Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/17pdf/16-499_1a7d.pdf
Page Number: 86

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

29 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

about  who  should  be  liable  under  the  TVPA  for  torture 
and  extrajudicial  killing  should  restrict  who  can  be  held 
liable  under  the  ATS  for  other  law-of-nations  violations, 
particularly  where  Congress  made  a  different  judgment
about the scope of liability under the ATA for terrorism. 

C 
Finally,  the  plurality  offers  a  set  of  “[o]ther  considera­
tions relevant to the exercise of judicial discretion” that it 
concludes  “counsel  against  allowing  liability  under  the 
ATS  for  foreign  corporations.”  Ante,  at  23.  None  is 
persuasive.

First, the plurality asserts that “[i]t has not been shown
that corporate liability under the ATS is essential to serve
the goals of the statute” because “the ATS  will seldom be 
the only way for plaintiffs to hold the perpetrators liable,” 
and  because  “plaintiffs  still  can  sue  the  individual  corpo­
rate employees responsible for a violation of international 
law under the ATS.”  Ibid.  This Court has never previously
required that, to maintain an ATS action, a plaintiff must
show that the ATS is the exclusive means by which to hold
the alleged perpetrator liable and that no relief can be had 
from other parties.  Such requirements extend far beyond
the inquiry Sosa contemplated and are without any basis
in the statutory text.

Moreover,  even  if  there  are  other  grounds  on  which  a
suit  alleging  conduct  constituting  a  law-of-nations  viola­
tion  can  be  brought,  such  as  a  state-law  tort  claim,  the
First Congress created the ATS because it wanted foreign
plaintiffs  to  be  able  to  bring  their  claims  in  federal  court 
and sue for law-of-nations violations.  A suit for state-law 
battery, even if based on the same alleged conduct, is not
the equivalent of a federal suit for torture; the latter con­
tributes  to  the  uptake  of  international  human  rights