By Harold Hongju Koh
Publication Date: 2026-04-16 12:00:00
This article is cross-posted with the Transnational Litigation Blog.
On April 28, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear Cisco Systems v. Doe I et al. (Cisco), which asks whether a private U.S. company can ever be sued under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS)—and its CEO sued under the Torture Victim Protection Act (TVPA)(1992)—for aiding and abetting torture and other gross human rights violations. Practitioners of the spiritual movement known as “Falun Gong” and their families have alleged that the U.S. company Cisco Systems Inc (Cisco) aided and abetted the Chinese Communist Party in subjecting them to torture, detention, extrajudicial execution, and other gross human rights violations. The legal issue before the Court is whether the facts, viewed in the light most favorable to the plaintiffs-respondents, give rise to a cognizable legal action against defendants (who are the petitioners), sufficient to survive a motion to dismiss and allow discovery. The Ninth Circuit answered…
