort[s] . . . in violation of the law of nations,” 28 
U. S. C.  §1350.    On  the  other  hand,  the  class  of  law-of-
nations torts has grown “with the evolving recognition . . . 
that certain acts constituting crimes against humanity are 
in violation of basic precepts of international law.”  Jesner 
v. Arab Bank, PLC, 584 U. S. ___, ___ (2018) (slip op., at 9). 
Like the pirates of the 18th century, today’s torturers, slave 
traders,  and  perpetrators  of  genocide  are  “ ‘hostis  humani 
generis, an enemy of all mankind.’ ”  Sosa, 542 U. S., at 732. 
The  Court  reconciled  these  two  legal  developments  in