The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday, June 23, 2026, that the 1789 Alien Tort Statute (ATS) cannot support new causes of action for modern violations of international law, closing a 46-year-old path of human-rights litigation in U.S. courts.

In Cisco Systems, Inc. v. Doe (No. 24-856), Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote for the majority that "courts may not create new causes of action for violations of international norms." The ruling reversed the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit and dismissed claims brought by Falun Gong practitioners who accused the networking company and two executives of helping the Chinese government build the "Golden Shield" surveillance system.

The court also held that the 1991 Torture Victim Protection Act (TVPA) does not authorize suits against individuals for aiding and abetting torture.

What did the Supreme Court decide?

• The ATS is "strictly jurisdictional": federal courts may hear claims under it but cannot invent new ones.
• Only the three categories of international-law violations recognized in 2004's Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain remain actionable — piracy, breaches of ambassadorial rights, and violations of safe-passage guarantees.
• The TVPA's silence on third-party liability "is enough to settle the issue," Barrett wrote, drawing on the court's 1994 decision in Central Bank of Denver v. First Interstate Bank of Denver.

Barrett acknowledged the human stakes. "ATS and TVPA cases frequently involve heinous and inhumane acts" for which "[t]he political branches or other international actors may well provide redress," she wrote. "But we decline to distort the statutory text or the Constitution's allocation of powers to enlist U.S. courts in that project."

How did the case arise?

Practitioners of the Falun Gong spiritual discipline — including Chinese residents and one U.S. citizen — sued Cisco in federal court in California. They alleged the company helped Beijing identify adherents after the Chinese Communist Party outlawed the practice in 1999. Detentions followed, they said, accompanied by torture, forced labor, beatings, and forced conversions.

The Chinese plaintiffs invoked the ATS. The U.S. plaintiff invoked the TVPA. Cisco denied the allegations, telling the justices it had "complied fully with U.S. export control regulations" and sold only "off-the-shelf networking equipment" that it did not customize. The 9th Circuit, sitting en banc over a seven-judge dissent, had allowed the aiding-and-abetting theories to proceed.

What changes for litigators?

Foreign plaintiffs can no longer rely on the ATS to bring new international-law claims against private actors in the United States. Torture, genocide, forced labor, and similar allegations now require fresh congressional action to proceed as civil suits. Only the three historic categories under Sosa remain available — and since 2013's Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum, those too must arise from conduct in the United States. Since 2018's Jesner v. Arab Bank, foreign corporations sit outside the statute's reach entirely.

The TVPA holding is narrower but firm: anyone, including U.S. officials, can be sued for their own acts of torture, but not for assisting others.

How did the dissent respond?

Justice Sonia Sotomayor filed a 27-page dissent, joined in part by Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Elena Kagan. She accused the majority of overruling Sosa "without even acknowledging that it is doing so."

"The Court's decision today is yet another notch in its belt," Sotomayor wrote, "unabashedly remaking the law in its preferred image." The ruling, she argued, "closes the courthouse doors" not just to the Falun Gong plaintiffs but "to virtually every future litigant seeking redress for a violation of international law under the ATS."

She pointed to the U.S. government's brief in the case, which "confirmed in this very case that 'the United States [has] long condemned China's treatment of Falun Gong practitioners,'" undercutting Barrett's concern that new ATS causes of action would harm foreign relations.

Justice Jackson wrote separately to support the majority's TVPA holding while rejecting Barrett's reliance on Central Bank of Denver as a "magic words" test. She and Kagan joined Sotomayor's ATS analysis.

Where does the law stand now?

The Supreme Court has narrowed the ATS four times in 46 years:

• Sosa (2004): the statute is jurisdictional, not substantive.
• Kiobel (2013): claims must arise from conduct in the United States.
• Jesner (2018): foreign corporations are immune.
• Cisco Systems (2026): no new causes of action at all.