Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/17pdf/16-499_1a7d.pdf
Page Number: 33

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

27 

Opinion of the Court 
Opinion of KENNEDY, J. 

liability in cases like this one.

Like  the  presumption  against  extraterritoriality,  judi-
cial caution under Sosa “guards against our courts trigger-
ing  . . .  serious  foreign  policy  consequences,  and  instead 
defers  such  decisions,  quite  appropriately,  to  the  political 
branches.”  Kiobel, 569 U. S., at 124.  If, in light of all the 
concerns that must be weighed before imposing liability on 
foreign corporations via ATS suits, the Court were to hold
that it has the discretion to make that determination, then 
the cautionary language of Sosa would be little more than 
empty rhetoric.  Accordingly, the Court holds that foreign 
corporations may not be defendants in suits brought under
the ATS. 

III 
With  the  ATS,  the  First  Congress  provided  a  federal
remedy  for  a  narrow  category  of  international-law  viola-
tions committed by individuals.  Whether, more than two 
centuries on, a similar remedy should be available against 
foreign  corporations  is  similarly  a  decision  that  Congress
must make. 

The political branches can determine, referring to inter-
national  law  to  the  extent  they  deem  proper,  whether  to 
impose  liability  for  human-rights  violations  upon  foreign 
corporations  in  this  Nation’s  courts,  and,  conversely,  that
courts  in  other  countries  should  be  able  to  hold  United 
States corporations liable.  Congress might determine that 
violations  of  international  law  do,  or  should,  impose  that 
liability  to  ensure  that  corporations  make  every  effort  to 
deter  human-rights  violations,  and  so  that,  even  when
those  efforts  cannot  be  faulted,  compensation  for  injured
persons  will  be  a  cost of  doing  business.   If Congress  and 
the Executive were to determine that corporations should 
be  liable  for  violations  of  international  law,  that  decision 
would  have  special  power  and  force  because  it  would  be
made  by  the  branches  most  immediately  responsive  to,