The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that federal law does not allow private plaintiffs to pursue aiding-and-abetting claims under either the Alien Tort Statute or the Torture Victim Protection Act, delivering a significant victory for Cisco Systems and other American companies facing international human rights litigation.
The decision came in the case of Cisco Systems, Inc. v. Doe, which centered on allegations that Cisco and several executives assisted Chinese authorities by providing technology used in surveillance operations targeting Falun Gong practitioners.
In a 6-3 ruling, the court reversed a lower court decision that had allowed the lawsuit to proceed.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett authored the majority opinion.
She was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh.
“Today, we close the door that Sosa cracked and hold that courts may not create new causes of action for violations of international norms,” Barrett wrote.
“We also hold that the Torture Victim Protection Act of 1991, which contains an express cause of action, does not provide for aiding-and-abetting liability,” she added.
The lawsuit was brought by unnamed Falun Gong practitioners who alleged Cisco technology helped facilitate Chinese government surveillance and persecution efforts.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals previously allowed portions of the case to move forward.
The Supreme Court’s ruling overturned that decision.
Barrett emphasized that the authority to create legal causes of action belongs to Congress rather than federal courts.
“The power to create causes of action belongs to Congress,” Barrett wrote.
She described judicial creation of new legal claims as “an extraordinary act that places great stress on the separation of powers.”
The majority concluded that the Alien Tort Statute grants jurisdiction to federal courts but does not itself authorize new causes of action for alleged violations of international law.
The court also determined that the Torture Victim Protection Act does not authorize lawsuits based on aiding-and-abetting theories of liability.
The Trump administration supported Cisco during the litigation.
The U.S. solicitor general participated in oral arguments and urged the court to limit judicial expansion of international human rights claims against American companies.
Supporters of the ruling argued that it reduces legal uncertainty for businesses operating internationally and limits judicial involvement in foreign policy matters.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson concurred in part and dissented in part.
Justice Elena Kagan joined portions of Jackson’s opinion.
Jackson agreed with limiting claims under the Alien Tort Statute but argued that the Torture Victim Protection Act could permit aiding-and-abetting liability in some circumstances.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor authored a broader dissent, as the Conservative Brief reported.
Kagan and Jackson joined significant portions of her opinion.
Sotomayor argued that the majority abandoned decades of precedent involving international human rights litigation.
She wrote that the ruling “jettisons two decades of settled precedent” and “shuts the courthouse doors to almost any claimed violation of international law under the ATS.”
The decision is expected to have far-reaching implications for future lawsuits involving American companies accused of facilitating human rights violations abroad.
