Opinion ID: 185956
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Alien Tort Statute

Text: 38 The appellants maintain, and Japan denies, that the Alien Tort Statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1350, creates a cause of action for a violation of customary international law. Compare, e.g., Kadic v. Karadzic, 70 F.3d 232 (2d Cir.1995), with Al Odah v. United States, 321 F.3d 1134, 1145-49 (D.C.Cir. 2003) (Randolph, J., concurring). We need not reach this question because, as Japan and the United States point out, whatever else the Alien Tort Statute might do, it does not provide the courts with jurisdiction over a foreign sovereign. Only the FSIA can provide such jurisdiction. See Amerada Hess, 488 U.S. at 438, 109 S.Ct. at 690 (We think that Congress' decision to deal comprehensively with the subject of foreign sovereign immunity in the FSIA, and the express provision in § 1604 that `a foreign state shall be immune from the jurisdiction of the courts of the United States and of the States except as provided in sections 1605-1607,' preclude a construction of the Alien Tort Statute that permits the instant suit); Verlinden, 461 U.S. at 488, 103 S.Ct. at 1968-69. The appellants, in a footnote to their reply brief, acknowledge what they could hardly deny. Having found no jurisdictional predicate under the FSIA, we have no need to determine whether the ATS creates a cause of action for a violation of customary international law.