Symposium: A federal-common-law approach to corporate liability under the Alien Tort Statute

Enacted as part of the Judiciary Act of 1789, the Alien Tort Statute provides: “The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of any civil action by an alien for a tort only, committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States.” Despite its Founding-era provenance, the ATS lay largely dormant until 1980, when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit held in Filartiga v. Pena-Irala that the statute authorized a Paraguayan national to bring a civil damages suit against a former Paraguayan police officer based on allegations of torture. The Supreme Court has construed the statute only twice since then – first in 2003 in Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, and again in 2013 in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co. (“Kiobel II”). The court will get its third opportunity this term, when it considers Jesner v. Arab Bank.