The case asks the justices to decide whether an American technology company can be held liable under U.S. law for aiding and abetting human rights violations committed abroad — a question the Supreme Court and successive administrations of both parties have moved to restrict in recent years.
The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear an appeal from Cisco Systems seeking to dismiss a lawsuit alleging the company’s technology helped Chinese authorities identify, track, detain, and torture members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement. The justices will hear arguments in the spring and are expected to issue a ruling by early summer.
The court acted after the Trump administration urged the justices to take the case on Cisco’s behalf. The appeal asks the court to reverse an appellate ruling that had allowed the lawsuit to proceed in U.S. courts.
The legal question
The case tests whether an American company can be held liable under two federal statutes — the 18th-century Alien Tort Statute and the Torture Victim Protection Act, first enacted in 1991 — for allegedly aiding and abetting human rights violations committed abroad. Cisco has argued that neither law applies to its conduct.
The Supreme Court and presidential administrations of both parties have grown increasingly skeptical of using American courts to adjudicate allegations arising from the acts of foreign governments on foreign soil. To address that barrier, Falun Gong practitioners have argued that a substantial portion of Cisco’s China-related activities took place inside the United States.
Background
Falun Gong practitioners filed suit against Cisco in 2011, alleging the company tailored technology for Chinese authorities with knowledge that it would be used to surveil and persecute believers.
Documents that leaked to the press in 2008 showed Cisco viewed China’s “Golden Shield” — the country’s internet censorship program — as a sales opportunity. A Cisco presentation from that year, reviewed by the Associated Press, said the company’s products could identify more than 90% of Falun Gong material on the internet. Additional presentations described Falun Gong content as a “threat” and outlined a national information system built to track practitioners. One document quoted a Chinese official characterizing the Falun Gong as an “evil cult.”
An AP investigation published last year found that American technology companies played a substantial role in designing and building China’s surveillance infrastructure, with encouragement from Republican and Democratic administrations alike, even as activists warned the tools were being used to quash dissent, persecute religious groups, and target minorities.