Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/17pdf/16-499_1a7d.pdf
Page Number: 46.0

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

3 

Opinion of GORSUCH, J. 

democracy  the  people’s  elected  representatives  make  the 
laws that govern them.  Judges do not.  The Constitution’s 
provisions  insulating  judges  from  political  accountability 
may  promote  our  ability  to  render  impartial  judgments 
in  disputes  between  the  people,  but  they  do  nothing 
to  recommend  us  as  policymakers  for  a  large  nation.
Recognizing  just  this,  our  cases  have  held  that  when
confronted with a request to fashion a new cause of action,
“separation-of-powers  principles  are  or  should  be  central 
to the analysis.”  Ziglar v. Abbasi, 582 U. S. ___, ___ (2017) 
(slip op., at 12).  The first and most important question in
that analysis “is ‘who  should decide’ . . . , Congress or the 
courts?”  and  the  right  answer  “most  often  will  be  Con-
gress.”  Ibid.   Deciding  that,  henceforth,  persons  like  A
who engage in certain conduct will be liable to persons like 
B  is,  in  every  meaningful  sense,  just  like  enacting  a  new 
law.  And in our constitutional order the job of writing new 
laws  belongs  to  Congress,  not  the  courts.    Adopting  new 
causes  of  action  may  have  been  a  “proper  function  for
common-law  courts,”  but  it  is  not  appropriate  “for  federal
tribunals”  mindful  of  the  limits  of  their  constitutional 
authority.  Alexander  v.  Sandoval,  532  U. S.  275,  287 
(2001) (internal quotation marks omitted).

Nor can I see any reason to make a special exception for 
the  ATS.  As  Sosa  initially  acknowledged,  the  ATS  was
designed  as  “a  jurisdictional  statute  creating  no  new 
causes  of  action.”    542  U. S.,  at  724;  accord,  ante,  at  8 
(majority opinion).  And I would have thought that the end 
of  the  matter.  A  statute  that  creates  no  new  causes  of 
action  . . .  creates  no  new  causes  of  action.    To  the extent 
Sosa  continued  on  to  claim  for  federal  judges  the  discre-
tionary power to create new forms of liability on their own, 
it invaded terrain that belongs to the people’s representa-
tives and should be promptly returned to them.  542 U. S., 
at  747  (Scalia,  J.,  concurring  in  part  and  concurring  in