The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement cannot sue an American company even though they claim it aided the Chinese government's campaign to target and persecute them.
The majority opinion, written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, expressed reluctance to expand the scope of a 237-year-old law. The law is designed to allow foreigners to sue in U.S. courts for violations of international law.
The ruling in favor of technology company Cisco Systems could help insulate other companies from legal risks when dealing with foreign governments with a history of human rights abuses. Cisco Systems is headquartered in San Jose, California.
The company denies that its technology is specifically tailored to aid the Chinese government’s repression, calling the accusations “false and baseless.”
In the mixed ruling, which overturned a lower appeals court that had previously favored Falun Gong members, all of the court's conservative justices joined Barrett in the majority opinion, with two liberal justices partially supporting the opinion. Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented, and Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson joined in part.
Justice Barrett wrote that while lawsuits under the Alien Tort Statute "often involve outrageous and inhumane conduct," the courts are not the best place to address such matters. Instead, she writes, “political subdivisions or other international actors” are better suited to enforce international law norms in these cases.
In a strongly worded dissent, Justice Sotomayor pointed out that the majority acted in the name of "respecting Congress and the principle of separation of powers" but actually overturned "20 years of established jurisprudence."
She wrote that from a practical effect, the court not only "closed the court door" to Falun Gong members, but also in fact closed the door to "almost all future litigants seeking tort relief under international law based on the Alien Tort Statute." She concluded by saying she believed the court's conservative majority was pursuing "one more victory" and was brazenly reshaping the law to its own preferences.
The Alien Torts Act was enacted by the first Congress of the United States in 1789. It initially focused on international disputes such as piracy and threats to diplomatic envoys, allowing such foreign-related matters to be heard in U.S. courts.
In recent decades, the law has also been used as a tool to bring accusations of international human rights abuses into U.S. courts. But in recent years, the Supreme Court has increasingly tightened its interpretation of the law, limiting the types of lawsuits that can be heard.
Falun Gong is a spiritual practice group that incorporates some elements of Buddhism. In April 1999, Falun Gong members attracted great attention from the Chinese government after they held a peaceful petition outside the residence and office of the CCP leaders in Beijing.
Following the petition, the Chinese government banned Falun Gong and announced that the organization's founder, Li Hongzhi, was wanted. The government has also characterized the group as a cult (which Falun Gong denies) and has cracked down on Falun Gong members, who according to a Human Rights Watch report have been subjected to physical and mental torture, forced labor and detention. The Chinese government has previously denied torture against Falun Gong members.
In 2011, Falun Gong practitioners sued Cisco in the United States based on the Alien Torts Act and the Torture Victims Protection Act. The Torture Victims Protection Act is a 1991 law that allows individuals to sue foreign officials for torture.
Falun Gong members say Cisco helped the Chinese government develop the "Golden Shield Project," China's Internet surveillance and censorship system. They say the technology has allowed the government to establish a system that severely suppresses Falun Gong.
The case stalled after a federal district court judge dismissed the lawsuit. But in 2023, a divided three-judge panel of the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated some of the claims made by Falun Gong members, allowing the case to progress again.
This case—Cisco Systems v. Anonymous—is one of several recent cases before the Supreme Court that dispute the scope of admissibility of claims of international human rights violations under federal law. The Trump administration sided with Cisco in the case.
