Doe I v. Cisco Systems, Inc.

Multiple Chinese practitioners of Falun Gong (practitioners) (plaintiffs), a religious movement originating in China in the 1990s, filed suit against US corporation Cisco Systems, Inc. (Cisco) (defendant) in federal district court. The practitioners alleged that Cisco helped the Chinese Communist Party and Chinese government officials (collectively, the Chinese government) commit human-rights abuses targeting Falun Gong adherents, including the practitioners and their family members. The alleged human-rights abuses included torture, forced labor, and extended arbitrary detention. The practitioners claimed that Cisco aided the abuses by providing software, hardware, and associated technical support to the Chinese government that allowed surveillance, information collection, and recording used to target Falun Gong adherents. Further, the practitioners claimed that Cisco was aware of the Chinese government’s intent to use the supplied products to eliminate Falun Gong in a manner likely to involve human-rights violations. As support, the practitioners pointed to internal Cisco documents referencing the government’s goal, as well to US media coverage reporting widespread abuses in China against the Falun Gong movement. Based on these claimed facts, the practitioners’ suit alleged that, among other things, Cisco aided and abetted the Chinese government’s violation of international law. That claim was brought under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS). Further, the practitioners argued that the suit involved a domestic application of the ATS because although the human-rights abuses occurred in China, Cisco developed its products and provided associated support from its California headquarters. The district court dismissed the practitioners’ ATS claim, and the practitioners appealed.