## Facts

- In March 1978, armed members of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) attacked Israeli civilians after landing on Israel’s coast and commandeering buses.
- The attackers killed and injured civilians during a series of shootings and hostage-related violence; dozens were killed and many others were wounded.
- Survivors and representatives of those killed, including the father of a deceased victim, sued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia seeking compensatory and punitive damages.
- Defendants included Libya, the PLO, and affiliated organizations alleged to have conspired in, supported, or otherwise borne responsibility for the attack.
- Plaintiffs invoked the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), 28 U.S.C. § 1350, and also asserted federal-question jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1331, along with other jurisdictional theories.
- The district court dismissed for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction and as barred by the applicable statute of limitations.

## Issues

1. Whether the ATS provides jurisdiction and an actionable federal claim for civil damages based on a terrorist attack abroad allegedly violating the law of nations and involving non-state actors and a foreign sovereign.
2. Whether § 1331 supplies jurisdiction and a cause of action through federal common law or treaty-based rules for the asserted international-law violations.
3. Whether the claims were time-barred under the applicable statute of limitations.

## Decision

- The D.C. Circuit affirmed the dismissal in a per curiam disposition, accompanied by three separate concurrences with different rationales.
- Judge Edwards concurred on the ground that the alleged conduct was not within a limited class of clearly defined, universally accepted, obligatory international-law norms actionable under the ATS; he also declined to find an independent cause of action under § 1331 or federal common law.
- Judge Bork concurred on the ground that the ATS is purely jurisdictional and does not create a cause of action; absent a congressionally supplied right of action, customary international law did not furnish a privately enforceable federal claim.
- Judge Robb concurred on the ground that the case presented a nonjusticiable political question because it was bound up with foreign policy and sensitive questions involving foreign entities and conflict abroad.
- The affirmance left intact the district court’s conclusion that the action was also barred by the statute of limitations.

## Legal Principles

- The ATS is a jurisdictional provision; any cognizable claim under it is limited to a narrow set of international-law norms that are specific, universal, and obligatory.
- Courts should be reluctant to recognize new ATS-based causes of action where the asserted norm is not clearly established in customary international law as judicially enforceable through civil damages.
- Liability for international-law violations by non-state actors is not presumed; absent clear international consensus and a judicially manageable standard, ATS adjudication is constrained.
- Federal-question jurisdiction under § 1331 does not, by itself, supply a substantive cause of action; courts may refuse to create federal common-law causes of action in areas implicating foreign affairs and separation-of-powers concerns.
- Claims implicating foreign policy, recognition, and sensitive international conflicts may be dismissed as presenting nonjusticiable political questions.
- Independent procedural bars, including statutes of limitations, can support dismissal even where jurisdictional and justiciability questions are contested.

## Conclusion

The D.C. Circuit affirmed dismissal of civil terrorism claims against Libya, the PLO, and related entities, with no controlling majority rationale: one concurrence limited ATS actions to clearly established international-law norms, another rejected implied ATS causes of action absent congressional authorization, and a third treated the dispute as a political question, while the limitations bar remained an additional basis for dismissal.


Tel-Oren v. Libyan Arab Republic, 726 F.2d 774 (D.C. Cir. 1984)