Circuit split · international law
Whether the Alien Tort Statute permits claims against private (non-state) actors for violations of international-law norms that do not require state action
1 federal appellate case on this question, each acknowledging the disagreement in its own words.
- Sarei v. Rio Tinto, PLC456 F3D 1069
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals · August 7, 2006
“It would create a clear circuit split with Kadic.” — Acknowledges a circuit split
Empirical analysis of this case →
The other side of the split
Decisions the acknowledging court(s) named as the opposing or joined side, quoted in the acknowledging opinion's own words.
- On the other side · 2nd Cir.Kadic
“We distinguished Kadic, another war crimes case, in which the Second Circuit had declined to find a political question: “[T]he claims in Kadic focused on the acts of a single individual during a localized conflict rather than asking the court to undertake the complex calculus of assigning fault for actions taken by a foreign regime during the morass of a world war.” Id.” — Sarei v. Rio Tinto, PLC, acknowledging the split
What the split turns on
- Anchor precedents:
- Vatican Bank ·
- Sosa542 U.S. 729
Cases are grouped by the legal question they announce a split on, classified from the court's own acknowledgment sentence. Verified acknowledgments only. Counter-side decisions are extracted from the acknowledging opinions' own text and linked only when the citation resolves in this corpus. See all circuit splits.