Cisco Systems, Inc. v. Doe · ¶54

Petitioner Cisco Systems, Inc., allegedly knowingly designed and intentionally built a mass-surveillance system for the Chinese Communist Party to use to identify, track, arrest, and torture thousands of religious minorities. As all agree, if respondents’ allegations were to be proved true, then that would mean Cisco violated universally recognized norms of international law. Respondents thus sued Cisco in a federal action under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), which vests jurisdiction in district courts over “any civil action by an alien for a tort only, committed in violation of the law of nations,” 28 U. S. C. §1350. In Sosa v. Alvarez- Machain, 542 U. S. 692 (2004), this Court held that the ATS permits federal courts to find implied causes of action authorizing plaintiffs to sue defendants who violated international law.

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