The Supreme Court said on Tuesday that members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement could not sue a U.S. company that they claimed helped facilitate the Chinese government’s efforts to target and torture them.

美国最高法院周二裁定，法轮功精神运动成员不能起诉一家美国公司，尽管他们声称该公司协助中国政府针对并迫害他们的行动。

Writing for the majority, Justice Amy Coney Barrett signaled an unwillingness to expand the scope of a 237-year-old law that had been designed to allow foreigners to bring lawsuits in U.S. courts for violations of international law.

多数意见由大法官艾米·康尼·巴雷特执笔，表达了不愿扩大一部有237年历史的法律适用范围的立场。该法律旨在允许外国人在美国法院就违反国际法的行为提起诉讼。

The ruling in favor of Cisco Systems, a technology company based in San Jose, Calif., could help insulate other companies from legal risks in dealings with foreign governments with histories of engaging in human rights abuses.

这一有利于科技公司思科系统的裁决可能有助于使其他公司在与有侵犯人权历史的外国政府打交道时免受法律风险。思科系统的总部位于加利福尼亚州圣何塞。

The company has denied that its technology was customized to enable the Chinese government to facilitate repression, calling the allegation “inaccurate and entirely without foundation.”

该公司否认其技术被专门定制用于协助中国政府实施镇压，称相关指控“不实且毫无根据”。

In a mixed ruling that reversed a lower appeals court that had sided with the Falun Gong members, all of the court’s conservatives joined Justice Barrett in the majority, and two of the court’s liberals joined in part. Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented, joined in part by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

在这项推翻了此前偏向法轮功成员的下级上诉法院的混合裁决中，法院的所有保守派大法官与巴雷特共同构成多数意见，两名自由派大法官则部分支持该意见。大法官索尼娅·索托马约尔表示异议，大法官埃琳娜·卡根和凯坦吉·布朗·杰克逊则部分加入异议。

Justice Barrett wrote that although claims brought under a federal law known as the Alien Tort Statute “frequently involve heinous and inhumane acts,” the courts were not the best place to address them. Instead, she wrote “the political branches or other international actors” were better suited to enforce norms of international law in such cases.

巴雷特大法官写道，尽管依据《外国人侵权法》提出的诉讼“经常涉及令人发指、毫无人性的行为”，但法院并非处理此类问题的最佳场所。相反，她写道，“政治分支机构或其他国际行动体”更适合在这些案件中执行国际法规范。

In an impassioned dissent, Justice Sotomayor asserted that the majority had thrown out “two decades of settled precedent” under the guise of “respecting Congress and the separation of powers.”

在措辞强烈的不同意见书中，索托马约尔大法官指出，多数派是打着“尊重国会和权力分立原则”的旗号，实际上推翻了“20年来已经确立的判例”。

In practical terms, she wrote, the court “closes the courthouse doors” not just to the Falun Gong members, but also “to virtually every future litigant seeking redress for a violation of international law” under the Alien Tort Statute. She concluded that she believed the court’s conservative majority was seeking “yet another notch in its belt, unabashedly remaking the law in its preferred image.”

她写道，从实际效果来看，法院不仅对法轮功成员“关上了法院的大门“，事实上也对“未来几乎所有依据《外国人侵权法》寻求国际法侵权救济的诉讼人”关上了大门。她最后表示，她认为法院的保守派多数派是在追求“又一个战果”，肆无忌惮饰地按照自己的偏好重塑法律。

That law, enacted in 1789 by the country’s first Congress, had initially focused on international disputes like piracy and threats to ambassadors, allowing for such foreign matters to be examined in American courts.

《外国人侵权法》由美国第一届国会于1789年制定，最初主要针对海盗行为、威胁外交使节等国际争端，允许此类涉外事务在美国法院审理。

In recent decades, the law has also been used as a tool to bring claims of international human rights abuses into U.S. courts. But in recent years, the Supreme Court has taken an increasingly narrow approach to the statute, limiting the types of claims allowed.

近几十年来，这部法律也被用作将国际人权侵害指控带入美国法院的工具。但近年来，最高法院对这部法律的解释日趋收紧，不断限制可受理的诉讼类型。

Falun Gong, a spiritual movement that draws on elements of Buddhism, became a focus of the Chinese government in April 1999 after members protested peacefully outside of a Beijing compound for the country’s Communist Party leaders.

法轮功是一个融合了佛教部分元素的精神修炼团体。1999年4月，法轮功成员在北京中共领导人居住办公的地点外举行和平请愿后，该团体引起中国政府的高度关注。

After the rally, China’s government banned Falun Gong and announced an arrest warrant for the movement’s leader, Li Hongzhi. The government also labeled the group as a cult, an accusation that the organization has denied, and targeted members, subjecting them to physical and mental torture, forced labor and detention, according to a Human Rights Watch report. The Chinese government has previously denied torturing Falun Gong members.

请愿活动之后，中国政府取缔了法轮功，并宣布通缉该组织创始人李洪志。政府还将该团体定性为邪教（对此法轮功方面予以否认），对法轮功成员进行打击，根据人权观察的一份报告，他们遭到了身心折磨、强迫劳动和拘禁。中国政府此前否认对法轮功成员实施酷刑。

In 2011, practitioners of Falun Gong sued Cisco Systems in the United States under the Alien Tort Statute and the Torture Victim Protection Act, a 1991 law that allows individuals to sue foreign officials for torture.

2011年，法轮功修炼者依据《外国人侵权法》和《酷刑受害者保护法》在美国起诉思科公司。《酷刑受害者保护法》是1991年制定的一项法律，允许个人因遭受酷刑而起诉外国官员。

Members of the group asserted that the company helped the Chinese government to develop the “Golden Shield,” the country’s internet censorship program. This technology, the members said, enabled the government to put in place a brutal system to crack down on Falun Gong.

法轮功成员称，思科协助中国政府开发了“金盾工程”，即中国的互联网监控与审查系统。他们表示，这项技术使政府得以建立一套严厉打压法轮功的体系。

The lawsuit stalled after a federal trial-level judge dismissed the claims, but it gained momentum again in 2023, when a divided three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit revived several of the Falun Gong members’ claims.

在联邦地区法院法官驳回诉讼后，该案一度陷入停滞。但到了2023年，美国第九巡回上诉法院一个意见存在分歧的三法官合议庭恢复了法轮功成员提出的部分诉求，使案件再次获得进展。

The dispute, Cisco Systems v. Doe I, is one of several recent cases in which the justices have faced debates over the scope of the federal laws that allow claims of international human rights abuses to be heard in U.S. courts. The Trump administration had joined the case in support of Cisco.

本案——思科系统诉匿名人士案——是近期最高法院面临的若干涉及联邦法律中国际人权侵权主张受理范围争议案件之一。特朗普政府在该案中支持思科一方。

During the oral argument, several of the questions focused on a 2004 case before the court, Sosa v. Alvarez Machain, which involved the abduction of a man suspected in the 1985 kidnapping and murder of a U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency special agent in Mexico.

口头辩论中，多个提问聚焦于2004年的“索萨诉阿尔瓦雷斯-马查因案”，该案涉及一名涉嫌参与1985年绑架并杀害美国缉毒局特工的男子被强行带离墨西哥的问题。

In that case, the court did not allow Humberto Álvarez-Machain, a physician and Mexican national who had been kidnapped and brought to the United States, to sue the U.S. government. The court concluded that the Alien Tort Statute had most likely been originally understood to permit challenges under only three specific violations of international norms: the violation of rules allowing safe-conduct in other countries, the infringement of the rights of ambassadors and piracy.

在该案中，法院裁定被绑架至美国的墨西哥籍医生翁贝托·阿尔瓦雷斯-马查因不能起诉美国政府，认为《外国人侵权法》最初很可能只允许针对三类明确违反国际规范的行为提起诉讼：违反安全通行权、侵犯大使权利和海盗行为。

Even though the court has not recognized other causes of action under the law, lower courts have found many, creating disagreements among the federal courts, a common reason for the Supreme Court to review cases.

尽管最高法院未承认其他诉由，但下级法院已认定多种此类主张，导致联邦法院间存在分歧，这正是最高法院通常决定受理案件的重要原因之一。

At the argument in late April, several of the conservative justices said they thought that the other branches of government were better equipped to deal with accusations of human rights violations in other countries.

在4月底的辩论中，多位保守派大法官表示，他们认为处理其他国家人权侵害指控的问题更适合由政府其他部门来负责。

“The founding generation would have been shocked that this court held the statute to be a dead letter when only 20 years ago the same court held the opposite,” said Paul L. Hoffman, the lawyer who argued on behalf of the Falun Gong members, after Tuesday’s ruling.

在周二裁决公布后，代表法轮功成员出庭的律师保罗·霍夫曼表示，“建国先贤们若得知本院认定该法规已成一纸空文，定会震惊——而仅在20年前，同一法院还持相反立场。”

Mr. Hoffman said it was now up to Congress “to act so that victims of serious human rights violations at the hands of U.S. corporations may hold those corporations accountable in U.S. courts under the Alien Tort Statute.”

霍夫曼说，现在轮到国会“采取行动，使那些遭受美国公司严重人权侵害的受害者能够依据《外国人侵权法》在美国法院追究这些企业的责任”。