Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/17pdf/16-499_1a7d.pdf
Page Number: 53

10 

JESNER v. ARAB BANK, PLC 

Opinion of GORSUCH, J. 

government  with  sufficient  power  to  ensure  the  country’s 
compliance with the law of nations.  See 1 Records of the 
Federal  Convention  of  1787,  pp.  24–25  (M.  Farrand  rev.
1966).

Together with other provisions of the Judiciary Act, the
ATS  served  that  purpose.  The  law  of  nations  required
countries  to  ensure  foreign  citizens  could  obtain  redress 
for  wrongs  committed  by  domestic  defendants,  whether
“through  criminal  punishment,  extradition,  or  a  civil
remedy.”  Bellia & Clark, 78 U.  Chi. L. Rev., at 509.  Yet 
in  1789  this  country  had  no  comprehensive  criminal  code
and no extradition treaty with Great Britain.  Id., at 509– 
510.  Section 11 achieved a partial solution to the problem
by permitting civil diversity suits in federal court between 
aliens and domestic parties, but that provision required at 
least  $500  in  controversy.    1  Stat.  78;  cf.  28  U. S. C. 
§1332(a) (today’s minimum is $75,000).  But, as Professors 
Bellia and Clark have explained, “[h]ad Congress stopped
there,  it  would  have  omitted  an  important  category  of  law
of  nations  violations  that  threatened  the  peace  of  the 
United  States:  personal  injuries  that  US  citizens  inflicted
upon aliens resulting in less than $500 in damages.”  78 U. 
Chi. L. Rev., at 509.  So the ATS neatly filled the remain-
ing gap by allowing aliens to sue in federal court for a tort 
in violation of the law of nations regardless of the amount 
in  controversy.  One  obvious  advantage  of  this  solution
“was  that  it  was  self-executing—it  placed  the  burden  on
injured  aliens  to  bring  suit  and  did  not  require  the  still-
forming  US  government  immediately  to  marshal  the 
resources  necessary  to  prosecute  crimes”  or  aid  extradi-
tions.  Id., at 510. 

Any attempt to decipher a cryptic old statute is sure to 
meet with challenges.  For example, one could object that 
this  reading  of  the  Act  does  not  assign  to  the  ATS  the 
work  of  addressing  assaults  by  aliens  against  foreign 
ambassadors on our soil, even though  Sosa suggested the