By PBS News
Publication Date: 2026-04-28 17:20:00
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Tuesday seemed likely to grant tech giant Cisco’s bid to shut down a lawsuit claiming that the company’s technology was used to persecute members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement in China.
Listen to the hearing in our player above.
The justices are reviewing an appellate ruling that would allow the lawsuit against Cisco to go forward in U.S. courts.
The company argues that it cannot be held liable under two separate laws for aiding and abetting human rights violations. The laws are the 18th-century Alien Tort Statute (ATS) and the Torture Victim Protection Act (TVPA), first enacted in 1991.
The main questions among the court’s conservative majority seemed to be how broadly to rule for Cisco and whether lower courts are allowing too many similar suits to proceed. Justice Neil Gorsuch at one point asked whether the courthouse door is “not closely guarded.”
In recent years, the Supreme Court and presidential…
