Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/17pdf/16-499_1a7d.pdf
Page Number: 54

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

11 

Opinion of GORSUCH, J. 

statute was enacted partly in response to precisely such a 
case:  the  “Marbois  incident  of  May  1784,  in  which  a 
French  adventurer,  De  Longchamps,  verbally  and  physi-
cally  assaulted  the  Secretary  of  the  French  Legion  in 
Philadelphia.”  542  U. S.,  at  716.   Many  thought  that  the 
States’  failure  to  provide  a  forum  for  relief  to  the  foreign 
minister  was  a  scandal  and  part  of  what  prompted  the
framers  of  the  Constitution  to  strengthen  the  national 
government.    Id.,  at  717;  Bellia  &  Clark,  supra,  at  467 
(“The  Confederation’s  inability  to  remedy  or  curtail  viola-
tions  like  these  was  a  significant  factor  precipitating  the 
Federal Convention of 1787”). 

But  worries  along  these  lines  may  be  misplaced.    The 
ATS  was  never  meant  to  serve  as  a  freestanding  statute, 
only as one clause in one section of the Judiciary Act.  So 
even  if  you  think something  in  the  Judiciary  Act  must  be 
interpreted  to  address  the  Marbois  incident,  that  doesn’t
mean  it  must  be  the  ATS  clause.    And,  as  it  happens,  a
different  provision  of  the  Act  did  deal  expressly  with  the
problem  of  ambassadorial  assaults:  Section  13  conferred 
on this Court “original, but not exclusive jurisdiction of all
suits  brought  by  ambassadors,  or  other  public  ministers, 
or  in  which  a  consul,  or  vice  consul  shall  be  a  party.”    1 
Stat.  80–81.  That  implemented  Article  III’s  provision 
empowering us to hear suits “affecting Ambassadors, other 
public  ministers  and  Consuls.”  §2.    And  given  that  §13 
deals  with  the  problem  of  “ambassadors”  so  directly,  it  is 
unclear  why  we  must  read  §9  to  address  that  same  prob-
lem.  See Lee, The Safe-Conduct Theory of the Alien Tort 
Statute, 106 Colum. L. Rev. 830, 855–858 (2006). 

Along  different  but  similar  lines,  some  might  be  con-
cerned  that  requiring  a  U.  S.  defendant  in  ATS  suits
would leave the problem of piracy inadequately addressed,
given that Sosa suggested that piracy was one of the three
offenses  the  ATS  may  have  meant  to  capture,  and  many 
pirates  were  foreigners.    See  542  U. S.,  at  719.    But  here