In its second week of oral arguments, the U.S. Supreme Court considered three cases. The most notable was Jesner v. Arab Bank, PLC. The case will determine whether corporations can be held liable for violations under the Alien Tort Statute, which states that U.S. courts shall have jurisdiction over any civil lawsuit “by an alien for a tort only, committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States.” The relatively unknown law gained prominence in the 1980s when it began being used to pursue human rights violations overseas.
