Supreme Court Sides With Cisco in International Human Rights Case

“Cisco is correct,” Barrett said. “Courts cannot create new rights of action to remedy violations of international law, so there is necessarily no liability for aiding and abetting such violations.”

The lawsuit, first filed in 2011, claimed Cisco and its executives “are liable for aiding and abetting violations of international law.” One of the plaintiffs also targeted two Cisco executives for being “liable for aiding and abetting violations of the Torture Victim Protection Act of 1991.”

The Chinese government banned Falun Gong in 1999, and those who practice have faced detention and torture. A 2025 AP News investigation, which found evidence that some American tech companies — such as Cisco — enabled surveillance in China, impacting minorities and religious groups.

The tech company said it is deeply committed to human rights and reiterated its long-held position that the “claims are inaccurate and entirely without foundation,” in a 2023 statement about the case.

William Dodge, an international law expert at George Washington University Law School, said the conclusion is “mistaken” and went against precedent.

“I think that this decision really puts an end to the modern era of human rights litigation under the Alien Tort Statute,” said Dodge, who wrote an amicus brief on behalf of the plaintiffs in the Cisco case. “There aren’t going to be human rights cases brought under the Alien Tort Statute anymore.”

Dodge said the decision does not rule out human rights litigation entirely, but for future lawsuits, legal groups will now have to look to other statutes or foreign law to make their case, he said.

Justices also ruled 8-1 that aiding and abetting did not come within the language of the Torture Victim Protection Act of 1991 — with only Justice Sonia Sotomayor as the sole dissenting voice.

“Today’s decision marks yet another low point in this Court’s esteem for its precedents,” Sotomayor wrote in her opinion.