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The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 on Tuesday that practitioners of the Falun Gong spiritual movement cannot sue tech giant Cisco over allegations of aiding the Chinese government’s surveillance and torture of the group.
The conservative majority rejected the plaintiffs’ attempt to bring claims against the company and two of its then-executives under the 18th century Alien Tort Statute (ATS).
Liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson agreed with them when it came to Cisco’s then-executives, creating a 7-2 split that they can’t be sued under a separate law called the Torture Victim Protection Act.
The decision limits the ability of foreigners to hold U.S. corporations liable in U.S. courts for aiding-and-abetting alleged human rights violations overseas.
“In truth this class is a null set. And because courts cannot create new rights of action to remedy violations of internal law, there is necessarily no liability for aiding and abetting such violations,” Justice Barrett wrote for the majority.
A group of Chinese nationals and a U.S. citizen who say they or their family members are members of Falun Gong sued Cisco and two top officials in 2011, alleging the company’s technology was used by China to target believers who were detained and subjected to torture, forced labor and other human rights abuses.
They claimed Cisco knew its technology would aid Beijing’s effort to persecute Falun Gong practitioners, accusations the company denies.
A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit in 2014, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit revived some of the claims in 2023, allowing the case to proceed. Cisco appealed to the Supreme Court, which heard arguments in late April.
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