## Facts

- DEA agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena was kidnapped and murdered in Mexico in 1985; U.S. authorities suspected Dr. Humberto Álvarez-Machain of involvement.
- Mexico refused to extradite Álvarez-Machain despite a U.S. arrest warrant.
- The DEA approved using José Francisco Sosa and other Mexican nationals to seize Álvarez-Machain in Mexico and transport him to the United States.
- Álvarez-Machain was abducted in Mexico, flown to El Paso, Texas, and taken into U.S. custody.
- Álvarez-Machain was tried in U.S. court and acquitted for lack of evidence.
- Álvarez-Machain then sued (1) the United States under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) for false arrest and (2) Sosa under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS) for a violation of the law of nations based on arbitrary detention.
- The district court dismissed the FTCA claim but entered judgment for Álvarez-Machain on the ATS claim.
- The Ninth Circuit revived the FTCA claim using a “headquarters” planning theory and affirmed ATS liability.

## Issues

1. Whether the FTCA foreign-country exception, 28 U.S.C. § 2680(k), bars a false-arrest claim when the injury occurred in Mexico but planning decisions occurred in the United States.
2. Whether the ATS authorizes federal courts to recognize a private damages action for a brief, extraterritorial arbitrary detention alleged to violate customary international law.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed the Ninth Circuit on both claims.
- The FTCA foreign-country exception barred the FTCA claim because the injury was suffered in Mexico, regardless of any U.S.-based planning.
- The ATS was held to be primarily jurisdictional and not a general font of modern causes of action.
- Federal courts may recognize only a narrow set of ATS claims based on international norms that are universally accepted and defined with specificity comparable to historic paradigms (e.g., piracy, offenses against ambassadors, and violations of safe-conduct).
- Álvarez-Machain’s claim of arbitrary detention based on his brief abduction did not satisfy that standard, so no ATS cause of action was recognized.

## Legal Principles

- Under 28 U.S.C. § 2680(k), the FTCA bars claims based on injuries suffered in a foreign country, even if some tortious conduct is alleged to have occurred in the United States.
- The ATS, 28 U.S.C. § 1350, confers jurisdiction and does not itself create broad substantive liability.
- Courts may recognize limited federal common-law causes of action under the ATS only for violations of customary international law that are (1) generally accepted among nations and (2) sufficiently definite and specific, comparable to the 18th-century paradigms known at the time of the ATS’s enactment.
- Non-self-executing treaty provisions and aspirational international declarations, without implementing legislation, do not alone supply enforceable federal causes of action.
- A short-term, single-incident extraterritorial detention connected to an abduction was insufficiently specific and universally defined to qualify as an actionable ATS norm.

## Conclusion

The Court held that the FTCA does not waive sovereign immunity for injuries suffered in a foreign country and that the ATS supports only a narrow set of claims for clearly defined, universally accepted international-law violations; a brief extraterritorial abduction and detention did not qualify.


Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, 542 U.S. 692 (2004)