# U.S. Supreme Court Deals Final Blow to Corporate Human Rights Accountability

- Type: News
- Source: Electronic Frontier Foundation
- Date: 2026-11-09
- Original: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/11/us-supreme-court-deals-final-blow-corporate-human-rights-accountability
- Canonical: https://overview.legal/posts/628714
- Topics: Accountability

## Summary

For the past two decades, the U.S. Supreme Court has been slowly weakening the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), a key human rights law that allows foreign nationals to sue persons or entities in civil court for harms resulting from violations of international law. The court’s recent ruling in Cisco Systems, Inc. v. Doe I dealt the law a final blow, foreclosing—absent new legislation by Congress—any future ability by plaintiffs to use the law to hold technology companies accountable for aiding and abett

## Full text

For the past two decades, the U.S. Supreme Court has been slowly weakening the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), a key human rights law that allows foreign nationals to sue persons or entities in civil court for harms resulting from violations of international law. The court’s recent ruling in Cisco Systems, Inc. v. Doe I dealt the law a final blow, foreclosing—absent new legislation by Congress—any future ability by plaintiffs to use the law to hold technology companies accountable for aiding and abetting human rights abuses. EFF filed multiple amicus briefs in the case, including most recently in the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court Rejected New Causes of Action Under the ATS The ATS was passed by the very first Congress in 1789 and in just a few words gives U.S. federal courts jurisdiction to hear civil claims brought by foreign nationals against defendants who violated “the law of nations or a treaty of the United States." There has been a longstanding question about what counts as a valid

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Generated by overview.legal · https://overview.legal/posts/628714 · 2026-11-14