US – Case Law – Human Rights Insights

Cisco case: US Supreme Court shuts the courthouse doors permanently to corporate accountability under the Alien Tort Statute

On 23 June 2026, the US Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals 2023 decision that had allowed proceedings against Cisco System under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS) to proceed. The Court of Appeals’ decision was a ray of light for corporate accountability coming through an almost closed door after several Supreme Court’s rulings issued over the last two decades drastically limiting the possibility to use the ATS. The Supreme Court’s new ruling shuts the door permanently.

Alien Tort Statute and Cisco case: Court of Appeal allows proceedings to continue

On July 7, 2023, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that proceedings against Cisco System under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS) can proceed. In this decade long trial, practitioners of Falun Gong – a Chinese religious movement – alleged that they or family members were victims of human rights abuses including torture, arbitrary detention, forced labour, extrajudicial killing and forced disappearance committed by the Chinese Communist Party and Chinese government officials. According to the claimants, the alleged abuses were enabled by technological assistance of Cisco System, a US company which designed, implemented and helped to maintain a surveillance and internal security network (the Golden Shield system) for Chinese officials, greatly enhancing their capacity to identify Falun Gong practitioners and persecute them. In 2011, claimants sued Cisco for aiding and abetting Chinese officials in violation of the ATS.