Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/17pdf/16-499_1a7d.pdf
Page Number: 29

Cite as:  584 U. S. ____ (2018) 

23 

Opinion of the Court 
Opinion of KENNEDY, J. 

that there are two reasonable choices.  In this area, that is 
dispositive—Congress,  not  the  Judiciary,  must  decide 
whether to expand the scope of liability under the ATS to 
include foreign corporations. 

3 

Other considerations relevant to the exercise of judicial 
discretion also counsel against allowing liability under the 
ATS  for  foreign  corporations,  absent  instructions  from
Congress  to  do  so.  It  has  not  been  shown  that  corporate
liability  under  the  ATS  is  essential  to  serve  the  goals  of
the statute.  As to the question of adequate remedies, the 
ATS will seldom be the only way for plaintiffs to hold the
perpetrators  liable.    See,  e.g.,  18  U. S. C.  §1091  (criminal
prohibition on genocide); §1595 (civil remedy for victims of
slavery).  And plaintiffs still can sue the individual corpo-
rate employees responsible for a violation of international 
law under the ATS.  If the Court were to hold that foreign
corporations have liability for international-law violations,
then  plaintiffs  may  well  ignore  the  human  perpetrators
instead  on  multinational  corporate 
and  concentrate 
entities. 

As explained above, in the context of criminal tribunals
international law itself generally limits liability to natural 
persons.  Although the Court need not decide whether the 
seeming  absence  of  a  specific,  universal,  and  obligatory 
norm  of  corporate  liability  under  international  law  by 
itself  forecloses  petitioners’  claims  against  Arab  Bank,  or 
whether  this  is  an  issue  governed  by  international  law,
the  lack  of  a  clear  and  well-established  international-law 
rule is of critical relevance in determining whether courts
should extend ATS liability to foreign corporations without 
specific  congressional  authorization  to  do  so.    That  is 
especially so in light of the TVPA’s limitation of liability to
natural  persons,  which  parallels  the  distinction  between
corporations and individuals in international law.