Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/17pdf/16-499_1a7d.pdf
Page Number: 13

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

7 

Opinion of the Court 

citizens  as  a  result  of  violations  of  international  law; 
but  the  state  courts’  vindication  of  the  law  of  nations 
remained  unsatisfactory.  Concerns  with  the  consequent 
international-relations  tensions  “persisted  through  the 
time of the Constitutional Convention.”  542 U. S., at 717. 

Under the Articles of Confederation, the inability of the 
central  government  to  ensure  adequate  remedies  for  for-
eign  citizens  caused  substantial  foreign-relations  prob-
lems.  In 1784, the French Minister lodged a protest with 
the  Continental  Congress  after  a  French  adventurer,  the 
Chevalier  de  Longchamps,  assaulted  the  Secretary  of  the
French Legation in Philadelphia.  See Kiobel, 569 U. S., at 
120.  A  few  years  later,  a  New  York  constable  caused  an
international  incident  when  he  entered  the  house  of  the 
Dutch Ambassador and arrested one of his servants.  Ibid. 
Under the Articles of Confederation, there was no national 
forum  available  to  resolve  disputes  like  these  under  any 
binding laws that were or could be enacted or enforced by
a central government.

The Framers addressed these matters at the 1787 Phil-
adelphia  Convention;  and,  as  a  result,  Article  III  of  the
Constitution  extends  the  federal  judicial  power  to  “all 
cases  affecting  ambassadors,  other  public  ministers  and 
consuls,” and “to controversies . . . between a state, or the 
citizens  thereof,  and  foreign  states,  citizens,  or  subjects.”
§2.  The  First  Congress  passed  a  statute  to  implement 
these  provisions:  The  Judiciary  Act  of  1789  authorized 
federal  jurisdiction  over  suits  involving  disputes  between 
aliens  and  United  States  citizens  and  suits  involving 
diplomats.  §§9, 11, 1 Stat. 76–79. 

The Judiciary Act also included what is now the statute
known  as  the  ATS.  §9,  id.,  at  76.    As  noted,  the  ATS  is  
central to this case and its brief text bears repeating.  Its 
full text is: “The district courts shall have original jurisdic-
tion of any civil action by an alien for a tort only, commit-
ted  in  violation  of  the  law  of  nations  or  a  treaty  of  the