Cisco Systems, Inc. v. Doe · ¶8

The Alien Tort Statute grants federal courts jurisdiction to hear cases involving violations of the law of nations. While conceding that the ATS is “strictly jurisdictional,” we have also said that courts have narrow authority to create causes of action under it. Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, 542 U. S. 692, 713, 724–725 (2004). These positions are in obvious tension with one another. More significantly, however, asserting such authority would intrude on both Congress’s prerogative to provide rights of action and the power of the political branches to direct the Nation’s foreign policy. It is therefore unsurprising that this Court has never created an ATS action. The authority to do so, always described as slight, is more accurately described as nonexistent.

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