Source: https://lexroll.com/jesner-v-arab-bank-plc-584-u-s-___-2018/
Timestamp: 2018-08-19 15:26:54
Document Index: 103392427

Matched Legal Cases: ['§1350', '§1350', '§2333', '§5311', '§1091', '§1595', '§2', '§1350', '§9', '§1350', '§9', '§11', '§11', '§9', '§11', '§11', '§9', '§1', '§1332', '§111', '§1350', '§1350', '§1091', 'Art. 1', 'Art. 2', 'Art. 5', 'Art. 5', '§1350', '§1350', '§9', '§1350', '§2333']

JESNER v. ARAB BANK, PLC, 584 U.S. ___ (2018) | LexRoll.com
JESNER v. ARAB BANK, PLC, 584 U.S. ___ (2018)
U.S. Supreme Court Opinions > 2018 > JESNER v. ARAB BANK, PLC, 584 U.S. ___ (2018)
Issues: Alien Tort Statute/Alien Tort Claims Act
JOSEPH JESNER, et al., PETITIONERS v. ARAB BANK, PLC
Petitioners filed suits under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), alleging that they, or the persons on whose behalf they assert claims, were injured or killed by terrorist acts committed abroad, and that those acts were in part caused or facilitated by respondent Arab Bank, PLC, a Jordanian financial institution with a branch in New York. They seek to impose liability on the bank for the conduct of its human agents, including high-ranking bank officials. They claim that the bank used its New York branch to clear dollar-denominated transactions that benefited terrorists through the Clearing House Interbank Payments System (CHIPS) and to launder money for a Texas-based charity allegedly affiliated with Hamas. While the litigation was pending, this Court held, in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., 569 U. S. 108 , that the ATS does not extend to suits against foreign corporations when “all the relevant conduct took place outside the United States,” id., at 124, but it left unresolved the Second Circuit’s broader holding in its Kiobel decision: that foreign corporations may not be sued under the ATS. Deeming that broader holding binding precedent, the District Court dismissed petitioners’ ATS claims and the Second Circuit affirmed.
(a) The Judiciary Act of 1789 included what is now known as the ATS, which provides: “The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of any civil action by an alien for a tort only, committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the 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 international-law violations. Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, 542 U. S. 692, 713 –714. It was enacted against the backdrop of the general common law, which in 1789 recognized a limited category of “torts in violation of the law of nations,” id., at 714; and one of its principal objectives was to avoid foreign entanglements by ensuring the availability of a federal forum where the failure to have one might cause another nation to hold the United States responsible for an injury to a foreign citizen, see id., at 715–719. The ATS was invoked but a few times over its first 190 years, but with the evolving recognition—e.g., in the Nuremberg trials—that certain crimes against humanity violate basic precepts of international law, courts began to give some redress for violations of clear and unambiguous international human-rights protections. After the Second Circuit first permitted plaintiffs to bring ATS actions based on modern human-rights laws, Congress enacted the Torture Victim Protection Act of 1991 (TVPA), creating an express cause of action for victims of torture and extrajudicial killing in violation of international law. ATS suits became more frequent; and modern ATS litigation has the potential to involve groups of foreign plaintiffs suing foreign corporations in the United States for alleged human-rights violations in other nations. In Sosa, the Court held that in certain narrow circumstances courts may recognize a common-law cause of action for claims based on the present-day law of nations, 542 U. S., at 732, but it explicitly held that ATS litigation implicates serious separation-of-powers and foreign-relations concerns, id., at 727–728. The Court subsequently held in Kiobel that “the presumption against extraterritoriality applies to [ATS] claims,” 569 U. S., at 124, and that even claims that “touch and concern the territory of the United States . . . must do so with sufficient force to displace” that presumption, id., at 124–125. Pp. 6–11.
(b) Sosa is consistent with this Court’s general reluctance to extend judicially created private rights of action. Recent precedents cast doubt on courts’ authority to extend or create private causes of action, even in the realm of domestic law, rather than leaving such decisions to the Legislature, which is better positioned “to consider if the public interest would be served by imposing a new substantive legal liability,” Ziglar v. Abbasi, 582 U. S. ___, ___ (internal quotation marks omitted). This caution extends to the question whether the courts should exercise the judicial authority to mandate a rule imposing liability upon artificial entities like corporations. Thus, in Correctional Services Corp. v. Malesko, 534 U. S. 61, 72 , the Court concluded that Congress, not the courts, should decide whether corporate defendants could be held liable in actions under Bivens v. Six Unknown Fed. Narcotics Agents, 403 U. S. 388 .
(b) Especially here, in the realm of international law, it is important to look to analogous statutes for guidance on the appropriate boundaries of judge-made causes of action. The logical statutory analogy for an ATS common-law action is the TVPA—the only ATS cause of action created by Congress rather than the courts. Drafted as “an unambiguous and modern basis for [an ATS] cause of action,” H. R. Rep. No. 102–367, p. 3, the TVPA reflects Congress’ considered judgment of the proper structure for such an action. Absent a compelling justification, courts should not deviate from that model. Relevant here, the TVPA limits liability to “individuals,” a term which unambiguously limits liability to natural persons, Mohamad v. Palestinian Authority, 566 U. S. 449, 453 –456. Congress’ decision to exclude liability for corporations in TVPA actions is all but dispositive in this case. Pp. 19–23.
Justice Alito concluded that the outcome in this case is justified not only by “judicial caution” but also by the separation of powers. Assuming that Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, 542 U. S. 692 , correctly held that federal courts, exercising their authority in limited circumstances to make federal common law, may create causes of action under the ATS, this Court should not create such causes of action against foreign corporate defendants. The objective for courts in any case requiring the creation of federal common law must be “to find the rule that will best effectuate the federal policy.” Textile Workers v. Lincoln Mills of Ala., 353 U. S. 448, 457 . The First Congress enacted the ATS to help the United States avoid diplomatic friction. Putting that objective together with the rules governing federal common law generally, the following principle emerges: Federal courts should decline to create federal common law causes of action whenever doing so would not materially advance the ATS’s objective of avoiding diplomatic strife. Applying that principle here, it is clear that courts should not create causes of action under the ATS against foreign corporate defendants. Customary international law does not generally require corporate liability, so declining to create it under the ATS cannot give other nations just cause for complaint against the United States. To the contrary, creating causes of action against foreign corporations under the ATS may instead provoke exactly the sort of diplomatic strife inimical to the statute’s fundamental purpose. Pp. 1–7.
(a) This Court has suggested that Congress originally enacted the ATS to afford federal courts jurisdiction to hear tort claims related to three violations of international law that were already embodied in English common law: violations of safe conducts extended to aliens, interference with ambassadors, and piracy. Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, 542 U. S. 692, 715 . Here, the plaintiffs seek much more. They want the federal courts to recognize a new cause of action, one that did not exist at the time of the statute’s adoption, one that Congress has never authorized. They find support in a passage suggesting that the ATS may afford federal judges “discretion [to] conside[r] [creating] new cause[s] of action” if they “rest on a norm of international character accepted by the civilized world and defined with a specificity comparable to the features of the [three specified] 18th-century” torts. Id., at 725. This is doubtful, for the people’s elected representatives, not judges, make the laws that govern them. But even accepting Sosa’s framework, a proper application of that framework would preclude courts from recognizing any new causes of action under the ATS. When courts are confronted with a request to fashion a new cause of action, “separation-of-powers principles are or should be central to the analysis.” Ziglarv. Abbasi, 582 U. S. ___, ___. The first and most important question is whether Congress or the courts should decide, and the right answer “most often will be Congress.” Ibid. There is no reason to make a special exception for the ATS, which was designed as “a jurisdictional statute creating no new causes of action.” Sosa, 542 U. S., at 724. The context in which any Sosa discretion would be exercised confirms the wisdom of restraint. The “practical consequences” that might follow a decision to create a new ATS cause of action, see id., at 732–733, would likely involve questions of foreign affairs and national security—matters implicating the expertise and authority not of the Judiciary but of the political branches. Pp. 2–5.
It is assumed here that those individuals who inflicted death or injury by terrorism committed crimes in violation of well-settled, fundamental precepts of international law, precepts essential for basic human-rights protections. It is assumed as well that individuals who knowingly and purposefully facilitated banking transactions to aid, en- able, or facilitate the terrorist acts would themselves be committing crimes under the same international-law prohibitions.
During the pendency of this litigation, there was an unrelated case that also implicated the issue whether the ATS is applicable to suits in this country against foreign corporations. See Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., 621 F. 3d 111 (CA2 2010). That suit worked its way through the trial court and the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. The Kiobel litigation did not involve banking transactions. Its allegations were that holding companies incorporated in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom had, through a Nigerian subsidiary, aided and abetted the Nigerian Government in human-rights abuses.Id., at 123. In Kiobel, the Court of Appeals held that the ATS does not extend to suits against corporations. Id., at 120. This Court granted certiorari in Kiobel. 565 U. S. 961 (2011) .
After additional briefing and reargument in Kiobel, this Court held that, given all the circumstances, the suit could not be maintained under the ATS. Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., 569 U. S. 108, 114, 124 –125 (2013). The rationale of the holding, however, was not that the ATS does not extend to suits against foreign corporations. That question was left unresolved. The Court ruled, instead, that “all the relevant conduct took place outside the United States.” Id., at 124. Dismissal of the action was required based on the presumption against extraterritorial application of statutes.
Under the Articles of Confederation, the Continental Congress lacked authority to “ ‘cause infractions of treaties, or of the law of nations to be punished.’ ” Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, 542 U. S. 692, 716 (2004) (quoting J. Madison, Journal of the Constitutional Convention 60 (E. Scott ed. 1893)). The Continental Congress urged the States to authorize suits for damages sustained by foreign 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.
In the midst of debates in the courts of appeals over whether the court in Filartiga was correct in holding that plaintiffs could bring ATS actions based on modern human- rights laws absent an express cause of action created by an additional statute, Congress enacted the Torture Victim Protection Act of 1991 (TVPA), 106Stat. 73, note following 28 U. S. C. §1350. H. R. Rep. No. 102–367, pp. 3–4 (1991) (H. R. Rep.) (citing Tel-Oren v. Libyan Arab Republic, 726 F. 2d 774 (CADC 1984)); S. Rep. No. 102–249, pp. 3–5 (1991) (S. Rep.) (same). The TVPA—which is codified as a note following the ATS—creates an express cause of action for victims of torture and extrajudicial killing in violation of international law.
Petitioners and Arab Bank disagree as to whether corporate liability is a question of international law or only a question of judicial authority and discretion under domes- tic law. The dispute centers on a footnote in Sosa. In the course of holding that international norms must be “sufficiently definite to support a cause of action,” the Court in Sosa noted that a “related consideration is whether international law extends the scope of liability for a violation of a given norm to the perpetrator being sued, if the defendant is a private actor such as a corporation or individual.” Id., at 732, and n. 20.
In the Court of Appeals’ decision in Kiobel, the majority opinion by Judge Cabranes interpreted footnote 20 to mean that corporate defendants may be held liable under the ATS only if there is a specific, universal, and obligatory norm that corporations are liable for violations of international law. 621 F. 3d, at 127. In Judge Cabranes’ view, “[i]nternational law is not silent on the question of the subjects of international law—that is, those that, to varying extents, have legal status, personality, rights, and duties under international law,” “[n]or does international law leave to individual States the responsibility of defining those subjects.” Id., at 126 (internal quotation marks omitted). There is considerable force and weight to the position articulated by Judge Cabranes. And, assuming the Court of Appeals was correct that under Sosacorporate liability is a question of international law, there is an equally strong argument that petitioners cannot satisfy the high bar of demonstrating a specific, universal, and obligatory norm of liability for corporations. Indeed, Judge Leval agreed with the conclusion that international law does “not provide for any form of liability of corporations.” Kiobel, 621 F. 3d, at 186.
Petitioners first point to the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism. This Convention imposes an obligation on “Each State Party” “to enable a legal entity located in its territory or organized under its laws to be held liable when a person responsible for the management or control of that legal entity has, in that capacity,” violated the Convention. International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism, Dec. 9, 1999, S. Treaty Doc. No. 106–49, 2178 U. N. T. S. 232. But by its terms the Convention imposes its obligations only on nation-states “to enable” corporations to be held liable in certain circumstances under domestic law. The United States and other nations, including Jordan, may fulfill their obligations under the Convention by adopting detailed regulatory regimes governing financial institutions. See, e.g., 18 U. S. C. §2333(a) (private right of action under the Anti-Terrorism Act); 31 U. S. C. §5311 et seq.(Bank Secrecy Act); 31 CFR pt. 595 (2017) (Terrorism Sanctions Regulations); Brief for Central Bank of Jordan as Amicus Curiae 5 (describing Jordan’s “comprehensive approach to preventing money laundering and terrorist financing”). The Convention neither requires nor authorizes courts, without congressional authorization, to displace those detailed regulatory regimes by allowing common-law actions under the ATS. And nothing in the Convention’s text requires signatories to hold corporations liable in common-law tort actions raising claims under international law.
Sosa is consistent with this Court’s general reluctance to extend judicially created private rights of action. The Court’s recent precedents cast doubt on the authority of courts to extend or create private causes of action even in the realm of domestic law, where this Court has “recently and repeatedly said that a decision to create a private right of action is one better left to legislative judgment in the great majority of cases.” 542 U. S., at 727 (citing Correctional Services Corp. v. Malesko, 534 U. S. 61, 68 (2001) ; Alexander v. Sandoval, 532 U. S. 275, 286 –287 (2001)). That is because “the Legislature is in the better position to consider if the public interest would be served by imposing a new substantive legal liability.” Ziglar v. Abbasi, 582 U. S. ___, ___ (2017) (slip op., at 12) (internal quotation marks omitted). Thus, “if there are sound reasons to think Congress might doubt the efficacy or necessity of a damages remedy, . . . courts must refrain from creating the remedy in order to respect the role of Congress.” Id., at ___ (slip op., at 13).
This caution extends to the question whether the courts should exercise the judicial authority to mandate a rule that imposes liability upon artificial entities like corporations. Thus, in Malesko the Court held that corporate defendants may not be held liable in Bivens actions. See Bivens v. Six Unknown Fed. Narcotics Agents, 403 U. S. 388 (1971) . Allowing corporate liability would have been a “marked extension” of Bivens that was unnecessary to advance its purpose of holding individual officers responsible for “engaging in unconstitutional wrongdoing.” Malesko, 534 U. S., at 74. Whether corporate defendants should be subject to suit was “a question for Congress, not us, to decide.” Id., at 72.
Neither the language of the ATS nor the precedents interpreting it support an exception to these general principles in this context. In fact, the separation-of-powers concerns that counsel against courts creating private rights of action apply with particular force in the context of the ATS. See infra, at 25–26. The political branches, not the Judiciary, have the responsibility and institutional capacity to weigh foreign-policy concerns. See Kiobel, 569 U. S., at 116–117. That the ATS implicates foreign relations “is itself a reason for a high bar to new private causes of action for violating international law.”Sosa, supra, at 727.
Even in areas less fraught with foreign-policy consequences, the Court looks to analogous statutes for guidance on the appropriate boundaries of judge-made causes of action. See, e.g., Miles v. Apex Marine Corp., 498 U. S. 19, 24 (1990) ; Blue Chip Stamps v. Manor Drug Stores, 421 U. S. 723, 736 (1975) . Doing so is even more important in the realm of international law, where “the general practice has been to look for legislative guidance before exercising innovative authority over substantive law.” Sosa, supra, at 726.
Here, the logical place to look for a statutory analogy to an ATS common-law action is the TVPA—the only cause of action under the ATS created by Congress rather than the courts. As explained above, Congress drafted the TVPA to “establish an unambiguous and modern basis for a cause of action” under the ATS. H. R. Rep., at 3; S. Rep., at 4–5. Congress took care to delineate the TVPA’s boundaries. In doing so, it could weigh the foreign-policy implications of its rule. Among other things, Congress specified who may be liable, created an exhaustion requirement, and established a limitations period.Kiobel, 569 U. S., at 117. In Kiobel, the Court recognized that “[e]ach of these decisions carries with it significant foreign policy implications.” Ibid. The TVPA reflects Congress’ considered judgment of the proper structure for a right of action under the ATS. Absent a compelling justification, courts should not deviate from that model.
The key feature of the TVPA for this case is that it limits liability to “individuals,” which, the Court has held, unambiguously limits liability to natural persons. Mohamad v. Palestinian Authority, 566 U. S. 449, 453 –456 (2012). Congress’ decision to exclude liability for corporations in actions brought under the TVPA is all but dispositive of the present case. That decision illustrates that significant foreign-policy implications require the courts to draw a careful balance in defining the scope of actions under the ATS. It would be inconsistent with that balance to create a remedy broader than the one created by Congress. Indeed, it “would be remarkable to take a more aggressive role in exercising a jurisdiction that remained largely in shadow for much of the prior two centuries.” Sosa, supra, at 726.
At least two flaws inhere in this argument. First, in Mohamad the Court unanimously rejected petitioners’ account of the TVPA’s legislative history. 566 U. S., at 453, 458–460. The Court instead read that history to demonstrate that Congress acted to exclude all corporate entities, not just the sovereign ones. Id., at 459–460 (citing Hearing and Markup on H. R. 1417 before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and Its Subcommittee on Human Rights and International Organizations, 100th Cong., 2d Sess., 87–88 (1988)); see also 566 U. S., at 461–462 (Breyer, J., concurring). Second, even for international-law norms that do not require state action, plaintiffs can still use corporations as surrogate defendants to challenge the conduct of foreign governments. In Kiobel, for example, the plaintiffs sought to hold a corporate defendant liable for “aiding and abetting the Nigerian Government in committing,” among other things, “crimes against humanity.” 569 U. S., at 114; see also, e.g., Sarei v. Rio Tinto, PLC, 671 F. 3d 736, 761–763 (CA9 2011) (en banc) (corporate defendant allegedly used Papua New Guinea’s military to commit genocide), vacated and remanded, 569 U. S. 945 (2013) .
Other considerations relevant to the exercise of judicial discretion also counsel against allowing liability under the ATS for foreign corporations, absent instructions from Congress to do so. It has not been shown that corporate liability under the ATS is essential to serve the goals of the statute. As to the question of adequate remedies, the ATS will seldom be the only way for plaintiffs to hold the perpetrators liable. See, e.g., 18 U. S. C. §1091 (criminal prohibition on genocide); §1595 (civil remedy for victims of slavery). And plaintiffs still can sue the individual corporate employees responsible for a violation of international law under the ATS. If the Court were to hold that foreign corporations have liability for international-law violations, then plaintiffs may well ignore the human perpetrators and concentrate instead on multinational corporate entities.
At a minimum, the relatively minor connection between the terrorist attacks at issue in this case and the alleged conduct in the United States well illustrates the perils of extending the scope of ATS liability to foreign multinational corporations like Arab Bank. For 13 years, this litigation has “caused significant diplomatic tensions” with Jordan, a critical ally in one of the world’s most sensitive regions. Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 30. “Jordan is a key counterterrorism partner, especially in the global campaign to defeat the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.” Id., at 31. The United States explains that Arab Bank itself is “a constructive partner with the United States in working to prevent terrorist financing.” Id., at 32 (internal quotation marks omitted). Jordan considers the instant litigation to be a “grave affront” to its sovereignty. See Brief for Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan as Amicus Curiae 3; see ibid. (“By exposing Arab Bank to massive liability, this suit thus threatens to destabilize Jordan’s economy and undermine its cooperation with the United States”).
Like the presumption against extraterritoriality, judicial caution under Sosa “guards against our courts triggering . . . serious foreign policy consequences, and instead defers such decisions, quite appropriately, to the political branches.”Kiobel, 569 U. S., at 124. If, in light of all the concerns that must be weighed before imposing liability on foreign corporations via ATS suits, the Court were to hold that it has the discretion to make that determination, then the cautionary language of Sosa would be little more than empty rhetoric. Accordingly, the Court holds that foreign corporations may not be defendants in suits brought under the ATS.
Finally, Congress might find that corporate liability should be limited to cases where a corporation’s management was actively complicit in the crime. Cf. ALI, Model Penal Code §2.07(1)(c) (1985) (a corporation may be held criminally liable where “the commission of the offense was authorized, requested, commanded, performed or recklessly tolerated by the board of directors or by a high managerial agent acting on behalf of the corporation within the scope of his office or employment”). Again, the political branches are better equipped to make the preliminary findings and consequent conclusions that should inform this determination.
First adopted in 1789, the current version of the ATS provides that “[t]he district courts shall have original jurisdiction of any civil action by an alien for a tort only, committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States.” 28 U. S. C. §1350. More than two hundred years later, the meaning of this terse provision has still “proven elusive.” Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, 542 U. S. 692, 719 (2004) . At the same time, this Court has suggested that Congress enacted the statute to afford federal courts jurisdiction to hear tort claims related to three violations of international law that were already embodied in English common law: violations of safe conducts extended to aliens, interference with ambassadors, and piracy. Id., at 715; 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 68 (1769) (Blackstone); see also Bellia & Clark, The Alien Tort Statute and the Law of Nations, 78 U. Chi. L. Rev. 445 (2011) (arguing that the ATS meant to supply jurisdiction over a slightly larger set of claims involving intentional torts by Americans against aliens).
I harbor serious doubts about Sosa’s suggestion. In our democracy the people’s elected representatives make the laws that govern them. Judges do not. The Constitution’s provisions insulating judges from political accountability may promote our ability to render impartial judgments in disputes between the people, but they do nothing to recommend us as policymakers for a large nation. Recognizing just this, our cases have held that when confronted with a request to fashion a new cause of action, “separation-of-powers principles are or should be central to the analysis.” Ziglar v. Abbasi, 582 U. S. ___, ___ (2017) (slip op., at 12). The first and most important question in that analysis “is ‘who should decide’ . . . , Congress or the courts?” and the right answer “most often will be Congress.” Ibid. Deciding that, henceforth, persons like A who engage in certain conduct will be liable to persons like B is, in every meaningful sense, just like enacting a new law. And in our constitutional order the job of writing new laws belongs to Congress, not the courts. Adopting new causes of action may have been a “proper function for common-law courts,” but it is not appropriate “for federal tribunals” mindful of the limits of their constitutional authority. Alexander v. Sandoval, 532 U. S. 275, 287 (2001) (internal quotation marks omitted).
Nor can I see any reason to make a special exception for the ATS. As Sosa initially acknowledged, the ATS was designed as “a jurisdictional statute creating no new causes of action.” 542 U. S., at 724; accord, ante, at 8 (majority opinion). And I would have thought that the end of the matter. A statute that creates no new causes of action . . . creates no new causes of action. To the extent Sosa continued on to claim for federal judges the discretionary power to create new forms of liability on their own, it invaded terrain that belongs to the people’s representatives and should be promptly returned to them. 542 U. S., at 747 (Scalia, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment).[1]
But even accepting Sosa’s framework does not end the matter. As the Court acknowledges, there is a strong argument that “a proper application of Sosa would preclude courts from ever recognizing any new causes of action under the ATS.”Ante, at 19. I believe that argument is correct. For the reasons just described, separation of powers considerations ordinarily require us to defer to Congress in the creation of new forms of liability. This Court hasn’t yet used Sosa’s assertion of discretionary authority to recognize a new cause of action, and I cannot imagine a sound reason, hundreds of years after the statute’s passage, to start now. For a court inclined to claim the discretion to enter this field, it is a discretion best exercised by staying out of it.
Start with the statute. What we call the Alien Tort Statute began as just one clause among many in §9 of the Judiciary Act of 1789, which specified the jurisdiction of the federal courts. 1Stat. 76–78. The ATS clause gave the district courts “cognizance, concurrent with the courts of the several States, or the circuit courts, as the case may be, of all causes where an alien sues for a tort only in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States.”[2] Like today’s recodified version, 28 U. S. C. §1350, the original text of the ATS did not expressly call for a U. S. defendant. But I think it likely would have been understood to contain such a requirement when adopted.
Precedent confirms this conclusion. In Mossman v. Higginson, 4 Dall. 12, 14 (1800), this Court addressed the meaning of a neighboring provision of the Judiciary Act. Section 11 gave the circuit courts power to hear, among other things, civil cases where “an alien is a party.” 1Stat. 78. As with §9, you might think §11’s language could be read to permit a suit between aliens. Yet this Court held §11 must instead be construed to refer only to cases “where, indeed, an alien is one party, but a citizen is the other.” Mossman, 4 Dall., at 14 (internal quotation marks omitted). That was necessary, Mossman explained, to give the statute a “constructio[n] consistent” with the diversity-jurisdiction clause of Article III. Ibid. And as a matter of precedent, I cannot think of a good reason why we would now read §9 differently than Mossman read §11. Like cases are, after all, supposed to come out alike. See Sarei v. Rio Tinto, PLC, 671 F. 3d 736, 828 (CA9 2011) (Ikuta, J., dissenting) (“Mossman’s analysis [of §11] is equally applicable to [§9]. . . . ATS does not give federal courts jurisdiction to hear international law claims between two aliens”), vacated and remanded, 569 U. S. 945 (2013) .
Nor does it appear the ATS meant to rely on any other head of Article III jurisdiction. You might wonder, for example, if the First Congress considered a “violation of the law of nations” to be a violation of, and thus “arise under,” federal law. But that does not seem likely. At the founding, the law of nations was considered a distinct “system of rules, deducible by natural reason, and established by universal consent among the civilized inhabitants of the world,” 4 Blackstone 66. While this Court has called international law “part of our law,” The Paquete Habana, 175 U. S. 677, 700 (1900) , and a component of the “law of the land,” The Nereide, 9 Cranch 388, 423 (1815), that simply meant international law was no different than the law of torts or contracts—it was “part of the so-called general common law,” but not part of federal law. Sosa, 542 U. S., at 739–740 (opinion of Scalia, J.). See Bradley & Goldsmith, Customary International Law as Federal Common Law: A Critique of the Modern Position, 110 Harv. L. Rev. 815, 824, 849–850 (1997); see also Young, Sorting Out the Debate Over Customary International Law, 42 Va. J. Int’l L. 365, 374–375 (2002). The text of the Constitution appears to recognize just this distinction. Article I speaks of “Offences against the Law of Nations,” while both Article III and Article VI’s Supremacy Clause, which defines the scope of pre-emptive federal law, omit that phrase while referring to the “Laws of the United States.” Congress may act to bring provisions of international law into federal law, but they cannot find their way there on their own. “The law of nations is not embodied in any provision of the Constitution, nor in any treaty, act of Congress, or any authority, or commission derived from the United States.” Caperton v. Bowyer, 14 Wall. 216, 228 (1872).
Even so, that hardly left the ATS without important work to perform. At the time of the founding, “[i]f a nation failed to redress injuries by its citizens upon the citizens of another nation, the perpetrators’ nation violated the ‘perfect rights’ of the other nation,” which “provided the offended nation with just cause for reprisals or war.” Bellia & Clark, 78 U. Chi. L. Rev., at 476.[3] This reality posed an existential threat to the new nation. Under the Articles of Confederation, States regularly refused to redress injuries their citizens caused foreigners. British creditors, for example, often found their efforts to collect debts from American debtors thwarted. Id., at 498–501. Seeking to remedy these and similar problems, the Continental Congress in 1781 passed a resolution encouraging the States, among other things, to establish tribunals for vindicating “offences against the law of nations” and to “authorise suits to be instituted for damages by the party injured.” Id., at 495–496. But the States did too little, too late. So when the framers gathered to write the Constitution they included among their chief priorities endowing the national government with sufficient power to ensure the country’s compliance with the law of nations. See 1 Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, pp. 24–25 (M. Farrand rev. 1966).
If doubt lingers on these historical questions, it is a doubt that should counsel restraint all the same. Even if the ATS might have meant to allow foreign ambassadors to sue foreign defendants, or foreign plaintiffs to sue foreign pirates, what would that prove about more mine-run cases like ours, where none of those special concerns are implicated? There are at least serious historical arguments suggesting the ATS was not meant to apply to suits like this one. And to the extent Sosaaffords courts discretion to proceed, these arguments should inform any decision whether to exercise that discretion. In Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., 569 U. S. 108, 116 –117 (2013), the Court invoked Sosa discretion to refuse to hear cases involving foreign conduct. I can see no reason why courts should respond differently when it comes to cases involving foreign defendants.[4]
1 The dissent claims that Congress’s decision to give federal courts “jurisdiction over claims based on ‘the law of nations,’ ” necessarily implies the authority to develop that law. Post, at 16. That does not follow. Federal courts have jurisdiction over all kinds of cases—for example, those arising under the law of torts or contracts. Yet following our decision in Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U. S. 64 (1938) , federal courts are generally no longer permitted to promulgate new federal common law causes of action in those areas. Id., at 75. I can see no reason to treat the law of nations differently. See Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, 542 U. S. 692, 744 –746 (2004) (Scalia, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment).
In Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, 542 U. S. 692 (2004) , however, this Court nevertheless held that federal courts, exercising their authority in limited circumstances to make federal common law, may create causes of action that aliens may assert under the ATS. That holding takes some explaining.
According to Sosa, when the First Congress enacted the ATS in 1789, it assumed that the statute would “have practical effect the moment it became law” because the general common law “would provide a cause of action for [a] modest number of international law violations.” Id., at 724. That assumption, however, depended on the continued existence of the general common law. And in 1938—a century and a half after Congress enacted the ATS—this Court rejected the “fallacy” underlying the general common law, declaring definitively that “[t]here is no federal general common law.” Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U. S. 64, 78, 79 (1938) . That left the ATS in an awkward spot: Congress had not created any causes of action for the statute on the assumption that litigants would use those provided by the general common law, but now the general common law was no more.
In Sosa, this Court did its best to resolve that problem. “[I]t would be unreasonable to assume,” the Court explained, “that the First Congress would have expected federal courts to lose all capacity to recognize enforceable international norms simply because the [general] common law might lose some metaphysical cachet on the road to modern realism.” 542 U. S., at 730. Although the general common law was gone, the Court concluded, federal courts could still exercise their authority to create so-called “federal common law” for those “ ‘few and restricted’ ” areas “in which Congress has given the courts the power to develop substantive law.” Texas Industries, Inc. v. Radcliff Materials, Inc., 451 U. S. 630, 640 (1981) . Sosainterpreted the ATS as conferring such authorization.
For the reasons articulated by Justice Scalia in Sosa and by Justice Gorsuch today, I am not certain that Sosa was correctly decided. See id., at 739–751 (Scalia, J., dissenting); post, at 2–5 (Gorsuch, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). But even taking that decision on its own terms, this Court should not create causes of action under the ATS against foreign corporate defendants. As part of Sosa’s second step, a court should decline to create a cause of action as a matter of federal common law where the result would be to further, not avoid, diplomatic strife. Properly applied, that rule easily resolves the question presented by this case.[1]*
Sosa interpreted the ATS to authorize the federal courts to create causes of action as a matter of federal common law. We have repeatedly emphasized that “in fashioning federal [common law] principles to govern areas left open by Congress, our function is to effectuate congressional policy.” United States v. Kimbell Foods, Inc., 440 U. S. 715, 738 (1979) . Fidelity to congressional policy is not only prudent but necessary: Going beyond the bounds of Congress’s authorization would mean unconstitutionally usurping part of the “legislative Powers.” U. S. Const., Art. I, §1. Accordingly, the objective for courts in every case requiring the creation of federal common law must be “to find the rule that will best effectuate the federal policy.” Textile Workers v. Lincoln Mills of Ala., 353 U. S. 448 , 457 (1957).
The ATS was meant to help the United States avoid diplomatic friction. The First Congress enacted the law to provide a forum for adjudicating that “narrow set of violations of the law of nations” that, if left unaddressed, “threaten[ed] serious consequences” for the United States. Sosa, 542 U. S., at 715; see also Brief for Professors of International Law et al. as Amici Curiae 7–12. Specifically, the First Congress was concerned about offenses like piracy, violation of safe conducts, and infringement of the rights of ambassadors, each of which “if not adequately redressed could rise to an issue of war.” Sosa, supra, at 715. That threat was existentially terrifying for the young Nation. See Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., 569 U. S. 108, 123 –124 (2013). To minimize the danger, the First Congress enacted the ATS, “ensur[ing] that the United States could provide a forum for adjudicating such incidents” and thus helping the Nation avoid further diplomatic imbroglios. Id., at 124; see ante, at 25 (majority opinion).
1 * Because this case involves a foreign corporation, we have no need to reach the question whether an alien may sue a United States corporation under the ATS. And since such a suit may generally be brought in federal court based on diversity jurisdiction, 28 U. S. C. §1332(a)(2), it is unclear why ATS jurisdiction would be needed in that situation.
The plurality assumes without deciding that whether corporations can be permissible defendants under the ATS turns on the first step of the two-part inquiry set out in Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, 542 U. S. 692 (2004) . But by asking whether there is “a specific, universal, and obligatory norm of liability for corporations” in international law, ante, at 13, the plurality fundamentally misconceives how international law works and so misapplies the first step of Sosa.
In Sosa, the Court considered whether a Mexican citizen could recover under the ATS for a claim of arbitrary detention by a Mexican national who had been hired by the Drug Enforcement Administration to seize and transport him to the United States. See 542 U. S., at 697–698. The Court held that the ATS permits federal courts to “recognize private causes of action for certain torts in violation of the law of nations,” id., at 724, without the need for any “further congressional action,” id.,at 712. The Court then articulated a two-step framework to guide that inquiry. First, a court must determine whether the particular international-law norm alleged to have been violated is “accepted by the civilized world and defined with a specificity comparable to the features of the 18th-century paradigms,” i.e., “violation of safe conducts, infringement of the rights of ambassadors, and piracy.” Id., at 724–725. Only if the norm is “ ‘specific, universal, and obligatory’ ” may federal courts recognize a cause of action for its violation. Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., 569 U. S. 108, 117 (2013) (quoting Sosa, 542 U. S., at 732). Second, if that threshold hurdle is satisfied, a court should consider whether allowing a particular case to proceed is an appropriate exercise of judicial discretion. Sosa, 542 U. S., at 727–728, 732–733, 738. Applying that framework, Sosa held that the alleged arbitrary detention claim at issue failed at step one because “a single illegal detention of less than a day, followed by the transfer of custody to lawful authorities and a prompt arraignment, violates no norm of customary international law so well defined as to support the creation of a federal remedy.” Id., at 738.
Sosa does not, however, demand that there be sufficient international consensus with regard to the mechanisms of enforcing these norms, for enforcement is not a question with which customary international law is concerned. Although international law determines what substantive conduct violates the law of nations, it leaves the specific rules of how to enforce international-law norms and remedy their violation to states, which may act to impose liability collectively through treaties or independently via their domestic legal systems. See, e.g., L. Henkin, Foreign Affairs and the United States Constitution 245 (2d ed. 1996) (“International law itself . . . does not require any particular reaction to violations of law”); Denza, The Relationship Between International and National Law, in International Law 423 (M. Evans ed. 2006) (“[I]nternational law does not itself prescribe how it should be applied or enforced at the national level”); 1 Restatement §111, Comment h (“In the absence of special agreement, it is ordinarily for the United States to decide how it will carry out its international obligations”); Brief for International Law Scholars as Amici Curiae 9–10.
In keeping with the nature of international law, Sosa consistently used the word “norm” to refer to substantive conduct. For example, Sosa commands that “federal courts should not recognize private claims under federal common law for violations of any international law norm with less definite content and acceptance among civilized nations than the historical paradigms familiar when §1350 was enacted.” 542 U. S., at 732. That statement would make little sense if “norm” encompassed enforcement mechanisms like “corporate liability.” Unlike “the prohibition on genocide,” “corporate liability” cannot be violated. Moreover, “the historical paradigms familiar when §1350 was enacted” are all prohibitions on conduct, and Sosa clearly contemplated that courts should compare the charged conduct with the historical conduct. See ibid.(quoting Filartiga v. Pena-Irala, 630 F. 2d 876 (1980), where the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit compared a “ ‘torturer’ ” to “ ‘the pirate and slave trader before him,’ ” id., at 890, and Judge Edwards’ concurrence in Tel-Oren v. Libyan Arab Republic, 726 F. 2d 774 (CADC 1984), which suggested that the “ ‘limits of section 1350’s reach’ ” be defined by “ ‘a handful of heinous actions—each of which violates definable, universal and obligatory norms,’ ” id., at 781). There is no indication in Sosa that the Court also intended for courts to undertake the apples-to-oranges comparison of the conduct proscribed under customary international law and the forms of liability available under domestic law.
The international-law norm against genocide, for example, imposes obligations on all actors. Acts of genocide thus violate the norm irrespective of whether they are committed privately or in concert with the state. See Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Art. II, Dec. 9, 1948, 102Stat. 3045 (defining “genocide” as “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”); see also 18 U. S. C. §1091(a) (“Whoever” commits genocide “shall be punished as provided in subsection (b)”). In contrast, other norms, like the prohibition on torture, require state action. Conduct thus qualifies as torture and violates the norm only when done “by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity.” Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, Art. 1, Dec. 10, 1984, S. Treaty Doc. No. 100–20, 1465 U. N. T. S. 114 (Torture Convention).[1]
Footnote 20 in Sosa flags this distinction and instructs courts to consider whether there is “sufficient consensus” that, with respect to the particular conduct prohibited under “a given norm,” the type of defendant being sued can be alleged to have violated that specific norm. 542 U. S., at 732, n. 20. Because footnote 20 contemplates a norm-specific inquiry, not a categorical one, it is irrelevant to the categorical question presented here. Assuming the prohibition against financing of terrorism is sufficiently “specific, universal, and obligatory” to satisfy the first step of Sosa, a question on which I would remand to the Court of Appeals, nothing in international law suggests a corporation may not violate it.[2]
Again, the question of who must undertake the prohibited conduct for there to be a violation of an international-law norm is one of international law, but how a particular actor is held liable for a given law-of-nations violation generally is a question of enforcement left up to individual states. Sometimes, states act collectively and establish international tribunals to punish certain international-law violations. Each such tribunal is individually negotiated, and the limitations placed on its jurisdiction are typi- cally driven by strategic considerations and resource constraints.
In fact, careful review of states’ collective and individual enforcement efforts makes clear that corporations are subject to certain obligations under international law. For instance, the United States Military Tribunal that prosecuted several corporate executives of IG Farben declared that corporations could violate international law. See 8 Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals Under Council Control Law No. 10, p. 1132 (1952) (“Where private individuals, including juristic persons, proceed to exploit the military occupancy by acquiring private property against the will and consent of the former owner, such action . . . is in violation of international law”).[3] Similarly, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda found that three nonnatural entities—a private radio station, newspaper, and political party—were responsible for genocide. See Prosecutor v. Nahimana, Case No. ICTR–99–52–T, Judgment and Sentence ¶953 (Dec. 3, 2003). Most recently, the appeals panel of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon held that corporations may be prosecuted for contempt. See Prosecutor v. New TV S. A. L., Case No. STL–14–05/PT/AP/AR126.1, Decision on Interlocutory Appeal Concerning Personal Jurisdiction in Contempt Proceedings ¶74 (Oct. 2, 2014).
In addition, various international agreements require signatory states to impose liability on corporations for certain conduct.[4] Of particular relevance here, the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism provides: “Any person commits an offence within the meaning of this Convention if that person by any means, directly or indirectly, unlawfully and wilfully, provides or collects funds with the intention that they should be used or in the knowledge that they are to be used, in full or in part, in order to carry out” an act of terrorism. Dec. 9, 1999, Art. 2, S. Treaty Doc. No. 106–49, 2178 U. N. T. S. 230. It then requires each signatory state, “in accordance with its domestic legal principles,” to “take the necessary measures to enable a legal entity located in its territory or organized under its laws to be held liable when a person responsible for the management or control of that legal entity has, in that capacity,” violated the Convention. Id., Art. 5(1). The Convention provides that “[s]uch liability may be criminal, civil, or administrative,” ibid., so long as the penalties, which can include monetary sanctions, are “effective, proportionate and dissuasive.” Id., Art. 5(3). The United States is a party to the Convention, along with 131 other states.[5]
The plurality dismisses the relevance of this Convention because it does not require states parties to hold corporations liable in common-law tort actions, but rather permits them to “fulfill their obligations . . . by adopting detailed regulatory regimes governing financial institutions.” Ante, at 16. That critique misses the point. The significance of the Convention is that the international community agreed that financing terrorism is unacceptable conduct and that such conduct violates the Convention when undertaken by corporations. That the Convention leaves up to each state party how to impose liability on corporations, e.g., via erecting a regulatory regime, providing for tort actions, or imposing criminal sanctions, is unremarkable,[6] and simply reflects that international law sets out standards of conduct and leaves it to individual states to determine how best to enforce those standards.
Beginning “with the language of the statute itself,” United States v. Ron Pair Enterprises, Inc., 489 U. S. 235 , 241 (1989), two aspects of the text of the ATS make clear that the statute allows corporate liability. First, the text confers jurisdiction on federal district courts to hear “civil action[s]” for “tort[s].” 28 U. S. C. §1350. Where Congress uses a term of art like tort, “it presumably knows and adopts the cluster of ideas that were attached to [the] borrowed word in the body of learning from which it was taken and the meaning its use will convey to the judicial mind unless otherwise instructed.” Morissette v. United States, 342 U. S. 246, 263 (1952) .
Corporations have long been held liable in tort under the federal common law. See Philadelphia, W., & B. R. Co. v. Quigley, 21 How. 202, 210 (1859) (“At a very early period, it was decided in Great Britain, as well as in the United States, that actions might be maintained against corporations for torts; and instances may be found, in the judicial annals of both countries, of suits for torts arising from the acts of their agents, of nearly every variety”); Chestnut Hill & Spring House Turnpike Co. v. Rutter, 4 Serg. & Rawle 6, 17 (Pa. 1818) (“[F]rom the earliest times to the present, corporations have been held liable for torts”). This Court “has assumed that, when Congress creates a tort action, it legislates against a legal background of ordinary tort-related . . . rules and consequently intends its legislation to incorporate those rules.” Meyer v. Holley, 537 U. S. 280, 285 (2003) . The presumption, then, is that, in providing for “tort” liability, the ATS provides for corporate liability.
Second, whereas the ATS expressly limits the class of permissible plaintiffs to “alien[s],” §1350, it “does not distinguish among classes of defendants,” Argentine Republic v. Amerada Hess Shipping Corp., 488 U. S. 428, 438 (1989) . That silence as to defendants cannot be presumed to be inadvertent. That is because in the same section of the Judiciary Act of 1789 as what is now the ATS, Congress provided the federal district courts with jurisdiction over “all suits against consuls or vice-consuls.” §9, 1Stat. 76–77. Where Congress wanted to limit the range of permissible defendants, then, it clearly knew how to do so. Russello v. United States, 464 U. S. 16, 23 (1983) (“[W]here Congress includes particular language in one section of a statute but omits it in another section of the same Act, it is generally presumed that Congress acts intentionally and purposely in the disparate inclusion or exclusion” (internal quotation marks omitted)).
Second, the concurrence suggests that federal courts may lack jurisdiction to entertain suits between aliens based solely on a violation of the law of nations. It contends that ATS suits between aliens fall under neither the federal courts’ diversity jurisdiction nor our federal question jurisdiction. The Court was not unaware of this argument when it decided Sosa. As noted, that case involved an ATS suit brought by a citizen of Mexico against a citizen of Mexico, and various amiciargued that the Court lacked Article III jurisdiction over such suits. See Brief for National Foreign Trade Counsel et al. as Amici Curiae in Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, O. T. 2003, No. 03–339, pp. 24–25; see also Brief for Washington Legal Foundation et al. as Amici Curiae in No. 03–339, pp. 14–21. The Court nonetheless proceeded to decide the case, which it could not have done had it been concerned about its Article III power to do so. See Arbaugh v. Y & H Corp., 546 U. S. 500, 514 (2006) . That decision forecloses the argument the concurrence now makes, as Sosa authorized courts to “recognize private claims under federal common law for violations of” certain international law norms. 542 U. S., at 732 (emphasis added); see also id., at 729–730 (explaining that, post-Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U. S. 64 (1938) , there are “limited enclaves in which federal courts may derive from substantive law in a common law way,” including the law of nations, and that “it would be unreasonable to assume that the First Congress would have expected federal courts to lose all capacity to recognize enforceable international norms simply because the common law might lose some metaphysical cachet on the road to modern realism”); Sarei v. Rio Tinto, 671 F. 3d 736, 749–754 (CA9 2011) (en banc) (discussing Sosa and concluding that federal courts have Article III jurisdiction to hear ATS cases between aliens), vacated and remanded, 569 U. S. 945 (2013) (remanding for further consideration in light of Kiobel).
Arab Bank further expresses concern that ATS suits are being filed against corporations in an effort to recover for the bad acts of foreign governments or officials. See id., at 40. But the Bank’s explanation of this problem reveals that the true source of its grievance is the availability of aiding and abetting liability. See ibid. (“[N]umerous ATS suits have alleged that a corporation has aided or abetted bad acts committed by a foreign government and its officials” (emphasis in original)); id., at 41 (“[A]iding and abetting suits under the ATS have given plaintiffs ‘a clear means for effectively circumventing’ critical limits on foreign sovereign immunity” (quoting Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae in American Isuzu Motors, Inc. v.Ntsebeza, O. T. 2007, No. 07–919, p. 15)). The plurality too points to an aiding and abetting case to support its contention that plaintiffs “use corporations as surrogate defendants to challenge the conduct of foreign governments.” Ante, at 21 (discussing Kiobel, in which plaintiffs sought to hold a corporate defendant liable for “ ‘aiding and abetting the Nigerian Government in committing’ ” law-of-nations violations (quoting 569 U. S., at 114)). Yet not all law-of-nations violations asserted against corporations are premised on aiding and abetting liability; it is possible for a corporation to violate international-law norms independent of a foreign state or foreign state officials. In this respect, too, the Court’s rule is ill fitted to the problem identified.
Notably, even the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan does not argue that there are foreign-policy tensions inherent in suing a corporation generally. Instead, Jordan contends that this particular suit is an affront to its sovereignty because of its extraterritorial character and because of the role that Arab Bank specifically plays in the Jordanian economy. See Brief for Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan as Amicus Curiae 6–12.[7]
As the United States urged at oral argument, when international friction arises, a court should respond with the doctrine that speaks directly to the friction’s source. See Tr. of Oral. Arg. 28 (acknowledging that “ATS litigation in recent decades has raised international friction” and explaining that “the way to deal with that friction is with a doctrine that speaks directly to the international entanglement . . . as those questions arise”). In addition to the presumption against extraterritoriality, federal courts have at their disposal a number of tools to address any foreign-relations concerns that an ATS case may raise. This Court has held that a federal court may exercise personal jurisdiction over a foreign corporate defendant only if the corporation is incorporated in the United States, has its principal place of business or is otherwise at home here, or if the activities giving rise to the lawsuit occurred or had their impact here. See Daimler AG v. Bauman, 571 U. S. 117 (2014) . Courts also can dismiss ATS suits for a plaintiff’s failure to exhaust the remedies available in her domestic forum, on forum non conveniens grounds, for reasons of international comity, or when asked to do so by the State Department. See Kiobel, 569 U. S., at 133 (Breyer, J., concurring in judgment); Sosa, 542 U. S., at 733, n. 21.
Several of these doctrines might be implicated in this case, and I would remand for the Second Circuit to address them in the first instance.[8] The majority, however, prefers to use a sledgehammer to crack a nut. I see no need for such an ill-fitting and disproportionate response. Foreclosing foreign corporate liability in all ATS actions, irrespective of circumstance or norm, is simply too broad a response to case-specific concerns that can be addressed via other means.[9]
Likewise, when Members of Congress have weighed in on the question whether corporations can be proper defendants in an ATS suit, it has been to advise the Court against the rule it now adopts. See Brief for Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse et al. as Amici Curiae 7–11; Brief for Former Sen. Arlen Specter et al. as Amici Curiae in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., O. T. 2012, No. 10–1491, pp. 17–18. Congress has also never seen it necessary to immunize corporations from ATS liability even though corporations have been named as defendants in ATS suits for years. See Monessen Southwestern R. Co. v. Morgan, 486 U. S. 330, 338 (1988) (“Congress’ failure to disturb a consistent judicial interpretation of a statute may provide some indication that ‘Congress at least acquiesces in, and apparently affirms, that [interpretation]’ ” (quoting Cannon v. University of Chicago, 441 U. S. 677, 703 (1979) )).
The plurality instead purports to defer to Congress by relying heavily on the Torture Victim Protection Act of 1991 (TVPA), 106Stat. 73, note following 28 U. S. C. §1350, to support its categorical bar. See ante, at 20. The TVPA makes available to all individuals, not just foreign citizens, a civil cause of action for torture and extrajudicial killing that may be brought against natural persons. See Mohamad v. Palestinian Authority, 566 U. S. 449, 451 –452, 454 (2012). The plurality extrapolates from Congress’ decision regarding the scope of liability under the TVPA a rule that it contends should govern all ATS suits. See ante, at 20. But there is no reason to think that because Congress saw fit to permit suits only against natural persons for two specific law-of-nations violations, Congress meant to foreclose corporate liability for all law-of-nations violations. The plurality’s contrary conclusion ignores the critical textual differences between the ATS and TVPA, as well as the TVPA’s legislative history, which emphasizes Congress’ intent to leave the ATS undisturbed.
Lacking any affirmative evidence that Congress’ decision to limit liability under the TVPA to natural persons indicates a legislative judgment about the proper scope of liability in all ATS suits, the plurality focuses its efforts on dismissing petitioners’ argument that Congress limited TVPA liability to natural persons to harmonize the statute with the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 (FSIA), which generally immunizes foreign states from suit. See ante, at 21.[10] Contrary to the plurality’s contention, however, this Court did not reject petitioners’ account of the TVPA’s legislative history in Mohamad. In fact, that decision agreed that the legislative history “clarifi[es] that the Act does not encompass liability against foreign states.” 566 U. S., at 459. What Mohamad rejected was the argument that because the TVPA forecloses liability against foreign states, it necessarily permits liability against corporations. In concluding that the TVPA encompasses only natural persons, Mohamad took no position on why Congress excluded organizations from its reach.[11]
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 corporate 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 violation 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 contributes to the uptake of international human rights norms, and the former does not.[12]
Furthermore, holding corporations accountable for violating the human rights of foreign citizens when those violations touch and concern the United States may well be necessary to avoid the international tension with which the First Congress was concerned. Consider again the assault on the Secretary of the French Legation in Philadelphia by a French adventurer. See supra, at 14; ante, at 7 (majority opinion). Would the diplomatic strife that followed really have been any less charged if a corporation had sent its agent to accost the Secretary? Or, consider piracy. If a corporation owned a fleet of vessels and directed them to seize other ships in U. S. waters, there no doubt would be calls to hold the corporation to account. See Kiobel, 621 F. 3d, at 156, and n. 10 (observing that “Somali pirates essentially operate as limited partnerships”). Finally, take, for example, a corporation posing as a job-placement agency that actually traffics in persons, forcibly transporting foreign nationals to the United States for exploitation and profiting from their abuse. Not only are the individual employees of that business less likely to be able fully to compensate successful ATS plaintiffs, but holding only individual employees liable does not impose accountability for the institution-wide disregard for human rights. Absent a corporate sanction, that harm will persist unremedied. Immunizing the corporation from suit under the ATS merely because it is a corporation, even though the violations stemmed directly from corporate policy and practice, might cause serious diplomatic friction.[13]
Second, the plurality expresses concern that if foreign corporations are subject to liability under the ATS, other nations could hale American corporations into court and subject them “to an immediate, constant risk of claims seeking to impose massive liability for the alleged conduct of their employees and subsidiaries around the world,” a prospect that will deter American corporations from investing in developing economies. Ante, at 24. The plurality offers no empirical evidence to support these alarmist conjectures, which is especially telling given that plaintiffs have been filing ATS suits against foreign corporations in United States courts for years. It does cite to an amicus brief for the United States in American Isuzu Motors, Inc. v. Ntsebeza, see ante, at 24, but that case was concerned with the availability of civil aiding and abetting liability, not corporate liability generally, and the United States never contended that permitting corporate liability under the ATS would undermine global investment. Instead, it argued that permitting extraterritorial aiding and abetting cases would interfere with foreign relations and deter “the free flow of trade and investment.” See Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae, O. T. 2007, No. 07–919, pp. 12–16, 20. Driven by hypothetical worry about besieged American corporations, today’s decision needlessly goes much further, encompassing all ATS suits against all foreign corporations, not just those cases with extraterritorial dimensions premised on an aiding and abetting theory.
Corporations can be and often are a force for innovation and growth. Many of their contributions to society should be celebrated. But the unique power that corporations wield can be used both for good and for bad. Just as corporations can increase the capacity for production, so, too, some can increase the capacity for suffering. Consider the genocide that took upwards of 800,000 lives in Rwanda in 1994, which was fueled by incendiary rhetoric delivered via a private radio station, the Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM). Men spoke the hateful words, but the RTLM made their widespread influence possible.[14]
Immunizing corporations that violate human rights from liability under the ATS undermines the system of accountability for law-of-nations violations that the First Congress endeavored to impose. It allows these entities to take advantage of the significant benefits of the corporate form and enjoy fundamental rights, see, e.g., Citizens United v. Federal Election Comm’n, 558 U. S. 310 (2010) ; Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., 573 U. S. ___ (2014), without having to shoulder attendant fundamental responsibilities.
1 This distinction is similar to the state-action doctrine in domestic law. The prohibitions in the Bill of Rights, for instance, apply only to state actors, whereas the Thirteenth Amendment’s prohibition on slavery applies to all actors, state and private. See United States v. Kozminski, 487 U. S. 931, 942 (1988) .
2 At present, the norm-specific query contemplated by footnote 20 is likely resolved simply by considering whether the given international-law norm binds only state actors or state and nonstate actors alike, because there does not appear to be an international-law norm that contemplates a finer distinction between types of private actors. See Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., O. T. 2012, No. 10–1491, p. 20 (“At the present time, the United States is not aware of any international-law norm, accepted by civilized nations and defined with the degree of specificity required by Sosa, that requires, or necessarily contemplates, a distinction between natural and juridical actors”); Dodge, Corporate Liability Under Customary International Law, 43 Geo. J. Int’l L. 1045, 1050 (2012) (“None of the norms that are actionable under Sosa distinguish between natural and juridical persons”). Sosa itself supports the proposition that international law does not distinguish between types of private actors, but rather treats natural persons and corporations alike. Footnote 20 groups corporations and individuals together under the larger category of “private actor.”Sosa, 542 U. S., at 732, n. 20 (“if the defendant is a private actor such as a corporation or an individual”); see also id., at 760 (Breyer, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment) (“The norm must extend liability to the type of perpetrator (e.g., a private actor) the plaintiff seeks to sue” (citing id., at 732, n. 20)). Sosa also describes the two Court of Appeals decisions on which it relies as having considered whether there was sufficient consensus that particular conduct—torture or genocide—“violates international law” when undertaken “by private actors.” Id., at 732, n. 20 (discussing Tel-Oren v. Libyan Arab Republic, 726 F. 2d 774, 791–795 (CADC 1984) (Edwards, J., concurring), and Kadic v. Karadžić, 70 F. 3d 232, 239–241 (CA2 1995)). Even though the defendant in Kadic was a natural person, see id., at 237, and the defendants in Tel-Oren were juridical entities, see 726 F. 2d, at 775–776, Sosa refers to them all as “private actors,” 542 U. S., at 732, n. 20.
13 Justice Alito, adopting a more absolutist position than the plurality, asserts without qualification that “federal courts should not create causes of action under the ATS against foreign corporate defendants” because doing so “would precipitate . . . diplomatic strife.” Ante, at 1, 4 (opinion concurring in part and concurring in judgment). The conclusion that ATS suits against foreign corporate defendants for law-of-nations and treaty violations always will cause diplomatic friction, and that such suits will never be necessary “to help the United States avoid diplomatic friction,” ante, at 4, however, is at odds with the considered judgment of the Executive Branch and Congress regarding the importance of holding foreign corporations to account for certain egregious conduct. As noted, see Part II–B–1, supra, the Executive Branch has twice urged the Court not to foreclose the ability of foreign nationals to sue foreign corporate defendants under the ATS. The United States also has ratified several international agreements that require it to impose liability on corporations, both foreign and domestic, for certain actions, including the financing of terrorism. See supra, at 10–11. Congress, too, has expressly authorized civil suits against corporations for acts related to terrorism. See 18 U. S. C. §2333. The Executive Branch and Congress surely would not have taken these positions, entered into these obligations, or made available these causes of action if the result were intolerable diplomatic strife. Justice Alito also faults the lack of “real-world examples” of instances in which diplomatic friction has resulted from a court’s refusal to permit an individual to bring an ATS suit against a foreign corporation solely because of the defendant’s status as a foreign juridical entity. Ante, at 6. Such refusals, though, have been rare, as no other Court of Appeals besides the Second Circuit that has considered the question has imposed a bar on corporate liability. Compare Doe v. Drummond Co., 782 F. 3d 576, 584 (CA11 2015); Doe I v. Nestle USA, Inc., 766 F. 3d 1013, 1022 (CA9 2014); Doe v. Exxon Mobil Corp., 654 F. 3d 11, 39–57 (CADC 2011), vacated on other grounds, 527 Fed. Appx. 7 (CADC 2013); Flomo v. Firestone Nat. Rubber Co., 643 F. 3d 1013, 1017–1021 (CA7 2011), with Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum, 621 F. 3d 111, 120 (CA2 2010).
KIOBEL v. ROYAL DUTCH PETROLEUM CO., 569 U.S. 108 (2013)