The 6-3 ruling limits the ability of foreign plaintiffs to file claims against US corporations in American courts for allegedly "aiding and abetting" human rights abuses abroad.
The case stemmed from a 2011 suit filed by a dozen Chinese nationals and a US citizen who claimed Cisco designed an internet surveillance and censorship network called "Golden Shield" that was used by the Chinese government to track down Falun Gong devotees.
The California-based computer networking giant rejected the accusations that it was complicit in human rights abuses against members of the Falun Gong, which has been banned in China since 1999.
A federal district court judge dismissed the suit in 2014 but it was revived by an appeals court in 2023, prompting Cisco to take it to the top US court, where conservatives hold a 6-3 majority.
The case rested on a law passed by Congress in 1789, the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), which allows foreign nationals to seek redress in American courts for violations of international law.
The Trump administration had weighed in on Cisco's side, and Deputy Solicitor General Curtis Gannon told the justices during oral arguments that allowing the case to go ahead would have implications for US foreign policy.
"The entire case is parasitic on having to prove that foreign government officials engaged in serious human rights violations in their own countries," Gannon said. "That is necessarily going to raise foreign policy concerns in many cases."
Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who wrote the majority opinion, noted that ATS cases "frequently involve heinous and inhumane acts."
"The political branches or other international actors may well provide redress," Barrett said. "But we decline to distort the statutory text or the Constitution's allocation of powers to enlist US courts in that project."
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who dissented along with the other two liberal justices, said the ruling "closes the courthouse doors not just to respondents, but to virtually every future litigant seeking redress for a violation of international law under the ATS."
"Today's decision marks yet another low point in this Court's esteem for its precedents," Sotomayor said.