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Page Number: 51

8 

JESNER v. ARAB BANK, PLC 

Opinion of GORSUCH, J. 

cases are, after all, supposed to come out alike.  See Sarei 
v.  Rio  Tinto,  PLC,  671  F. 3d  736,  828  (CA9  2011)  (Ikuta, 
J.,  dissenting)  (“Mossman’s  analysis  [of  §11]  is  equally 
applicable  to  [§9]. . . .  ATS  does  not  give  federal  courts
jurisdiction  to  hear  international  law  claims  between  two 
aliens”), vacated and remanded, 569 U. S. 945 (2013).

Nor does it appear the ATS meant to rely on any other 
head  of  Article  III  jurisdiction.  You  might  wonder,  for
example,  if  the  First  Congress  considered  a  “violation  of
the  law  of  nations”  to  be  a  violation  of,  and  thus  “arise 
under,” federal law.  But that does not seem likely.  At the 
founding,  the  law  of  nations  was  considered  a  distinct 
“system  of  rules,  deducible  by  natural  reason,  and  estab-
lished  by  universal  consent  among  the  civilized  inhabit-
ants of the world,” 4 Blackstone 66.  While this Court has 
called  international  law  “part  of  our  law,”  The  Paquete 
Habana, 175 U. S. 677, 700 (1900), and a component of the 
“law  of  the  land,”  The  Nereide,  9  Cranch  388,  423  (1815),
that simply meant international law was no different than
the law of torts or contracts—it was “part of the so-called 
general  common  law,”  but  not  part  of  federal  law.    Sosa, 
542 U. S., at 739–740 (opinion of Scalia, J.). See Bradley & 
Goldsmith,  Customary  International  Law  as  Federal
Common  Law:  A  Critique  of  the  Modern  Position,  110
Harv.  L.  Rev.  815,  824,  849–850  (1997);  see  also  Young,
Sorting  Out  the  Debate  Over  Customary  International 
Law, 42 Va. J. Int’l L. 365, 374–375 (2002).  The text of the 
Constitution  appears  to  recognize  just  this  distinction.
Article I speaks of “Offences against the Law of Nations,” 
while both Article III and Article VI’s Supremacy Clause, 
which  defines  the  scope  of  pre-emptive  federal  law,  omit
that  phrase  while  referring  to  the  “Laws  of  the  United
States.”  Congress may act to bring provisions of interna-
tional law into federal law, but they cannot find their way 
there on their own.  “The law of nations is not embodied in 
any provision of the Constitution, nor in any treaty, act of