Overview
- The Court reversed a Ninth Circuit ruling on Tuesday, June 23, 2026, and dismissed the 2011 lawsuit by Falun Gong practitioners that accused Cisco of helping China’s Golden Shield surveillance system identify and persecute adherents.
- Writing for the majority, Justice Amy Coney Barrett held that federal courts may not create new private causes of action under the 1789 Alien Tort Statute, effectively ending efforts to read an aiding-and-abetting claim into that law.
- The Court also ruled that the Torture Victim Protection Act of 1991 does not permit aiding-and-abetting liability for individuals, a separate holding that drew an 8-1 vote.
- The decisions were split: the ATS ruling was 6-3 with Barrett joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh, while Justices Jackson and Kagan partly agreed with the TVPA outcome and Justice Sotomayor dissented in full.
- Legal experts say the opinion likely ends the modern era of ATS human-rights suits in U.S. courts, leaving plaintiffs to seek relief through new congressional statutes, foreign courts, or other legal claims while giving U.S. companies greater protection from overseas human-rights litigation.