In a landmark decision that reshapes the scope of U.S. court jurisdiction over international human rights claims filed against American corporations, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Tuesday in favor of tech giant Cisco Systems, bringing a long-running lawsuit brought by Falun Gong practitioners to an abrupt end. The plaintiffs had accused Cisco of intentionally designing and providing custom surveillance technology that Chinese authorities used to systematically persecute members of the spiritual movement. The nation’s highest court concluded that U.S. judicial forums lack proper jurisdiction to hear the case, rejecting the plaintiffs’ arguments that the litigation could proceed under two long-standing federal statutes: the 18th-century Alien Tort Statute (ATS) and the 1991 Torture Victim Protection Act (TVPA).
Written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the 6-3 majority opinion closed the narrow exception that the high court had tentatively opened in a 2004 ruling, when the court suggested that a limited category of international human rights claims could be heard under the ATS. Barrett explicitly stated that the supposed class of viable ATS claims for actions occurring outside U.S. borders is effectively an empty set. While she acknowledged that the allegations in the case involve acknowledged horrific, inhumane conduct, Barrett affirmed that U.S. courts are not the appropriate venue to address alleged wrongs committed by foreign governments on foreign soil.
In a sharp dissenting opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor warned that the ruling does not merely block access to court for the Falun Gong plaintiffs in this case, but effectively shuts the door to all future litigants seeking redress for violations of international law brought under the ATS.
The legal dispute stretches back more than a decade to 2011, when Falun Gong members filed suit against Cisco, alleging that the company deliberately customized its networking and surveillance technology for the Chinese government, fully aware that the tools would be deployed to track, detain, and torture practitioners of the spiritual movement. To overcome the court’s long-standing skepticism of overseas human rights claims brought in U.S. courts, the plaintiffs argued that a significant share of Cisco’s core work related to the Chinese government’s surveillance project was developed and carried out at the company’s facilities within the United States. Cisco has repeatedly and vigorously denied all allegations of wrongdoing in the case.
Background context for the suit has been reinforced by award-winning investigative reporting from the Associated Press, which last year published a sweeping investigation documenting how major American technology companies have actively collaborated to build and design China’s extensive domestic surveillance infrastructure. The reporting, which earned AP the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting, confirmed that successive U.S. presidential administrations from both major political parties have encouraged this collaboration, even as human rights activists repeatedly warned that the surveillance tools would be weaponized to suppress political dissent, target religious minorities, and persecute marginalized communities.
Declassified documents and internal corporate presentations from 2008, leaked and reviewed by the AP, show that Cisco publicly framed China’s Golden Shield internet censorship and surveillance program as a major profitable business opportunity. Internal materials from that year even repeated the Chinese government’s official labeling of Falun Gong as an “evil cult,” and one company presentation confirmed that Cisco’s products could accurately identify more than 90 percent of Falun Gong-related online content. Additional internal presentations reviewed by AP show that Cisco categorized Falun Gong content as a national “security threat” for the Chinese government, and assisted in building a nationwide digital tracking system specifically designed to monitor Falun Gong practitioners. During oral arguments before the Supreme Court in April, Sotomayor pointedly noted that Cisco was fully aware its technology would be used to torture Falun Gong members, a claim the company’s legal team has repeatedly rejected.