NESTLE USA, INC. v. DOE

NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the preliminary print of the United States Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order that corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

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Nos. 19–416 and 19–453

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NESTLE USA, INC., PETITIONER

19–416 v.

JOHN DOE I, et al.

CARGILL, INC., PETITIONER

19–453 v.

JOHN DOE I, et al.

on writs of certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the ninth circuit

 Justice Thomas announced the judgment of the Court and delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I and II, and an opinion with respect to Part III, in which Justice Gorsuch and Justice Kavanaugh join.

 The Alien Tort Statute (ATS) gives federal courts jurisdiction to hear certain civil actions filed by aliens. 28 U. S. C. §1350. Although this jurisdictional statute does not create a cause of action, our precedents have stated that courts may exercise common-law authority under this statute to create private rights of action in very limited circumstances. See, e.g., Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, 542 U. S. 692, 724 (2004); Hernández v. Mesa, 589 U. S. ___, ___, ___ (2020) (slip op., at 6, 14). Respondents here seek a judicially created cause of action to recover damages from American corporations that allegedly aided and abetted slavery abroad. Although respondents’ injuries occurred entirely  overseas, the Ninth Circuit held that respondents could sue in federal court because the defendant corporations allegedly made “major operational decisions” in the United States. The Ninth Circuit erred by allowing this suit to proceed.

I

 According to the operative complaint, Ivory Coast—a West-African country also known as Côte d’Ivoire—is responsible for the majority of the global cocoa supply. Respondents are six individuals from Mali who allege that they were trafficked into Ivory Coast as child slaves to produce cocoa.

 Petitioners Nestlé USA and Cargill are U. S.-based companies that purchase, process, and sell cocoa. They did not own or operate farms in Ivory Coast. But they did buy cocoa from farms located there. They also provided those farms with technical and financial resources—such as training, fertilizer, tools, and cash—in exchange for the exclusive right to purchase cocoa. Respondents allege that they were enslaved on some of those farms.

 Respondents sued Nestlé, Cargill, and other entities, contending that this arrangement aided and abetted child slavery. Respondents argue that petitioners “knew or should have known” that the farms were exploiting enslaved children yet continued to provide those farms with resources. App. 319. They further contend that petitioners had economic leverage over the farms but failed to exercise it to eliminate child slavery. And although the resource distribution and respondents’ injuries occurred outside the United States, respondents contend that they can sue in federal court because petitioners allegedly made all major operational decisions from within the United States.

 The District Court dismissed this suit after we held that the ATS does not apply extraterritorially. Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., 569 U. S. 108 (2013). It reasoned that  respondents sought to apply the ATS extraterritorially because the only domestic conduct alleged was general corporate activity. While this suit was on appeal, we held that courts cannot create new causes of action against foreign corporations under the ATS. Jesner v. Arab Bank, PLC, 584 U. S. ___ (2018). The Ninth Circuit then reversed the District Court in part. Although the Ninth Circuit determined that Jesner compelled dismissal of all foreign corporate defendants, it concluded that the opinion did not foreclose judicial creation of causes of action against domestic corporations. The Ninth Circuit also held that respondents had pleaded a domestic application of the ATS, as required by Kiobel, because the “financing decisions . . . originated” in the United States. Doe v. Nestlé, S. A., 906 F. 3d 1120, 1124–1126 (2018); see also 929 F. 3d 623 (2019). We granted certiorari, 591 U. S. ___ (2020), and now reverse.

II

 Petitioners and the United States argue that respondents improperly seek extraterritorial application of the ATS. We agree.

 Our precedents “reflect a two-step framework for analyzing extraterritoriality issues.” RJR Nabisco, Inc. v. European Community, 579 U. S. 325, 337 (2016). First, we presume that a statute applies only domestically, and we ask “whether the statute gives a clear, affirmative indication” that rebuts this presumption. Ibid. For the ATS, Kiobel answered that question in the negative. 569 U. S., at 124. Although we have interpreted its purely jurisdictional text to implicitly enable courts to create causes of action, the ATS does not expressly “regulate conduct” at all, much less “evince a ‘clear indication of extraterritoriality.’ ” Id., at 115–118. Courts thus cannot give “extraterritorial reach” to any cause of action judicially created under the ATS. Id., at 117–118. Second, where the statute, as here, does not apply extraterritorially, plaintiffs must establish that “the  conduct relevant to the statute’s focus occurred in the United States.” RJR Nabisco, 579 U. S., at 337. “[T]hen the case involves a permissible domestic application even if other conduct occurred abroad.” Ibid.

 The parties dispute what conduct is relevant to the “focus” of the ATS. Respondents seek a judicially created cause of action to sue petitioners for aiding and abetting forced labor overseas. Arguing that aiding and abetting is not even a tort, but merely secondary liability for a tort, petitioners and the United States contend that “the conduct relevant to the [ATS’s] focus” is the conduct that directly caused the injury. See id., at 346 (a plaintiff who “does not overcome the presumption against extraterritoriality . . . therefore must allege and prove a domestic injury”). All of that alleged conduct occurred overseas in this suit. The United States also argues that the “focus” inquiry is beside the point; courts should not create an aiding-and-abetting cause of action under the ATS at all. See Central Bank of Denver, N. A. v. First Interstate Bank of Denver, N. A., 511 U. S. 164, 182–183 (1994) (“[W]hen Congress enacts a statute under which a person may sue and recover damages from a private defendant . . . , there is no general presumption that the plaintiff may also sue aiders and abettors” because that would create a “vast expansion of federal law”). For their part, respondents argue that aiding and abetting is a freestanding tort and that courts may create a private right of action to enforce it under the ATS. They also contend that the “focus” of the ATS is conduct that violates international law, that aiding and abetting forced labor is a violation of international law, and that domestic conduct can aid and abet an injury that occurs overseas.

 Even if we resolved all these disputes in respondents’ favor, their complaint would impermissibly seek extraterritorial application of the ATS. Nearly all the conduct that they say aided and abetted forced labor—providing training, fertilizer, tools, and cash to overseas farms—occurred in Ivory  Coast. The Ninth Circuit nonetheless let this suit proceed because respondents pleaded as a general matter that “every major operational decision by both companies is made in or approved in the U. S.” App. 314. But allegations of general corporate activity—like decisionmaking—cannot alone establish domestic application of the ATS.

 As we made clear in Kiobel, a plaintiff does not plead facts sufficient to support domestic application of the ATS simply by alleging “mere corporate presence” of a defendant. 569 U. S., at 125. Pleading general corporate activity is no better. Because making “operational decisions” is an activity common to most corporations, generic allegations of this sort do not draw a sufficient connection between the cause of action respondents seek—aiding and abetting forced labor overseas—and domestic conduct. “[T]he presumption against extraterritorial application would be a craven watchdog indeed if it retreated to its kennel whenever some domestic activity is involved in the case.” Morrison v. National Australia Bank Ltd., 561 U. S. 247, 266 (2010). To plead facts sufficient to support a domestic application of the ATS, plaintiffs must allege more domestic conduct than general corporate activity. The Ninth Circuit erred when it held otherwise.

III

 Respondents’ suit fails for another reason, which does not require parsing allegations about where conduct occurred: We cannot create a cause of action that would let them sue petitioners. That job belongs to Congress, not the Federal Judiciary. Sosa indicated that courts may exercise common-law authority under the ATS to create private rights of action in very limited circumstances. 542 U. S., at 724. Sosa suggested, for example, that courts could recognize causes of action for three historical violations of international law: “violation of safe conducts, infringement of  the rights of ambassadors, and piracy.” Ibid. But our precedents since Sosa have clarified that courts must refrain from creating a cause of action whenever there is even a single sound reason to defer to Congress. See, e.g., Hernández, 589 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 8). Tellingly, we have never created a cause of action under the ATS. Even without reexamining Sosa, our existing precedents prohibit us from creating a cause of action here.

A

 Originally passed as part of the Judiciary Act of 1789, the ATS provides jurisdiction to hear claims brought “by an alien for a tort only, committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States.” 28 U. S. C. §1350. If, for example, a treaty adopted by the United States creates a tort-related duty, federal district courts have jurisdiction to hear claims by aliens for breach of that duty.

 But the statute on its own does not empower aliens to sue. We have been clear that “the ATS is a jurisdictional statute creating no new causes of action.” Sosa, 542 U. S., at 724. Aliens harmed by a violation of international law must rely on legislative and executive remedies, not judicial remedies, unless provided with an independent cause of action. In more than 200 years, Congress has established just one: the Torture Victim Protection Act of 1991. That Act creates a private right of action for victims of torture and extrajudicial killings in violation of international law. 106 Stat. 73, note following 28 U. S. C. §1350.

 Because that cause of action does not apply here, respondents ask us to create a new one. They suggest that a plaintiff is entitled to a judicially created cause of action absent compelling reasons to withhold one. But our precedents demand precisely the opposite rule.

 In Sosa, we “assume[d]” that the First Congress, which enacted the ATS, believed that federal courts, under general common law, “would recognize private causes of action  for certain torts in violation of the law of nations.” 542 U. S., at 724. Although our decision in Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U. S. 64 (1938), “denied the existence of any federal ‘general’ common law,” we suggested that a limited, residual amount remained to create causes of action for violations of international law. Sosa, 542 U. S., at 726, 729. We noted, for example, that courts in certain circumstances likely could recognize causes of action for violations of three historical torts: “violation of safe conducts, infringement of the rights of ambassadors, and piracy.” Id., at 724.

 At the same time, we stressed that this authority was narrow. We noted that there was “no basis to suspect Congress had any examples in mind beyond those [three] torts.” Ibid. And we suggested that future “development” of law might “preclud[e] federal courts from recognizing” new causes of action. Id., at 724–725.

 To guide our reasoning in the future, we described a two-step test that plaintiffs must satisfy before a court can create a cause of action under the ATS. First, the plaintiff must establish that the defendant violated “ ‘a norm that is specific, universal, and obligatory’ ” under international law. Id., at 732. That norm must be “defined with a specificity comparable to” the three international torts known in 1789. Id., at 725. Second, the plaintiff must show that courts should exercise “judicial discretion” to create a cause of action rather than defer to Congress. Id., at 726, 736, and n. 27; Jesner, 584 U. S., at ___–___ (plurality opinion) (slip op., at 11–12).

 Judicial authority under that test was narrow at the outset. Our more recent precedents have made it narrower still by stressing that judicial creation of a cause of action is an extraordinary act that places great stress on the separation of powers. Although this Court in the mid-20th century often assumed authority to create causes of action, Ziglar v. Abbasi, 582 U. S. ___, ___ (2017) (slip op., at 8),  “[i]n later years, we came to appreciate more fully the tension between this practice and the Constitution’s separation of legislative and judicial power,” Hernández, 589 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 5). Because Erie denied the existence of a federal general common law, “a federal court’s authority to recognize a damages remedy must rest at bottom on a statute enacted by Congress.” Hernández, 589 U. S., at ___–___ (slip op., at 5–6). It follows that any judicially created cause of action risks “upset[ting] the careful balance of interests struck by the lawmakers.” Ibid.

 To limit this stress on the separation of powers, our precedents have made clear that the second step of Sosa—which applies in any context where a plaintiff asks a court to create a cause of action—is extraordinarily strict. A court “ ‘must’ ” not create a private right of action if it can identify even one “ ‘sound reaso[n] to think Congress might doubt the efficacy or necessity of [the new] remedy.’ ” Jesner, 584 U. S., at ___ (majority opinion) (slip op., at 18) (quoting Abbasi, 582 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 13)); see also Hernández, 589 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 8) (same). This test is demanding by design, and we have yet to find it satisfied. See Jesner, 584 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 27) (no judicially created causes of action against foreign corporations); see also Sosa, 542 U. S., at 725 (no judicially created cause of action for illegal detention even under the less-demanding standard initially created by Sosa).

B

 Regardless of whether respondents have satisfied the first step of the Sosa test, it is clear that they have not satisfied the second. Our decisions since Sosa, as well as congressional activity, compel the conclusion that federal courts should not recognize private rights of action for violations of international law beyond the three historical torts identified in Sosa.

 We recently identified a sound reason to think Congress  might doubt a judicial decision to create a cause of action that would enforce torts beyond those three: Creating a cause of action under the ATS “inherent[ly]” raises “foreign-policy concerns.” Jesner, 584 U. S., at ___ (majority opinion) (slip op., at 19). This suit illustrates the point, for the allegations here implicate a partnership (the Harkin-Engel Protocol and subsequent agreements) between the Department of Labor, petitioners, and the Government of Ivory Coast. Under that partnership, petitioners provide material resources and training to cocoa farmers in Ivory Coast—the same kinds of activity that respondents contend make petitioners liable for violations of international law. Companies or individuals may be less likely to engage in intergovernmental efforts if they fear those activities will subject them to private suits.

 Although specific foreign-policy concerns may vary from case to case, our precedents are clear that creating a cause of action to enforce international law beyond three historical torts invariably gives rise to foreign-policy concerns. Ibid. (“foreign-policy . . . concerns [are] inherent in ATS litigation”). Because “[t]he political branches, not the Judiciary, have the responsibility and institutional capacity to weigh foreign-policy concerns,” there will always be a sound reason for courts not to create a cause of action for violations of international law—other than perhaps for those three torts that were well established in 1789. Id., at ___–___ (slip op., at 18–19).

 Congressional activity independently provides a sound reason to conclude that Congress might doubt a judicially created cause of action. It is instructive to consider the changes Congress made to the remedies in the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2003 (TVPRA), which imposes liability for offenses related to human trafficking. The initial text, passed in 2000, imposed criminal liability for human trafficking. §112, 114 Stat. 1464. Congress later added a private right of action in 2003, allowing  plaintiffs to sue the immediate “perpetrator” of a human trafficking violation. §4(a)(4)(A), 117 Stat. 2878. And then in 2008, Congress created the present private right of action, allowing plaintiffs to sue defendants who are involved indirectly with slavery. §§221, 222(b)(3), 122 Stat. 5067–5068.

 This Act highlights that there are many different ways to create a cause of action that would enforce developments in international law beyond the three historical torts identified in Sosa—too many for courts to choose from when using the limited judicial discretion that Sosa recognizes. Congress may well decide to create a cause of action against one category of defendants but not another. See Jesner, 584 U. S., at ___ (plurality opinion) (slip op., at 20) (recognizing that Congress “unambiguously” limited the only legislative cause of action passed under the ATS to one category of defendants). Or it might make distinctions—as it did in the TVPRA—between direct and indirect liability. Congress settled on the current approach to private remedies against human trafficking only after its “understanding of the problem evolved” through years of studying “how to best craft a response.” Brief for Members of Congress as Amici Curiae 9, 13. The judicial role is to resolve cases and controversies, which typically present only the perspectives of the parties. The Judiciary does not have the “institutional capacity” to consider all factors relevant to creating a cause of action that will “inherent[ly]” affect foreign policy. Jesner, 584 U. S., at ___ (majority opinion) (slip op., at 19). Respondents attempt to brush aside these concerns by suggesting that their allegations about decades-old conduct could satisfy the TVPRA if Congress had enacted that law earlier. This observation simply proves the point. Congress chose not to write a retroactive statute. To create a cause of action here would impermissibly second-guess Congress’ decision not to subject past conduct to a new standard.

  When we decided Sosa, we remarked that there is “no basis to suspect Congress had any examples in mind beyond th[ree] torts” when it enacted the ATS. 542 U. S., at 724. We “assume[d]” that no “development” of law had yet “precluded federal courts from recognizing” causes of action not created by Congress. Id., at 724–725. Nobody here has expressly asked us to revisit Sosa. But precedents since Sosa have substantially narrowed the circumstances in which “judicial discretion” under the Sosa test is permitted. Id., at 726, 736, and n. 27. Under existing precedent, then, courts in some circumstances might still apply Sosa to recognize causes of action for the three historical torts likely on the mind of the First Congress. But as to other torts, our precedents already make clear that there always is a sound reason to defer to Congress, so courts may not create a cause of action for those torts. Whether and to what extent defendants should be liable under the ATS for torts beyond the three historical torts identified in Sosa lies within the province of the Legislative Branch.

 *  *  *

 The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the cases are remanded for further proceedings.

It is so ordered.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

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Nos. 19–416 and 19–453

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NESTLE USA, INC., PETITIONER

19–416 v.

JOHN DOE I, et al.

CARGILL, INC., PETITIONER

19–453 v.

JOHN DOE I, et al.

on writs of certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the ninth circuit

 Justice Sotomayor, with whom Justice Breyer and Justice Kagan join, concurring in part and concurring in the judgment.

 I join Parts I and II of the Court’s opinion. Because respondents have failed to allege a domestic application of the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), their complaint must be dismissed. I do not, however, join Justice Thomas’ alternative path to that disposition, which would overrule Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, 542 U. S. 692 (2004), in all but name. The First Congress enacted the ATS to ensure that federal courts are available to foreign citizens who suffer international law violations for which other nations may expect the United States to provide a forum for redress. Justice Thomas would limit the ATS’ reach to only the three international law torts that were recognized in 1789. That reading contravenes both this Court’s express holding in Sosa and the text and history of the ATS.

 I

A

 Included in the Judiciary Act of 1789, the ATS gave federal courts “cognizance . . . of all causes where an alien sues for a tort only in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States.” Act of Sept. 24, 1789, §9, 1 Stat. 77. The ATS does not list the torts that fall within its purview. Rather, the statute was “ ‘enacted on the understanding that [federal] common law would provide a cause of action for [a] modest number of international law violations.’ ” Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., 569 U. S. 108, 115 (2013) (quoting Sosa, 542 U. S., at 724; some alterations in original). Three such torts were “probably on minds of the men who drafted the ATS”: “violation of safe conducts, infringement of the rights of ambassadors, and piracy.” Id., at 715 (citing 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 68 (1769)).

 Unsurprisingly, the domestic and international legal landscape has changed in the two centuries since Congress enacted the ATS. On the one hand, this Court in Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U. S. 64 (1938), “denied the existence of any federal ‘general’ common law.” Sosa, 542 U. S., at 726 (quoting 304 U. S., at 78). Erie thus foiled the First Congress’ expectation “that the common law would,” of its own accord, “provide a cause of action for the modest number of international law violations,” 542 U. S., at 724, that qualify as “tort[s] . . . in violation of the law of nations,” 28 U. S. C. §1350. On the other hand, the class of law-of-nations torts has grown “with the evolving recognition . . . that certain acts constituting crimes against humanity are in violation of basic precepts of international law.” Jesner v. Arab Bank, PLC, 584 U. S. ___, ___ (2018) (slip op., at 9). Like the pirates of the 18th century, today’s torturers, slave traders, and perpetrators of genocide are “ ‘hostis humani generis, an enemy of all mankind.’ ” Sosa, 542 U. S., at 732.

 The Court reconciled these two legal developments in Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain. There, the Court explained that it would “be unreasonable to assume that the First Congress would have expected federal courts to lose all capacity to recognize enforceable international norms simply because the common law might lose some metaphysical cachet” in a post-Erie world. 542 U. S., at 730. Indeed, while Erie rejected the notion of a general federal common law, the “post-Erie understanding has identified limited enclaves in which federal courts may derive some substantive law in a common law way.” 542 U. S., at 729. For over 200 years (both before and after Erie), courts have adhered to the principle that “the domestic law of the United States recognizes the law of nations.”¹ 542 U. S., at 729.

 While Sosa refused to “close the door” to “judicial recognition of actionable international norms,” it remains “subject to vigilant doorkeeping.” Ibid. Sosa explained that “courts should require any claim based on the present-day law of nations to rest on a norm of international character accepted by the civilized world and defined with a specificity comparable to the features of the 18th-century paradigms” contemplated by the First Congress (i.e., norms regarding safe conducts, the rights of ambassadors, and piracy). Id., at 725. The Court elaborated that “the determination whether a norm is sufficiently definite to support a cause of action should (and, indeed, inevitably must) involve an element of judgment about the practical consequences of making that cause available to litigants in the federal courts.” Id., at 732–733 (footnote omitted).

 In the years since, this Court has read Sosa to announce a two-step test for recognizing the availability of a cause of action under the ATS. Courts first ask “whether a plaintiff  can demonstrate that the alleged violation is ‘of a norm that is specific, universal, and obligatory.’ ” Jesner, 584 U. S., at ___–___ (plurality opinion) (slip op., at 11–12) (quoting Sosa, 542 U. S., at 732). If so, then “it must be determined further whether allowing [a] case to proceed under the ATS is a proper exercise of judicial discretion.” Jesner, 584 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 12).

B

 Justice Thomas reads Sosa and this Court’s subsequent precedents to impose an “extraordinarily strict” standard at Sosa’s second step. Ante, at 8. If a court “can identify even one ‘sound reaso[n]’ ” to think Congress might doubt the need for a cause of action under the ATS, we are told, the court should refuse to recognize it. Ibid. (quoting Jesner, 584 U. S., at ___ (majority opinion) (slip op., at 18); some internal quotation marks omitted).

 The trouble with Justice Thomas’ test is that it is unmoored from both history and precedent. The ATS was a statute born of necessity. In the early days of the Republic, the “Continental Congress was hamstrung by its inability” under the Articles of Confederation “to ‘cause infractions of treaties, or of the law of nations to be punished.’ ” Sosa, 542 U. S., at 716 (quoting J. Madison, Journal of the Constitutional Convention 60 (E. Scott ed. 1893)). The United States’ failure to redress such offenses “caused substantial foreign-relations problems,” Jesner, 584 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 7), and “threaten[ed] serious consequences in international affairs,” Sosa, 542 U. S., at 715. On more than one occasion (and in no uncertain terms), foreign powers expressed their displeasure with the United States’ failure to provide redress for law-of-nations violations against their citizens.² See Jesner, 584 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 7); see  also Kiobel, 569 U. S., at 120; Sosa, 542 U. S., at 716–717, and n. 11. Congress’ “principal objective” in establishing federal jurisdiction over such torts, therefore, “was to avoid foreign entanglements by ensuring the availability of a federal forum where the failure to provide one might cause another nation to hold the United States responsible for an injury to a foreign citizen.” Jesner, 584 U. S., at ___–___ (slip op., at 8–9).

 As this Court explained in Sosa, “[t]he anxieties of the preconstitutional period cannot be ignored easily enough to think that the [ATS] was not meant to have a practical effect.’ ” 542 U. S., at 719. It was Congress’ assessment that diplomatic strife is best avoided by providing a federal forum to redress those law-of-nations torts that, if not remedied, could bring international opprobrium upon the United States. Because the First Congress did not pass “the ATS only to leave it lying fallow indefinitely,” the statute “is best read as having been enacted on the understanding that the common law would provide a cause of action” for widely recognized torts in violation of the law of nations. Id., at 719, 724; see also Jesner, 584 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 8) (“[T]he [ATS] was not enacted to sit on a shelf awaiting further  legislation”). In other words, from the moment the ATS became law, Congress expected federal courts to identify actionable torts under international law and to provide injured plaintiffs with a forum to seek redress.

 That historical fact must guide jurists when determining “whether allowing [a] case to proceed under the ATS is a proper exercise of judicial discretion.” Id., at ___ (plurality opinion) (slip op., at 12). Justice Thomas suggests that courts may recognize a cause of action under the ATS only “in very limited circumstances,” if at all. Ante, at 5. But the ATS calls for much more. The First Congress made the legislative determination that a remedy should be available under the ATS to foreign citizens who suffer “tort[s] . . . in violation of the law of nations.” 28 U. S. C. §1350. Barring some extraordinary collateral consequence that could not have been foreseen by Congress, federal courts should not, under the guise of judicial discretion, second-guess that legislative decision.

 Justice Thomas therefore errs in asserting that courts “plac[e] great stress on the separation of powers” when they recognize causes of action under the ATS. Ante, at 7. That would be news to the First Congress, which from the beginning counted on federal courts to “recognize enforceable international norms” in order to give the ATS “practical effect.” Sosa, 542 U. S., at 719, 730. To now suggest that identifying actionable torts “risks ‘upset[ting] the careful balance of interests struck by the lawmakers’ ” is ahistorical at best. Ante, at 8 (quoting Hernández v. Mesa, 589 U. S. ___, ___ (2020) (slip op., at 5); brackets in original).

 Indeed, one need look no further than the text of the ATS to understand the task that the First Congress assigned to the Federal Judiciary. As originally enacted, the ATS gave federal courts “cognizance . . . of all causes where an alien sues for a tort only in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States.” §9, 1 Stat. 77. Congress did not need to legislate those “causes” into existence because  international law supplied the substantive contours of actionable torts, and domestic law indisputably incorporated international law. See Sosa, 542 U. S., at 729. Neither of those premises changed after Erie. Justice Thomas thus misconceives the judicial task in asking whether courts may “create” causes of action under the ATS. Ante, at 6; see also post, at 4–5 (Gorsuch, J., concurring). The assignment is much more modest: Courts must, based on their interpretation of international law, identify those norms that are so specific, universal, and obligatory that they give rise to a “tort” for which Congress expects federal courts to entertain “causes”—or, in modern parlance, “civil action[s],” 28 U. S. C. §1350—for redress.

 Implicitly acknowledging his departure from Sosa, Justice Thomas argues that “precedents since Sosa have substantially narrowed the circumstances in which ‘judicial discretion’ ” to recognize ATS causes of action “is permitted.” Ante, at 11. But the case on which he principally relies, Hernández v. Mesa, 589 U. S. ___, is wholly inapposite. Hernández cautions that “finding that a damages remedy is implied by a provision that makes no reference to that remedy may upset the careful balance of interests struck by the lawmakers.” Id., at ___ (slip op., at 5). The ATS, however, is not a statute that “makes no reference to [a] remedy.” Ibid. Just the opposite: The ATS expressly contemplates that federal courts will hear “civil action[s]” for “tort[s] . . . committed in violation of the law of nations.” 28 U. S. C. §1350. As such, “a federal court’s authority to recognize a damages remedy” under the ATS very much “rest[s] at bottom on a statute enacted by Congress.”³ Hernández, 589  U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 6). Respect for the separation of powers is hardly served by refusing a legislatively assigned task.

II

 Applying the wrong standard at Sosa’s second step, Justice Thomas reaches the wrong answer. He announces that, except for “the three historical torts likely on the mind of the First Congress,” “there always is a sound reason” for courts to refuse to recognize actionable torts under the ATS.⁴ Ante, at 11. He offers three reasons for this dramatic curtailment of the ATS. None is persuasive.

 First, Justice Thomas argues that “creating a cause of action to enforce international law beyond three historical torts invariably gives rise to foreign-policy concerns.” Ante, at 9. He offers no meaningful support for that sweeping assertion, nor does he explain why an ATS suit for the tort of piracy, for example, would categorically present fewer foreign-policy concerns than a suit for aiding and abetting child slavery. That said, Justice Thomas is correct insofar as he observes that, in some subset of cases, the diplomatic costs of allowing an ATS suit to proceed may outweigh the benefits of providing redress to an injured foreign citizen. “[W]hen international friction” does arise, however, “a court should respond with the doctrine that speaks directly to the friction’s source.” Jesner, 584 U. S., at ___ (Sotomayor, J., dissenting) (slip op., at 22). Such tools include the presumption against extraterritoriality, limits on personal jurisdiction, case-by-case deference to the political branches, and the doctrines of exhaustion, forum non conveniens, and international comity. See ibid.; Kiobel, 569 U. S., at 133 (Breyer, J., concurring in judgment); Sosa, 542 U. S., at 733, n. 21. Ignoring all these options, Justice Thomas would instead bar any ATS suit that seeks to hold a defendant liable for violating any international norm that developed after the 18th century. That is a gross overreaction to a manageable (and largely hypothetical) problem.

 Moreover, in arguing that ATS litigation “ ‘inherent[ly]’ raises ‘foreign-policy concerns,’ ” ante, at 9 (quoting Jesner, 584 U. S., at ___ (majority opinion) (slip op., at 19)), Justice Thomas ignores the other side of the equation: that foreign nations may take (and, indeed, historically have taken) umbrage at the United States’ refusal to provide redress to their citizens for international law torts committed by U. S. nationals within the United States. See supra, at 4, and n. 2. Closing the courthouse doors thus “gives rise to foreign-policy concerns” just as “invariably,” ante, at 9, as leaving them open.

 Second, Justice Thomas suggests that federal courts lack “the ‘institutional capacity’ to consider all factors relevant” to recognizing actionable torts under the ATS. Ante, at 10; see also post, at 5–6 (opinion of Gorsuch, J.). It would be surprising (and, I suspect, distressing) to the Congress that enacted the ATS to learn that federal courts lack institutional capacity to do the very thing the ATS presumes they will do. Justice Thomas’ pessimism aside, there is no reason to doubt federal courts’ ability to identify those norms of international law that are sufficiently “ ‘specific, universal, and obligatory’ ” to give rise to a cause of action under the ATS. Jesner, 584 U. S., at ___ (plurality opinion) (slip op., at 12) (quoting Sosa, 542 U. S., at 732). After all, “[f]or two centuries” this Court has “affirmed that the domestic law of the United States recognizes the law of nations.” Id., at 729. There is nothing so mysterious about a law’s international origins that would prevent courts—bodies specifically tasked with, and particularly capable of, interpreting and applying laws—from ably adjudicating a suit for damages arising out of a “tort . . . committed in violation of the law of nations.”⁵ 28 U. S. C. §1350.

 Finally, pointing to the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA), Justice Thomas argues that Congress’ decision to impose criminal and civil liability on human traffickers indicates that “Congress might doubt” the wisdom of recognizing a cause of action for torts other than the violation of safe conducts, infringement of the rights of ambassadors, and piracy. Ante, at 9. It is hard to understand why that would be true. That Congress has chosen to legislate against certain abhorrent conduct does not make that conduct any less tortious under international law. Nor does it increase the likelihood that negative “practical consequences” will arise from allowing foreign citizens to hold defendants liable for their torts under the ATS. Sosa, 542 U. S., at 732. On the contrary, the fact that Congress authorized victims of slavery to sue perpetrators under the TVPRA provides strong evidence that Congress would not, in fact, doubt the efficacy of permitting victims of slavery to sue perpetrators under the ATS (insofar as the plaintiffs seek a domestic application of the statute).

 Justice Thomas replies that, because the TVPRA is not “a retroactive statute,” entertaining respondents’ suit would “impermissibly second-guess Congress’ decision not to subject past conduct to a new standard.” Ante, at 10. Surely Justice Thomas does not mean that the prohibition against child slavery is a “new standard.” Nor is it tenable to argue that, at the time respondents were enslaved on Ivorian cocoa farms, international law permitted the aiding and abetting of forced labor.⁶ Perhaps Justice Thomas means to argue that, by adding a cause of action to the TVPRA in 2008, Congress implicitly foreclosed the availability of similar causes of action under the ATS. But the legislative history says otherwise: The Conference Report that accompanied the original TVPRA took pains to emphasize “that nothing in [the TVPRA] will preclude trafficking victims from availing themselves of applicable State, local or other Federal laws in seeking compensatory or other damages and relief in any civil proceeding.”⁷ H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 106–939, p. 93 (2000). At bottom, then, there is simply no basis to infer from “congressional activity,” ante, at 8, that Congress has by implication grafted a truncated list of actionable torts onto the ATS that appears nowhere in the statutory text.

*  *  *

 The First Congress chose to provide noncitizens a federal forum to seek redress for law-of-nations violations, and it counted on federal courts to facilitate such suits by recognizing causes of action for violations of specific, universal, and obligatory norms of international law. I would not abdicate the Court’s obligation to follow that legislative directive. Because I find no support for Justice Thomas’ position in the ATS or in this Court’s precedents, I do not join that portion of Justice Thomas’ opinion.