Court Opinion

ID: 9561756
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 18:15:36.294596+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:14:21.542601
License: Public Domain

IKUTA, Circuit Judge,
with whom Judge KLEINFELD joins,
dissenting:
I write separately because I would affirm the dismissal of this case on the ground that we lack subject matter jurisdiction. Although I agree with the majority that in light of Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, 542 U.S. 692, 733 n. 21, 124 S.Ct. 2739, 159 L.Ed.2d 718 (2004), a district court may consider whether to dismiss claims brought under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), 28 U.S.C. § 1350, on the ground that the plaintiffs failed to exhaust remedies in the appropriate forum, I see no basis for holding that the district court here erred by failing to consider exhaustion before the other threshold issues on which it relied to dismiss this case (e.g., political question, act of state, and subject matter jurisdiction). The Supreme Court has made clear that “a federal court has leeway ‘to choose among threshold grounds for denying audience to a case on the merits,’ ” and there is no mandatory sequencing of non-merits grounds for disposing of a case. Sinochem Int’l Co. v. Malaysia Int’l Shipping Corp., 549 U.S. 422, 127 S.Ct. 1184, 1191, 167 L.Ed.2d 15 (2007) (quoting Ruhrgas AG v. Marathon Oil Co., 526 U.S. 574, 585, 119 S.Ct. 1563, 143 L.Ed.2d 760 (1999), Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better Environment, 523 U.S. *83883, 100-01 n. 3, 118 S.Ct. 1003, 140 L.Ed.2d 210 (1998)).
Rather than return this case to the district court for consideration of this discretionary preliminary issue, I would affirm the dismissal of this case on the ground that we exceed the authority granted by Congress and the limits imposed by the Constitution’s separation of powers by applying the ATS to a dispute not involving United States territory or citizens.
In Sosa, the Supreme Court established an approach for analyzing claims brought under the ATS. Although focusing on delineating the limited types of international law rules cognizable under the ATS, the Court noted other possible limitations on federal courts’ jurisdiction, including deference to the political branches. See 542 U.S. at 727-28, 124 S.Ct. 2739. As Sosa recognized, our obligation to interpret the ATS narrowly has constitutional underpinnings relating to the structural separation of the federal powers and the primacy of the political branches in foreign affairs. See id. These separation of powers principles pervade our case law and clearly establish that decisions pertaining to foreign policy “are wholly confided by our Constitution to the political departments of the government, Executive and Legislative.” Chicago & S. Air Lines v. Waterman S.S. Corp., 333 U.S. 103, 111, 68 S.Ct. 431, 92 L.Ed. 568 (1948). “They are decisions of a kind for which the Judiciary has neither aptitude, facilities nor responsibility and have long been held to belong in the domain of political power not subject to judicial intrusion or inquiry.” Id.; see also Haig v. Agee, 453 U.S. 280, 292, 101 S.Ct. 2766, 69 L.Ed.2d 640 (1981) (“Matters intimately related to foreign policy and national security are rarely proper subjects for judicial intervention.”); Harisiades v. Shaughnessy, 342 U.S. 580, 588-89, 72 S.Ct. 512, 96 L.Ed. 586 (1952) (“It is pertinent to observe that any policy toward aliens is vitally and intricately interwoven with contemporaneous policies in regard to the conduct of foreign relations, the war power, and the maintenance of a republican form of government. Such matters are so exclusively entrusted to the political branches of government as to be largely immune from judicial inquiry or interference.”). As stated by the Supreme Court in a related context, these principles “express!)] the strong sense of the Judicial Branch that its engagement in the task of passing on the validity of foreign acts of state may hinder rather than further this country’s pursuit of goals both for itself and for the community of nations as a whole in the international sphere.” Banco Nacional de Cuba v. Sabbatino, 376 U.S. 398, 423, 84 S.Ct. 923, 11 L.Ed.2d 804 (1964) (discussing the underlying separation of powers principles in the context of the Act of State doctrine).
These separation of powers principles, which are inherent in the Constitutional framework and which intrinsically demarcate a limited role for federal courts in foreign affairs, must inform our consideration of what Congress had in mind when it enacted the ATS and granted federal courts authority to consider certain claims alleging violations of international law. Although it may be difficult to determine the precise contours of Congressional intent, see Sosa, 542 U.S. at 719, 124 S.Ct. 2739 (“a consensus understanding of what Congress intended has proven elusive”), we must nevertheless strive to ascertain the outer bounds of that intent.
The historical context in which the ATS was enacted sheds additional light on this issue. When the First Congress enacted the ATS, it did so amidst concerns that the young nation had been “hamstrung by its inability to cause infractions of treaties, or of the law of nations to be punished” with*839in the purview of the United States, id. at 716, 124 S.Ct. 2739 (internal quotation marks omitted), and with a need “to assure the world that the new Republic would observe the law of nations.” Id. at 722 n. 15, 124 S.Ct. 2739. As noted in Sosa, the “so-called Marbois incident” in which a French citizen assaulted the Secretary of the French Legion in Philadelphia, further intensified these concerns. Id. at 716, 124 S.Ct. 2739. The nation’s inability to vindicate France’s interests led to protests from France and weak apologies from Congress. Id. at n. 11, 124 S.Ct. 2739. By enacting the ATS, Congress was attempting to reassure the community of States that federal courts were available to remedy those violations, such as assaults against ambassadors, “which impinged upon the sovereignty of ... foreign nation[s] and if not adequately redressed could rise to an issue of war.” Id. at 715, 124 S.Ct. 2739; see also Tel-Oren v. Libyan Arab Republic, 726 F.2d 774, 783 (D.C.Cir.1984) (Edwards, J., concurring) (“There is evidence ... that the intent of [the ATS] was to assure aliens access to federal courts to vindicate any incident which, if mishandled by a state court, might blossom into an international crisis.”). In other words, the ATS gave federal courts an appropriate supporting role in the sphere of foreign affairs: facilitating the political branches’ conduct of foreign relations by averting potential international crises that could arise from disputes involving a nexus to the United States. By providing a limited mechanism to vindicate the rights of aliens in these situations, the ATS authorized federal courts to assist the new nation in shouldering its responsibilities as a member of the international community.
This interpretation of the ATS is consistent with the “sparse contemporaneous cases and legal materials referring to the ATS.” Sosa, 542 U.S. at 720, 124 S.Ct. 2739. As evidenced by the historical materials cited in Sosa, courts relied on the ATS as a source of federal jurisdiction only in cases involving some nexus to the United States, that is, only in cases implicating United States territory or citizens. For example, in Bolchos v. Darrel, 3 F.Cas. 810 (D.S.C.1795), the district court resolved two aliens’ controversy regarding a prize capture in an American port. Sosa, 542 U.S. at 720, 124 S.Ct. 2739. In Moxon v. The Fanny, 17 F. Cas. 942 (D.Pa.1793), the district court looked to the ATS for jurisdiction over a dispute involving a French privateer who seized a British ship in United States waters, but ultimately dismissed the action because the claim at issue was not “ ‘a suit for a tort only.’” Sosa, 542 U.S. at 720, 124 S.Ct. 2739 (quoting Moxon, 17 F. Cas. at 948). Finally, in the 1795 opinion letter of Attorney General William Bradford, the Attorney General stated that the ATS would provide jurisdiction for the claims of those parties injured by “Americans who had taken part in the French plunder of a British slave colony in Sierra Leone.” Id. at 721. I have found no case prior to the Second Circuit’s reinvigoration (or reinvention) of the ATS in Filartiga v. Pena-Irala, 630 F.2d 876 (2d Cir.1980) where federal courts have asserted jurisdiction under the ATS in a case lacking some nexus to the United States.
This historical evidence, read together with an understanding of the structural constraints placed on federal jurisdiction by separation of powers principles, strongly supports the conclusion that Congress did not afford the federal courts jurisdiction to preside over the claims presented in this case. Plaintiffs do not ask us to exercise jurisdiction to redress injuries that, if left unredressed, would be the subject of international discord between the United States and Papua New Guinea. Cf. *840Telr-Oren, 726 F.2d at 783 (Edwards, J., concurring) (ATS thought to apply where the failure of United States courts to vindicate an alien’s civil rights would make the United States answerable to the alien’s home state). Rather, plaintiffs ask us to adjudicate a dispute that falls far outside the realm of any historical ATS case, and to sit in judgment over interactions that took place on foreign soil among a foreign company, a foreign government, and foreign citizens. Such an exercise of authority would encroach too far upon the province of the political branches, thrusting us into a situation rife with “risks of adverse foreign policy consequences,” Sosa, 542 U.S. at 728, 124 S.Ct. 2739, where we are asked to judge, rather than vindicate, the interests of a foreign sovereign. See also id. at 733 n. 21, 124 S.Ct. 2739. We are not entitled to read such an expansive grant of jurisdiction into the ATS, given Congress’s presumed intent to honor the structural constitutional principle that “[t]he conduct of foreign relations of our government is committed by the Constitution to the executive and legislative — ‘the political’ — departments of the government.” Oetjen v. Central Leather Co., 246 U.S. 297, 302, 38 S.Ct. 309, 62 L.Ed. 726 (1918). We are thus bound to embrace a limited interpretation of the ATS — one that facilitates, rather than disrupts, our participation in the international state system.
In sum, in the absence of direction from Congress, we cannot read the ATS as authorizing an extension of jurisdiction to disputes lacking any nexus to United States territory, citizens, or interests. See Sosa, 542 U.S. at 726, 124 S.Ct. 2739 (“[T]he general practice [for the Supreme Court] has been to look for legislative guidance before exercising innovative authority over substantive law. 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.”).
In light of the narrow scope of Congress’s grant of authorization in the ATS, as informed by constitutional separation of powers principles, I would conclude that recognizing the torts in this case exceeds the power we have to recognize causes of action under the ATS, and we therefore lack jurisdiction to entertain these claims.