Opinion ID: 175476
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Concurring Opinion

Text: Judge Leval concedes that international law, of its own force, imposes no liabilities on corporations or other private juridical entities. Concurring Op. 186. In other words, despite his perplexing but forceful contentions otherwise, Judge Leval does not disagree with Part II of our opinion. What he disputes is our conclusion in Part I that customary international law supplies the rule of decision. Judge Leval admits that international law is the place to look to determine whether a corporation can be held civilly liable for a violation of international law, id. at 173-74, but he maintains that we must accept corporate liability based on principles of domestic law unless the law of nations [has] spoke[n] on the question [and] provid[ed] that acts of corporations are not covered by the law of nations, id. at 175. He then contends that the law of nations has not, in fact, spoken on the question and that corporate liability is therefore a matter of remedy that international law leaves ... to the independent determination of each State. Id. at 176. In doing so Judge Leval dismisses as a source of authoritative guidance the fact that no international tribunal has ever been accorded jurisdiction over corporations because those tribunals have been charged only with the prosecution of crimes. Id. at 165-70. Finally, Judge Leval accuses us of rejecting corporate civil liability under the ATS merely because there is no norm of corporate civil liability in customary international law, and he argues that this reasoning is inconsistent with our endorsement of individual liability under the ATS. Id. at 152-53. Judge Leval's criticisms distort our holding and betray several fundamental misunderstandings of customary international law. First, Judge Leval attempts to shift to us the burden of identifying a norm of customary international law that supports our rule. But it is entirely inappropriate to begin, as Judge Leval apparently begins, with a presumption that a violation of customary international law can be attributed to any defendant unless, and until, a norm of customary international law declares otherwise. This reasoning turns customary international law on its head. Customary international law arises from the customs and practices among civilized nations ... gradually ripening into a rule of international law. Sosa, 542 U.S. at 715, 124 S.Ct. 2739 (quoting The Paquete Habana, 175 U.S. at 686, 20 S.Ct. 290). Accordingly, the responsibility lies with those who seek to demonstrate that international law extends the scope of liability for a violation of a given norm to the perpetrator being sued. Id. at 732 n. 20, 124 S.Ct. 2739. Judge Leval produces no evidence that international law extends the scope of liability to corporations, and, in fact, he concedes that it does not. Concurring Op. 186 (It is true that international law, of its own force, imposes no liabilities on corporations or other private juridical entities.). In any event, although it is not our burden, we have little trouble demonstrating the absence of a norm of corporate liability in customary international law. See Part II, ante. Second, Judge Leval dismisses the fact that international tribunals have consistently declined to recognize corporate liability as a norm of customary international law; he does so by inventing a distinction between civil and criminal liability in customary international law that is contrary to our ATS jurisprudence. As Judge Katzmann explained in his separate opinion in Khulumani, [t]his distinction finds no support in our case law, which has consistently relied on criminal law norms in establishing the content of customary international law for purposes of the [ATS]. 504 F.3d at 270 n. 5. Unlike U.S. domestic law, international law does not maintain [a] kind of hermetic seal between criminal and civil law. Id. (citing Sosa, 542 U.S. at 762-63, 124 S.Ct. 2739 (Breyer, J., concurring)). Indeed, Judge Katzmann was able to conclude that the scope of customary international law reaches those who aid and abet violations of international law only by looking to the charters of and the law applied bythe very same international tribunals that Judge Leval ignores. Id. at 270 (observing that liability for aiders and abettors was applied by the war crimes trials following the Second World War and has been repeatedly recognized in numerous international treaties, most notably the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, and in the statutes creating the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (`ICTY') and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (`ICTR')); see also Presbyterian Church, 582 F.3d at 257 n. 7 ([C]ustomary international law norms prohibiting genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity have been developed largely in the context of criminal prosecutions rather than civil proceedings. (internal quotation marks omitted)). Judge Leval explicitly endorsed Judge Katzmann's reasoning in Khulumani by joining the unanimous panel opinion in Presbyterian Church, which expressly adopted Judge Katzmann's rule as the law of our Circuit. Presbyterian Church, 582 F.3d at 258. Apparently, Judge Leval would have us look to international criminal tribunals only when they supply a norm with which he agrees. Third, Judge Leval distorts our analysis by claiming that we hold that the absence of a universal practice among nations of imposing civil damages on corporations for violations of international law means that under international law corporations are not liable for violations of the law of nations. Concurring Op. 152 (emphasis added). That is not our holding. We hold that corporate liability is not a norm that we can recognize and apply in actions under the ATS because the customary international law of human rights does not impose any form of liability on corporations (civil, criminal, or otherwise). Finally, and most importantly, Judge Leval incorrectly categorizes the scope of liability under customary international lawthat is, who can be liable for violations of international lawas merely a question of remedy to be determined independently by each state. Id. at 175-76. As we explained above, see Part I.A, ante, the subjects of international law have always been defined by reference to international law itself. Judge Leval is therefore wrong to suggest that international law takes no position on the question of who can be liable for violations of international law. Id. at 152. [49] Although international law does (as Judge Leval explains) leave remedial questions to States, id. at 175-76, the liability of corporations for the actions of their employees or agents is not a question of remedy. [50] Corporate liability imposes responsibility for the actions of a culpable individual on a wholly new defendantthe corporation. In the United States, corporate liability is determined by a body of rules determining which actions of an employee or agent are to be imputed to the corporation. [51] In this important respect, corporate liability is akin to accessorial liability, which is a subject of international law not left to individual States. See Presbyterian Church, 582 F.3d at 259 (holding that  Sosa and our precedents send us to international law to find the standard for accessorial liability and rejecting the argument that international law relies on domestic law to supply the standard, as a means of enforcement). The potential for civil damages under the ATS arises only if customary international law recognizes that a particular class of defendant is a subject of international law in the first place. See 28 U.S.C. § 1350 (providing jurisdiction over torts... committed in violation of the law of nations  (emphasis added)). Contrary to Judge Leval's suggestion, therefore, individual liability under the ATS is wholly consistent with our holding today. Congress chose in the ATS to grant jurisdiction over torts committed in violation of the law of nations, id., and since the Nuremberg trials, customary international law has recognized individual liability for the violation of international human rights. Thus, the ATS merely permits courts to recognize a remedy (civil liability) for heinous crimes universally condemned by the family of nations against individuals already recognized as subjects of international law. To permit courts to recognize corporate liability under the ATS, however, would require, at the very least, a different statuteone that goes beyond providing jurisdiction over torts committed in violation of the law of nations to authorize suits against entities that are not subjects of customary international law.