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Page Number: 14.0

8 

JESNER v. ARAB BANK, PLC 

Opinion of the Court 

United States.”  28 U. S. C. §1350.

The  ATS  is  “strictly  jurisdictional”  and  does  not  by  its
own terms provide or delineate the definition of a cause of 
action for violations of international law.  Sosa, 542 U. S., 
at  713–714.  But  the  statute  was  not  enacted  to  sit  on  a 
shelf  awaiting  further  legislation.  Id.,  at  714.    Rather, 
Congress  enacted  it  against  the  backdrop  of  the  general 
common law, which in 1789 recognized a limited category 
of “torts in violation of the law of nations.”  Ibid. 

In  the  18th  century,  international  law  primarily  gov-
erned relationships between and among nation-states, but 
in a few instances it governed individual conduct occurring
outside national borders (for example, “disputes relating to
prizes, to shipwrecks, to hostages, and ransom bills”).  Id., 
at  714–715  (internal  quotation  marks  omitted).  There 
was,  furthermore,  a  narrow  domain  in  which  “rules  bind-
ing  individuals  for  the  benefit  of  other  individuals  over-
lapped  with”  the  rules  governing  the  relationships  be-
tween  nation-states. 
Id.,  at  715.  As  understood  by
Blackstone,  this  domain  included  “three  specific  offenses 
against  the  law  of  nations  addressed  by  the  criminal  law 
of England: violation of safe conducts, infringement of the 
rights  of  ambassadors,  and  piracy.”    Ibid.  (citing  4  W.
Blackstone,  Commentaries  on  the  Laws  of  England  68
(1769)).  “It was this narrow set of violations of the law of 
nations,  admitting  of  a  judicial  remedy  and  at  the  same
time  threatening  serious  consequences  in  international 
affairs,  that  was  probably  on  the  minds  of  the  men  who
drafted the ATS.”  542 U. S., at 715. 

This  history  teaches  that  Congress  drafted  the  ATS  “to
furnish  jurisdiction  for  a  relatively  modest  set  of  actions 
alleging violations of the law of nations.”  Id., at 720.  The 
principal  objective  of  the  statute, when  first  enacted,  was
to  avoid  foreign  entanglements  by  ensuring  the  availabil-
ity  of  a  federal  forum  where  the  failure  to  provide  one
might  cause  another  nation  to  hold  the  United  States