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Page Number: 8

6 

NESTLE USA, INC. v. DOE 

Opinion of the Court
Opinion of THOMAS, J. 

the rights of ambassadors, and piracy.”  Ibid.  But our prec-
edents  since  Sosa  have  clarified  that  courts  must  refrain 
from  creating  a  cause  of  action  whenever  there  is  even  a 
single sound reason to defer to Congress.  See, e.g., Hernán-
dez,  589  U. S.,  at  ___  (slip  op.,  at  8).    Tellingly,  we  have 
never created a cause of action under the ATS.  Even with-
out reexamining Sosa, our existing precedents prohibit us 
from creating a cause of action here. 

A 

Originally passed as part of the Judiciary Act of 1789, the 
ATS provides jurisdiction to hear claims brought “by an al-
ien for a tort only, committed in violation of the law of na-
tions or a treaty of the United States.”  28 U. S. C. §1350. 
If, for example, a treaty adopted by the United States cre-
ates a tort-related duty, federal district courts have juris-
diction to hear claims by aliens for breach of that duty. 

But the statute on its own does not empower aliens to sue. 
We have been clear that “the ATS is a jurisdictional statute 
creating no new causes of action.”  Sosa, 542 U. S., at 724. 
Aliens harmed by a violation of international law must rely 
on  legislative  and  executive  remedies,  not  judicial  reme-
dies, unless provided with an independent cause of action. 
In more than 200 years, Congress has established just one: 
the Torture Victim Protection Act of 1991.  That Act creates 
a private right of action for victims of torture and extraju-
dicial  killings  in  violation  of  international  law.  106  Stat. 
73, note following 28 U. S. C. §1350. 

Because  that  cause  of  action  does  not  apply  here,  re-
spondents ask us to create a new one.  They suggest that a 
plaintiff is entitled to a judicially created cause of action ab-
sent  compelling  reasons  to  withhold  one.   But  our  prece-
dents demand precisely the opposite rule. 

In  Sosa, we “assume[d]” that the First Congress,  which 
enacted the  ATS,  believed  that federal  courts, under  gen-
eral common law, “would recognize private causes of action