On 23 June 2026, the US Supreme Court ruled in favour of Cisco Systems, effectively shutting the courthouse doors on victims of human rights violations committed abroad — and dismantling a legal avenue that has stood for over two decades.

Led by the Human Rights Law Foundation (HRLF) and Schonbrun Seplow Harris Hoffman & Zeldes LLP, the case alleges that the California-based tech company, Cisco Systems, Inc. (Cisco) customized its technology to help China persecute members of the Led by the Human Rights Law Foundation (HRLF) and Schonbrun Seplow Harris Hoffman & Zeldes LLP, the case alleges that the California based tech company, Cisco Systems, Inc. (Cisco) customized its technology to help China track members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement. Specifically, the complaint alleges that Cisco provided surveillance technology with the knowledge that it would be used to facilitate crimes against humanity, including torture, and other violence against Falun Gong members.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s majority opinion not only released Cisco Systems from potential legal responsibility for aiding and abetting human rights violations, it had a much larger impact. The decision effectively overruled the Court’s 2004 opinion Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain. Sosa had set the standard for transnational human rights claims brought under the Alien Tort Statute, adopted by the US Congress in 1789. She wrote, “Today, we close the door that Sosa cracked … and hold that courts may not create new causes of action for violations of international norms.” The Court also ruled that the Torture Victim Protection Act of 1989 does not provide for or allow aiding and abetting liability for torture.

PJI had previously urged the Supreme Court not to grant Cisco’s petition.

PJI stands in solidarity with the Falun Gong survivors and with all those working to ensure that corporate actors cannot escape accountability for their role in human rights violations. The fight for justice does not end at the courthouse door.

Find out more about PJI’s intervention in the Cisco case.

Read the Supreme Court opinion and dissent in the Cisco case.

Photo by Diesmer Ponstein, Cisco, Amsterdam 2013 (Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cisco_Amsterdam_(Netherlands).jpg)