Cisco v. Doe (Alien Tort Statute & Torture Victim Protection Act)

Send us Fan Mail The Supreme Court held that federal courts may no longer create new causes of action for violations of international law under the Alien Tort Statute, effectively closing the narrow door that Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain had left open in 2004. Reasoning that judicial authority under Sosa's framework was narrow from the start and that the power to create causes of action belongs to Congress—particularly where the Constitution expressly assigns Congress the job of defining offenses against the law of nations—the Court concluded that ATS suits always implicate foreign policy in ways that supply a sound reason to defer to the political branches. The supposed narrow class of permissible ATS actions, the Court said, is in truth a null set, so there can be no ATS liability for aiding and abetting violations of international law. Separately, the Court held that the Torture Victim Protection Act, which creates liability for one who "subjects" another to torture, does not reach aiding-and-abetting conduct: drawing on Central Bank of Denver, the Court reasoned that the statute's silence on aiding and abetting settles the question, and that "subjects" implies a direct causal link between torturer and victim rather than the broader, more attenuated assistance that aiding-and-abetting liability would capture. The practical upshot is that the plaintiffs—who alleged that Cisco built surveillance technology enabling China to identify and persecute them—cannot hold the company or its executives liable under either statute. Support the show