As Walter Olson notes below, today the Supreme Court correctly ruled in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum that the Alien Tort Statute, like any federal law not explicitly stating otherwise, does not cover actions occurring outside the United States. That is, you can’t bring a suit in U.S. court just because it involves a “violation of the law of nations” (the conduct that the ATS addresses).
As Chief Justice Roberts said in announcing the decision, even a claim that a foreigner committed such an international-law violation against another foreigner isn’t enough to counter the presumption that laws don’t have extra-territorial application. Indeed, in such a case – and Kiobel’s allegations of human rights abuses by Nigerians against Nigerians in Nigeria is such a case – there is even less of a reason to invoke the jurisdiction of American courts than if some American dimension existed (e.g., the citizenship of one of the parties or the location of the conduct).
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