The Alien Tort Statute (ATS) states that "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." Codified at 28 U.S.C. § 1350, the ATS is "a jurisdictional provision unlike any other in American law and of a kind apparently unknown to any other legal system in the world." Created as part of the Judiciary Act of 1789, the ATS is an opaque statute initially intended to provide foreign nationals redress for violations of the law of nations. The statute lay dormant until 1980, when it was used by Paraguayan plaintiffs in a case involving the wrongful death of their son in Paraguay, at the hands of a Paraguayan official. This was the first of the ATS "foreign cubed" cases, in which a foreign plaintiff brings a suit against a foreign defendant for torts committed on foreign soil. Soon victims of human rights violations used the ATS as a vehicle for claims against foreign corporations that aided and abetted local foreign governments in committing human rights abuses. The debate soon focused on whether those corporations could be held responsible for committing those torts under the ATS. In April 2013, the Supreme Court decided a long-awaited case, Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co . In this case, Nigerian nationals sued Royal Dutch Petroleum Co. (Royal Dutch), a Dutch company, and Shell Transport and Trading (Shell), a British company, for aiding and abetting the Nigerian government in committing human rights violations. The case began when residents of the Ogoni Region of Nigeria began protesting the environmental effect of the companies' oil drilling in Ogoni. In response to these protests, the plaintiffs claimed that the oil companies enlisted the aid of the Nigerian militia, who went on to rape, beat, and kill Ogoni residents, and loot and destroy their property. Royal Dutch and Shell argued that the ATS does not extend liability to corporations, and the controversial question of corporate liability was argued before the Supreme Court. After oral arguments, the Court then requested supplementary briefs and arguments on a new inquiry that called into question the past 30 years of ATS jurisprudence: "whether and under what circumstances courts may recognize a cause of action under the ATS, for violations of the law of nations occurring within the territory of a foreign sovereign." Applying a judicially created doctrine called the presumption against extraterritoriality, the Court held that because it was not the intent of Congress that the ATS apply to cases occurring abroad, Kiobel and similar foreign cubed cases are not justiciable in federal courts. The presumption acts to prevent courts from making foreign affairs and policy decisions that might best be left to its coordinate political branches. The Kiobel court held that nothing in the text, history, or purpose of the ATS rebutted the presumption, and unless Congress speaks to the jurisdiction of the courts over foreign cubed cases, judicial caution would be best. The Court left a door open for cases that "touch and concern the territory of the United States," but only if those cases do so with enough force to rebut the presumption. The Court provided only one guidepost, that "mere corporate presence" in the United States is insufficient. The majority declined to comment on the question of corporate liability, resolving the case on the issue of extraterritorial jurisdiction. This report will briefly survey the historical background of the Alien Tort Statute. It will then look at the past 30 years of ATS case law, starting with Filartiga and tracing the question of corporate liability. Next, it will examine the decision in Kiobel and the arguments made by the majority and concurrences about the extraterritorial application of the ATS; the history, text, and purposes of the act; and the "touch and concern" test. Finally, it will survey the possible implications of the Kiobel decision on pending and future cases, and possible congressional responses to the Court's invocation of the presumption. As a fledgling nation, the United States faced a number of difficulties in meeting its foreign relations obligations. One problem in particular was the inability of the Continental Congress to provide redress to foreign citizens for violations of the law of nations. Fearing the consequences wrought by lack of sufficient federal control over foreign affairs, in 1781 Congress implored the powerful state legislatures to "provide expeditious, exemplary and adequate punishment" for treaty infractions and violations of other international norms. Unfortunately, as James Madison wrote in a letter to James Monroe, "Nothing seems to be more difficult under our new Governments than to impress upon the attention of our Legislatures a due sense of those duties which spring from our relations to foreign nations." Thus, despite the pleas of Congress, the states' response was underwhelming, and their reluctance to create provisions for violations of the law of nations soon created friction between the United States and other nations. In 1784, the United States faced international criticism when the Secretary of the French Legion, Consul General Marbois, was assaulted by a French adventurer on the streets of Philadelphia. A formal protest was brought to the Continental Congress by the French Minister Plenipotentiary, who threatened to leave the United States unless provided with a remedy, pursuant to the law of nations. The federal government was apologetic, but unable to act. Three years later, a similar incident occurred when a police officer in New York City entered Dutch Ambassador Van Brecknel's residence to arrest a domestic servant, violating the ambassador's diplomatic immunity. Leaving such incidents unaddressed could have led to a perversion of justice, which would have been considered a just cause of war under the law of nations. Despite this danger, as John Jay, then governor of New York, reported to Congress, the federal government was not "vested with any judicial Powers competent to the Cognizance and Judgment of such Cases." The United States was "embarrassed by its potential inability to provide judicial relief to foreign officials injured in the United States," and these incidents contributed to the creation of the federal judiciary under the Judiciary Act of 1789. As Alexander Hamilton wrote: the peace of the WHOLE ought not to be left at the disposal of a PART. The Union will undoubtedly be answerable to foreign powers for the conduct of its members. And the responsibility for an injury ought ever to be accompanied with the faculty of preventing it. As the denial or perversion of justice by the sentences of courts ... is with reason classed among the just causes of war, it will follow that the federal judiciary ought to have cognizance of all causes in which the citizens of other countries are concerned.... So great a proportion of the cases in which foreigners are parties, involve national questions, that it is by far most safe and most expedient to refer all those in which they are concerned to the national tribunals. While the academic community has debated the legislative history and reasoning behind the creation of the ATS, it can be concluded that the foreign affairs-related "anxieties of the preconstitutional period," including the infamous Marbois and Van Brecknel incidents, contributed to passage of the ATS as part of the act. Enacted in 1789, and later codified in 1878, 28 U.S.C. § 1350 now reads, "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." While it seems clear that providing redress for foreign diplomats was contemplated in the creation of the statute, there is little else in the legislative history to serve as a guidepost for interpreting the ATS. Adding to its mystery is the remarkably small number of cases asserting jurisdiction under the ATS during the next 200 years, with fewer still argued successfully. Thus in 1980, when the long hibernation of the ATS came to an end, its rebirth as a vehicle for human rights cases raised myriad questions of first impression, leaving the courts and scholastic community struggling to define its contours. In 1980, after nearly two centuries of dormancy, the ATS was given new life in the landmark human rights case, Filartiga v. Pena-Irala . The case involved a suit against a Paraguayan police officer by two Paraguayan natives, who alleged that the officer tortured and killed Dr. Filartiga's son, Joelito, while the family was living in Paraguay. Though it was dismissed by a federal district court for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (Second Circuit), applying the transitory tort theory, held that torture performed by a state authority was actionable under international law, and thus could be successfully argued under the ATS. On its face, Filartiga does not inspire much controversy. The case involved alien plaintiffs suing for what was clearly a tort, and the determination that torture and wrongful death was a violation of the law of nations was, after Nuremberg, "uncreative." But what the case did do was wake a sleeping giant of academic debate. By "opening the federal courts for adjudication of the rights already recognized by international law," Filartiga unceremoniously opened a door for what would become known as "foreign cubed" claims, where both the plaintiffs and defendants are foreign nationals, and the alleged violations took place on foreign soil. The case that most "strikingly exemplifies" the controversy surrounding the modern day understanding of the ATS is Tel-Oren v. Libya n Arab Republic . The case was brought by the survivors of a terrorist attack in Israel, which was allegedly committed by the Palestine Liberation Organization and assisted by Libya. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (D.C.