Full opinion text
OPINION AND ORDER KENNETH A. MARRA, District Judge. THIS CAUSE is before the Court upon Defendants’ Motions to Dismiss Amended Complaints. (DEs 92, 295). The motions are fully briefed and ripe for review. The Court has carefully considered the briefing, supplemental briefing, and oral arguments, and is otherwise fully advised in the premises. Plaintiffs, citizens and residents of Colombia, are the family members of trade unionists, banana-plantation workers, political organizers, social activists, and others tortured and killed by the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (“AUC”), a paramilitary organization operating in Colombia. The decedents were allegedly killed by the AUC during the 1990s through 2004 in the Colombian banana-growing regions, primarily in the Uraba and Magdalena areas. Plaintiffs bring this action against Defendants Chiquita Brands International, Inc. and Chiquita Fresh North America LLC (collectively “Chiquita”), alleging claims under various federal statutes, state common laws, international customary law, and foreign law. Specifically, Plaintiffs allege claims under 28 U.S.C. § 1350 — commonly known as the Alien Tort Statute (“ATS”) or Alien Tort Claims Act (“ATCA”) — for terrorism; material support to terrorist organizations; torture; extrajudicial killing; war crimes; crimes against humanity; cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment; violation of the rights to life, liberty and security of person and peaceful assembly and association; and consistent pattern of gross violations of human rights. Plaintiffs also allege claims under the Torture Victim Protection Act (“TVPA”), 28 U.S.C. § 1350 note, for torture and extrajudicial killing. Last, Plaintiffs allege claims under the laws of Florida, New Jersey, Ohio, the District of Columbia, and the foreign law of Colombia for assault and battery, wrongful death, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligent infliction of emotional distress, negligence, negligent hiring, negligent per se, and loss of consortium. FACTUAL BACKGROUND The AUC Since the 1940s, Colombia has been engaged in a longstanding civil conflict between the government and left-wing guerrilla insurgents, such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (“FARC”) and the National Liberation Army (“ELN”). FAC ¶¶ 407, 497-99. In the early 1980s, Colombian drug barons, large-land owners, industrialists, and bankers, with the cooperation of the Colombian government, began to create private paramilitary units to combat the left-wing guerrilla forces. FAC ¶¶ 407-08. By the mid-1990s, the largest and most well-organized paramilitary group in Colombia was the Rural Self-Defense Group of Cordoba and Uraba (the “ACCU”). FAC ¶ 409. The commander-in-chief of the ACCU was Carlos Castaño. FAC ¶ 409. In 1994, Castaño and the ACCU sponsored a summit of the paramilitary groups from across Colombia. FAC ¶ 409. This summit led to the formation of the AUC, a national federation uniting Colombia’s regional paramilitaries under Castano’s leadership. FAC ¶ 409. The AUC grew rapidly in size during the late 1990s and into the twenty-first century. FAC ¶ 410. In 1997, it was comprised of roughly 4,000 combatants. FAC ¶ 410. By 2001, Castaño claimed to have 11,000 members, and by 2002, AUC forces were present in nearly all regions of Colombia. FAC ¶ 410. As part of its war strategy, the AUC sought to eliminate any guerrilla sympathizer who opposed the paramilitaries’ control of the territories in which the AUC operated. FAC ¶ 411. The AUC’s primary method was to terrorize individuals and communities suspected of guerrilla sympathies. FAC ¶ 411. To this end, the AUC routinely engaged in death threats, summary executions, torture, rape, kidnaping, forced disappearances, looting, and large-scale attacks on civilian populations. FAC ¶ 411. While the AUC periodically engaged in direct combat with armed guerrilla forces, the majority of its victims were civilians whom the AUC viewed as supporters of the guerrillas or whom inhabited areas in which the guerrillas operated. FAC ¶ 412. The AUC also targeted people thought to share the guerrillas’ leftist ideology, such as teachers, community leaders, trade unionists, human rights activists, religious workers, and leftist politicians. FAC ¶ 413. The AUC was also known to eliminate groups it considered socially undesirable, such as indigenous persons, people with psychological problems, drug addicts, prostitutes, and petty criminals. FAC ¶ 413. The escalation of violence between the paramilitaries and the guerrillas caused the Colombian president to issue Decree 1194 of 1989, adopted as permanent legislation in 1991, which criminalized membership in a paramilitary group or providing any support to such groups. FAC ¶ 408. In 1994, however, the Colombian government created a new legal mechanism for funding and supporting paramilitaries, known as Chapter 5 of Decree 356. FAC ¶ 421. Paramilitaries could reorganize and continue operating under Chapter 5, which allowed private groups to provide for “Special Vigilance and Private Security Services.” FAC ¶ 421. These private security groups, known commonly by their Spanish-language acronym “convivir,” were comprised of civilians who received permission from the government for a license to provide their own security in high-risk areas. FAC ¶ 421. Convivir were permitted to use arms that were otherwise restricted to the military’s use. FAC ¶ 421. Plaintiffs allege that the convivir units were fronts for the paramilitaries from their inception. FAC ¶ 422. In the Uraba region — where Chiquita’s wholly owned subsidiary, C.I. Bananos de Exportación, S.A. (“Banadex”), operated its banana plantations — the convivir units were comprised of and led by known AUC paramilitaries. FAC ¶ 422. The convivir units worked closely with the Colombian military, facilitating communication and collaboration between the military and the AUC. FAC ¶ 426. Plaintiffs allege that the cooperation between the AUC and convivirs on one hand, and the Colombian military and government officials on the other, was extensive. Both groups sought to defeat the left-wing guerrilla insurgency and both worked together towards that end. FAC ¶429. This alleged collaboration included joint membership between the AUC and the Colombian military and security forces, the government’s acquiescence to the AUC’s permanent military bases and security checkpoints, the government’s refusal to intervene to stop AUC attacks, intelligence sharing, arms and equipment sharing, and planning and executing joint attacks on civilian populations. FAC ¶¶ 426, 429, 433-37. Plaintiffs allege that this model of collaboration between the paramilitaries and the government was “developed and perfected” in the Uraba region, the area of Chiquita’s banana operations. FAC ¶ 438. On September 10, 2001, the U.S. government designated the AUC as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (“FTO”). FAC ¶ 473. The Torture and Killing of Plaintiffs’ Relatives There are several thousand named plaintiffs in the seven complaints, and some complaints are filed as class actions seeking to represent larger classes. Each named plaintiff alleges that he or she is a family member of a victim who was killed or tortured by the AUC. Each plaintiff alleges that the AUC attacked his or her relative in the banana-growing regions of Colombia, during the period when Chiquita supported the AUC. While the circumstances of each attack are unique, to summarize each plaintiffs allegations would be impractical given the number of plaintiffs. Accordingly, this opinion will provide only allegations of several representative plaintiffs. • Juana Perez 50B is the wife and is also a legal heir of Pablo Perez 50, with whom she had a family. Pablo Perez 50, an employee of Finca Marte, a banana plantation owned or controlled by Chiquita, or which supplied Chiquita, was an active member of the trade union SINTRAIN-AGRO, which represented banana workers in Magdalena, including Chiquita workers .... On the night of October 31, 1997 or in the early morning hours of November 1, 1997, a group of heavily armed paramilitaries dressed in camouflaged uniforms stormed Pablo Perez 50’s home in the village of Guacamayal, in the banana zone of Magdalena, while he was sleeping. The paramilitaries broke down the door to the home, found Pablo Perez 50 and seized him, tied him up and forced him to accompany them at gunpoint, beating him as they kidnaped him. Pablo Perez 50’s corpse was found the following morning with signs of torture and two gunshots, one to the head and one to the body. In a certificate issued on November 22, 1999, Elvis Emilio Redondo Lopez, the Ciénaga Municipal Representative, confirmed that Pablo Perez 50 was murdered in a massacre carried out in the context of the internal armed conflict. FAC ¶¶ 296-97. • Juan Perez 60 is the father and legal heir of Pablo Perez 60, an employee of Finca San Antonio, a banana plantation owned or controlled by Chiquita, or which supplied Chiquita, located in Turbo, in the Uraba region of Antioquia.... At approximately 1:00 AM on June 17, 1999, Pablo Perez 60 was resting at his home in Apartado, Antioquia when a group of paramilitaries who had arrived in several vehicles stormed his home, kicked in his door, seized Pablo Perez 60, and beat him. The paramilitaries demanded to know where Pablo Perez 60 had weapons hidden. Finding no weapons, the paramilitaries kidnaped Pablo Perez 60 and took him to the village of Nueva Colonia .... There, the paramilitaries tortured Pablo Perez 60 before executing him with several gunshots to the head and body. At the time when Pablo Perez 60 was kidnaped, tortured and murdered, the AUC was receiving substantial support from Chiquita, and the murder of Pablo Perez 60 was in furtherance of the understanding that the AUC had with Chiquita that in return for Chiquita’s support, the AUC would drive the FARC and ELN guerrillas out of the banana area of Uraba, Antioquia and maintain a sufficient presence to keep the guerrillas from regaining a foothold. Further, the AUC provided Chiquita with security, labor quiescence and social stability, and ensured that trade unions were not infiltrated by leftists sympathetic to the FARC and ELN guerrillas. FAC ¶¶ 316-17. • Juana Perez 13 is the sister and legal heir of Paula Perez 13. Paula Perez 13, an employee of the banana plantation Nabusimake, a Chiquita supplier, was raped, tortured and murdered on October 18, 2005 by AUC paramilitaries from the William Rivas Front, who were in control of the banana zone and surrounding areas of Magdalena, in furtherance of the internal armed conflict. On the evening of October 19, 2005, Paula Perez 13 was on the Nabusimake plantation, located in the town of Sevilla, Zona Bananera, in the company of a security guard when, at approximately 8:00 PM, a group of five armed paramilitaries entered the plantation. The security guard fled as the paramilitaries approached, leaving Paula Perez 13 alone. The paramilitaries raped Paula Perez 13, tortured her with multiple stab wounds and by burning her chest, and then killed her by slitting her throat. On March 13, 2007, the Zona Bananera Municipal Representative issued a letter confirming that Paula Perez 13 was murdered on October 18, 2005, for ideological and political reasons in the context of the internal armed conflict. FAC ¶¶ 220-21. Chiquita’s Assistance to the AUC Chiquita, an American multinational corporation, is one of the world’s largest producers and suppliers of bananas. FAC ¶ 394. As the successor to the United Fruit Company and the United Brands Company, Chiquita has been operating in the Colombian banana-growing regions, through its wholly owned subsidiary, Banadex, since the early 1960s. FAC ¶ 456. In 2003, Banadex was Chiquita’s most profitable banana-producing operation in the world. FAC ¶ 395. During labor struggles in the 1980s, left-wing, anti-government guerrilla groups, including the FARC, became active in the banana areas of Uraba and Magdalena. FAC ¶ 458. The FARC became particularly involved in union activity. FAC ¶ 458. In the 1990s, the rise of FARCinfluenced unions was accompanied by increased paramilitary violence, as groups like the AUC moved into these areas to combat the FARC’s influence. FAC ¶ 459. In or around 1995, Chiquita formed an agreement with the AUC, paying them to pacify the banana plantations and to suppress union activity. FAC ¶472. In return for Chiquita’s support, the AUC agreed it would drive the guerrillas out of Chiquita’s banana-growing areas and maintain a sufficient presence to prevent the guerrillas from returning. FAC ¶ 197. Furthermore, the AUC would provide Chiquita .with security, labor quiescence, and ensure that the unions were not infiltrated by leftists sympathetic to the FARC or ELN guerrillas. FAC ¶ 197. This arrangement benefitted Chiquita, as labor unrest and strikes were minimized while profits increased. FAC ¶¶ 548-50. Under this agreement, Chiquita paid the paramilitaries a commission based on the number of boxes Chiquita shipped each month. FAC ¶472. During the period 1997-2004, Chiquita paid the AUC nearly every month, making over one hundred payments totaling over $1.7 million. FAC ¶ 468. Chiquita made payments directly to the AUC or to the AUC’s convivir front organizations. FAC ¶ 470. Chiquita concealed the nature of these payments by recording them in corporate books as payments for “security services.” FAC ¶ 470. Chiquita also made payments indirectly to the AUC by depositing payments into the accounts of Banadex executives who would then withdraw cash and hand it directly to AUC representatives. FAC ¶ 471. Chiquita concealed these payments by recording them in corporate books as income contributions. FAC ¶ 471. These payments were reviewed and approved by Chiquita’s senior company executives who knew that the AUC was a violent, illegal paramilitary group. FAC ¶ 469. In 2003, Chiquita consulted with outside counsel, a U.S.-based law firm, regarding its ongoing payments to the AUC, which was by then a designated FTO. FAC ¶¶ 473-74. Outside counsel advised Chiquita that its payments to an FTO were illegal under U.S. law and that Chiquita should immediately stop the payments. FAC ¶ 474. On April 3, 2003, Chiquita’s Board of Directors agreed to disclose its AUC payments to the U.S. Department of Justice. FAC ¶ 475. On April 8, 2003, Chiquita instructed Banadex to continue making payments to the AUC. FAC ¶ 475. On April 24, 2003, Chiquita met with Justice Department officials, who told Chiquita that the AUC payments were illegal. FAC ¶ 475. Nonetheless, Chiquita continued paying the AUC until February 2004. FAC ¶ 475. Plaintiffs also allege that Chiquita assisted the AUC by facilitating arms shipments. For example, Plaintiffs allege that in 2001, a ship left Nicaragua carrying 3,000 AK-47 assault rifles and 5 million rounds of ammunition. FAC ¶478. Instead of docking in Panama, its official destination, the ship went instead to Turbo, Colombia, where Chiquita, through Banadex, operated a private port facility for transporting bananas and other cargo. FAC ¶ 479. After the ship docked in Turbo, Banadex employees unloaded the rifles and ammunition, which remained at Chiquita’s facilities for two days before being loaded onto AUC vehicles. FAC ¶¶ 480-81. Some of these arms were later confiscated from AUC units operating in Uraba. FAC ¶ 486. Chiquita’s Guilty Plea and Plaintiffs’ Lawsuits On March 19, 2007, Chiquita pled guilty in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to one count of violating federal anti-terrorism laws by engaging in transactions with a designated FTO. FAC ¶ 476. Chiquita’s sentence included a $25 million criminal fine, the requirement to implement and maintain an effective compliance and ethics program, and five years’ probation. FAC ¶ 476. In March 2007, shortly after Chiquita’s public guilty plea, Plaintiffs first learned of Chiquita’s assistance to the AUC. FAC ¶ 10. On June 7, 2007, the first civil complaint was filed against Chiquita arising from its alleged support to the AUC. Perezes (1-95) v. Chiquita Brands Int’l, Inc., No. 08-cv-80465 (D.D.C., filed June 7, 2007). Additional complaints followed in various judicial districts. On February 20, 2008, the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation transferred these actions to the Southern District of Florida for consolidated pretrial proceedings with the related actions already pending before this Court. (DE 1). Chiquita now moves to dismiss the complaints for lack of subject matter jurisdiction under Rule 12(b)(1) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and for failure to state a claim under Rule 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. STANDARD OF REVIEW Rule 8(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure “requires only ‘a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief in order to give the defendant fair notice of what the plaintiffs claim is ... and the grounds upon which it rests.” Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007) (quoting Fed.R.Civ.P. 8(a)(2)). The Supreme Court has held that “[w]hile a complaint attacked by a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss does not need detailed factual allegations, a plaintiffs obligation to provide the ‘grounds’ of his ‘entitlement to relief requires more than labels and conclusions, and a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action will not do. Factual allegations must be enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level.” Id. (citations omitted). “To survive a motion to dismiss, a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’ ” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 1949, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009) (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 570, 127 S.Ct. 1955). “A claim has facial plausibility when the plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.” Id.; see also Sinaltrainal v. Coca-Cola Co., 578 F.3d 1252, 1261 (11th Cir.2009). Thus, “only a complaint that states a plausible claim for relief survives a motion to dismiss.” Iqbal, 129 S.Ct. at 1950. When considering a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, the court must “accept[ ] the allegations in the complaint as true and construiré] them in the light most favorable to the plaintiff.” Am. Dental Ass’n v. Cigna Corp., 605 F.3d 1283, 1288 (11th Cir.2010) (internal quotation marks omitted). A motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(1) may “assert either a factual attack or a facial attack to jurisdiction.” Sinaltrainal, 578 F.3d at 1260. In a facial, attack — that is, an attack on the sufficiency of the jurisdictional allegations in the complaint — the court reviews the allegations as “it does when considering a Rule 12(b)(6) motion,” construing “the complaint in the light most favorable to the plaintiff and accepting] all well-pled facts alleged in the complaint as true.” Id.; see also McElmurray v. Consol. Gov’t of Augusta-Richmond Cnty., 501 F.3d 1244, 1251 (11th Cir.2007) (explaining that in a Rule 12(b)(1) facial challenge the plaintiff has “safeguards similar to those retained when a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim is raised”). DISCUSSION Chiquita asserts numerous grounds for dismissing the complaints, primarily for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction and failure to state a claim. The Court will first address Chiquita’s arguments for dismissing the claims that arise under 28 U.S.C. § 1350, also know as the Alien Tort Statute (“ATS”) or the Alien Tort Claims Act (“ATCA”). I. The Alien Tort Statute The First Congress enacted the ATS as part of the Judiciary Act of 1789. The modern-day version of the ATS provides: “The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of any civil action by an alien for a tort only, committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States.” 28 U.S.C. § 1350. Federal subject-matter jurisdiction exists for an ATS claim “when the following three elements are satisfied: (1) an alien (2) sues for a tort (3) committed in violation of the law of nations.” Sinaltrainal, 578 F.3d at 1261. The parties do not dispute that Plaintiffs satisfy the first two elements, so this Court’s analysis focuses on the third requirement. Under the ATS, the “law of nations” refers to the norms of customary international law. Id; Flores v. S. Peru Copper Corp., 343 F.3d 140, 154 (2d Cir.2003). Conduct violates the law of nations if it contravenes “well-established, universally recognized norms of international law.” Kadic v. Karadzic, 70 F.3d 232, 238 (2d Cir.1995); Sinaltrainal, 578 F.3d at 1262 n. 11. In 1789, when Congress passed the ATS, the only recognized violations of the law of nations were “violation of safe conducts, infringement of the rights of ambassadors, and piracy.” Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, 542 U.S. 692, 715, 124 S.Ct. 2739, 159 L.Ed.2d 718 (2004). Since then, a modest number of additional causes of action have been recognized under the ATS. In Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, the Supreme Court set forth the standard for recognizing new causes of action. The Court explained that claims under the ATS are not static; new ones may be recognized if they “rest on a norm of international character accepted by the civilized world and defined with a specificity comparable to the features of the 18th-century paradigms we have recognized.” 542 U.S. at 725, 124 S.Ct. 2739; see also Sinaltrainal, 578 F.3d at 1263 (“[FJederal courts have not been precluded from recognizing new claims under the law of nations as an element of the common law, even though the law of nations was originally limited to violation of safe conducts, offenses against ambassadors, and piracy.”); id. at 1262 n. 11 (holding that jurisdiction under the ATS exists “only when a defendant’s alleged conduct violates ‘well-established, universally recognized norms of international law.’ ”) (quoting Filartiga v. Pena-Irala, 630 F.2d 876, 888 (2d Cir.1980)). Thus, under Sosa, “the ATS is not only a jurisdictional statute; the ATS also empowers federal courts to entertain ‘a very limited category’ of claims.” Sinaltrainal, 578 F.3d at 1262 (quoting Sosa, 542 U.S. at 712, 124 S.Ct. 2739). The Sosa Court, however, admonished the lower federal courts to exercise “great caution” in considering new causes of action, stating that the door to recognizing new claims under the law of nations is “still ajar subject to vigilant doorkeeping, and thus open to a narrow class of international norms today.” 542 U.S. at 728, 729, 124 S.Ct. 2739. Sosa also directed that lower courts consider the practical consequences of making new claims available to private litigants in federal courts. Id. at 732-33, 124 S.Ct. 2739. For instance, courts must consider whether recognizing new causes of action under international law would “imping[e] on the discretion of the Legislative and Executive Branches in managing foreign affairs.” Id. at 727, 124 S.Ct. 2739. Sosa also noted that Congress may “shut the door to the law of nations” by “treaties or statutes that occupy the field.” Id. at 731, 124 S.Ct. 2739. Thus, under Sosa’s framework, courts may recognize new ATS claims where the conduct violates an international-law norm that is sufficiently well-defined and universally accepted, i.e., comparable to the three 18th-century paradigms. See, e.g., Sosa, 542 U.S. at 760, 124 S.Ct. 2739 (Breyer, J., concurring) (“[T]o qualify for recognition under the ATS, a norm of international law must have a content as definite as, and an acceptance as widespread as, those that characterized 18th-century international norms prohibiting piracy.”). Sosa instructs that courts consider international law as it exists today, not as it was in 1789, in determining whether to recognize a new claim under the ATS. 542 U.S. at 733, 124 S.Ct. 2739; see also Filartiga, 630 F.2d at 881 (“[C]ourts must interpret international law not as it was in 1789, but as it has evolved and exists among the nations of the world today.”). The present state of customary international law is discerned from “ ‘the works of jurists, writing professedly on public law; or by the general usage and practice of nations; or by judicial decisions recognizing and enforcing that law.’ ” Saperstein v. Palestinian Auth., No. 04-20225, 2006 WL 3804718, at *4 (S.D.Fla. Dec. 22, 2006) (quoting United States v. Smith, 18 U.S. 153, 160-61, 5 Wheat. 153, 5 L.Ed. 57 (1820)); see also Almog v. Arab Bank, PLC, 471 F.Supp.2d 257, 271-72 (E.D.N.Y.2007) (explaining that the sources of law from which a court discerns the current state of international law include treaties, executive or legislative acts, judicial decisions, customs and usages of civilized nations, and scholarly works and treatises). It is against this backdrop that the Court addresses Chiquita’s arguments for dismissing Plaintiffs’ ATS claims. A. Plaintiffs’ Terrorism-Based Claims Plaintiffs allege two causes of action against Chiquita based upon the AUC’s alleged acts of terrorism: (1) a claim for terrorism under various indirect-liability theories, and (2) a claim for material support to a terrorist organization under a direct-liability theory. Specifically, Plaintiffs contend that the AUC committed acts of violence against Colombian civilians to coerce and intimidate those civilians into abandoning their support for the FARC. Plaintiffs allege that Chiquita is indirectly liable for terrorism because it aided and abetted, conspired with, ratified or were the principals of the AUC in committing these attacks. Plaintiffs further allege that Chiquita is directly liable for providing material support to the AUC, a terrorist organization. Jurisdiction for both terrorism claims is premised upon the ATS. Chiquita argues that this Court lacks jurisdiction over Plaintiffs’ terrorism-related claims because (1) the Anti-Terrorism Act, 18 U.S.C. § 2333 (“ATA”), limits private rights of action for terrorism to U.S. nationals and therefore forecloses recognition of a parallel and broader cause of action for foreign nationals under the ATS; (2) there is no clearly defined and universally accepted customary international law norm against terrorism, and therefore terrorism is not a cognizable claim under the ATS; and (3) that to the extent terrorism is a recognized violation of international law, Plaintiffs have failed to adequately plead the elements of such a claim. Chiquita also contends that practical considerations and foreign-affairs concerns militate against recognizing a new international-law norm against terrorism. 1. Whether the Anti-Terrorism Ad Foredoses Plaintiffs’ TerrorismrBased ATS Claims Chiquita first argues that the Anti-Terrorism Act precludes Plaintiffs’ ATS-based terrorism claims. The ATA provides a civil cause of action for U.S. nationals harmed by international terrorism. See 18 U.S.C. § 2333(a) (“Any national of the United States injured in his or her person, property, or business by reason of an act of international terrorism ... may sue therefor in any appropriate district court of the United States and shall recover threefold the damages he or she sustains .... ”). Chiquita contends that under Sosa, Congress’s action in passing the ATA, and declining to extend a civil action to foreign victims of terrorism, “occupies the field” of private causes of action for terrorism claims and thus precludes recognizing broader civil liability under the auspices of the ATS. See Sosa, 542 U.S. at 731, 124 S.Ct. 2739 (holding that Congress can “shut the door” to recognizing new ATS claims through “statutes that occupy the field”). Chiquita points to several congressionally imposed limitations on ATA actions, such as the limitation to U.S. nationals, that are purportedly inconsistent with, and would be impinged upon by, Plaintiffs’ proposed ATS claims. Chiquita thus concludes that the ATA precludes Plaintiffs’ attempt to bring a terrorism claim under international law. The Court finds this argument unpersuasive. The limitations on ATA liability that Chiquita highlights as inconsistent with the ATS, e.g., its limitation to U.S. nationals, actually support the finding that the ATA does not “occupy the field” of civil terrorism claims by non-U.S. nationals under the ATS. In passing the ATA, Congress simply provided a statutory cause of action for U.S. nationals; there is no indication in the statute or its legislative history that Congress intended to foreclose claims by non-U.S. nationals arising under a different statute. Thus, the Court finds that the ATA does not expressly foreclose terrorism claims for non-U.S. nationals under the ATS. Nor does it appear that Congress intended to repeal the ATS, as it may apply to terrorism claims, by implication. “[Rjepeals by implication are not favored.” Morton v. Mancari, 417 U.S. 535, 549, 94 S.Ct. 2474, 41 L.Ed.2d 290 (1974) (internal quotation marks omitted). “In the absence of some affirmative showing of an intention to repeal, the only permissible justification for a repeal by implication is when the earlier and later statutes are irreconcilable.” Id. at 550, 94 S.Ct. 2474. When the “ ‘two statutes are capable of coexistence, it is the duty of the courts, absent a clearly expressed congressional intention to the contrary, to regard each as effective.’ ” J.E.M. Ag Supply, Inc. v. Pioneer Hi-Bred Int’l, Inc., 534 U.S. 124, 143-44, 122 S.Ct. 593, 151 L.Ed.2d 508 (2001) (quoting Morton, 417 U.S. at 551, 94 S.Ct. 2474). Here, there is no conflict between the ATA’s provision of civil remedies for U.S. nationals injured by acts of terrorism and the ATS’s provision of civil remedies for aliens injured by violations of international-law norms. These two statutes, providing rights to two different groups of plaintiffs, are capable of coexistence. The Court therefore concludes that Plaintiffs’ terrorism-based claims under the ATS are not precluded by the ATA. 2. Whether Terrorism and Providing Material Support to a Terrorist Or: ganization Are Actionable Claims Under the ATS Chiquita next argues that Plaintiffs’ terrorism-based claims are not cognizable under the ATS because they do not meet Sosa’s stringent requirements for recognizing new violations of the law of nations. Specifically, Chiquita contends that there is no clearly defined and universally accepted rule of international law prohibiting terrorism or material support for terrorism and, therefore, Sosa prohibits this Court from recognizing such a norm. Plaintiffs contend that while there may be disagreement regarding the definitional fringes of terrorism, this lack of universal agreement does not undermine the core prohibition against acts intended to cause death or serious injury to civilians for the purpose of intimidating a population. Plaintiffs argue that this “core norm” against terrorism is clearly established and widely accepted under customary international law. For more than forty years, Plaintiffs argue, international treaties and domestic laws have recognized this core norm and prohibited acts of terrorism. Neither the Supreme Court nor the Eleventh Circuit has addressed whether terrorism constitutes a cognizable claim under the ATS. A fractured panel of the D.C. Circuit has addressed this issue, albeit before the Supreme Court’s decision in Sosa. In Tel-Oren v. Libyan Arab Republic, 726 F.2d 774 (D.C.Cir.1984), survivors and representatives of victims murdered in an armed attack on civilian busses in Israel sued several governmental and private entities under the ATS for violations of the law of nations. Id. at 775. The “PLO terrorists” seized two civilian buses, a taxi, a passing car and took 121 men, women, and children hostage. Id. at 776 (Edwards, J., concurring). The terrorists tortured, shot, wounded, and murdered many of the civilian hostages. Id. Before the Israeli police stopped the massacre, twenty-two adults and twelve children were killed, and seventy-three adults and fourteen children were seriously injured. Id. A three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit unanimously dismissed the lawsuit, with three concurring opinions. Judge Edwards’s opinion “considered] whether terrorism is itself a law of nations violation.” Id. at 795. He found that “the nations of the world are so divisively split on the legitimacy of such aggression as to make it impossible to pinpoint an area of harmony or consensus.” Id. Accordingly, Judge Edwards concluded that, “[g]iven such disharmony, I cannot conclude that the law of nations ... outlaws politically motivated terrorism, no matter how repugnant it might be to our own legal system.” Id. at 796. Judge Bork’s opinion agreed, noting that “appellants’ principal claim, that appellees violated customary principles of international law against terrorism, concerns an area of international law in which there is little or no consensus .... ” Id. at 806 (Bork, J., concurring). Judge Bork continued, “Some aspects of terrorism have been the subject of several international conventions, .... But no consensus has developed on how properly to define ‘terrorism’ generally.” Id. at 806-07. “As a consequence,” Judge Bork concluded, “international law and the rules of warfare as they now exist are inadequate to cope with this new mode of conflict.” Id. at 807 (internal quotation marks omitted). More recently, two district courts within this judicial district addressed this issue, both holding that terrorism is not a recognized violation of the law of nations. In Saperstein v. Palestinian Authority, No. 04-20225, 2006 WL 3804718 (S.D.Fla. Dec. 22, 2006), survivors of an Israeli citizen murdered by a terrorist attack in Israel sued the Palestinian Authority (“PA”) and the Palestine Liberation Organization (“PLO”) under the ATS. Id. at *3. On February 18, 2002, a Palestinian terrorist — recruited, trained, funded, and armed by the PA and PLO — murdered the plaintiffs’ relative, a civilian, by spraying her car with bullets from an AK-47. Id. The Plaintiffs sued the PA and PLO under the ATS for violations of the law of nations, alleging that the defendants sponsored terrorist acts against Jewish civilians and provided support to terrorist entities. Id. at *2-3. After a thorough analysis of the Sosa framework for recognizing ATS claims under international law, and a discussion of the leading ATS cases at that time, the court concluded that the plaintiffs’ terrorism claims were not violations of the law of nations. The court first found that Plaintiffs’ allegations of terrorism did not “fit the categories of conduct that prior courts have found constitute a violation of the law of nations.” Id. at *7. Then, finding that the conduct in Tel-Oren was “substantially similar to the conduct in the present case,” the court adopted Judge Edwards’s conclusion that it is “abundantly clear that politically motivated terrorism has not reached the status of a violation of the law of nations.” Id. (“[I]f the conduct of the Defendants is construed as terrorism, then Plaintiffs have not alleged a violation of the law of nations.”). In Barboza v. Drummond Co., No. 06-61527, Slip op., DE 39 (S.D.Fla. July 17, 2007), the court reached the same conclusion, based on allegations similar to those here. There, family members of a Colombian trade unionist murdered by the AUC sued an American corporation and its Colombian subsidiary under the ATS. The plaintiffs alleged that the defendants hired the AUC to protect its Colombian facilities. Id. at 2. Later, the AUC surrounded the plaintiffs’ relative’s house, demanded he exit, and then killed him in front of his family. Id. at 3. The plaintiffs then sued the American companies in federal court under the ATS, asserting a claim for providing financial support to a terrorist organization. Id. at 18 (“Plaintiffs contend that Defendants violated a norm of customary international law by providing material support to a known terrorist organization.”). The court followed the reasoning of Tel-Oren and Saperstein and rejected the plaintiffs’ terrorism-based claims, holding that “claims of terrorism in general” have “ ‘not reached the status of [a] violation of the law of nations.’ ” Id. at 22 (quoting Saperstein, 2006 WL 3804718, at *7); see also id. (“Plaintiffs have not identified any particular international convention or other recognized source of determining international law to establish a violation of the law of nations here.”). The Court finds Tel-Oren, Saperstein, and Barboza persuasive and reaches the same conclusion regarding Plaintiffs’ terrorism-based claims here. Like the plaintiffs in those cases, Plaintiffs essentially assert a “general” terrorism theory of ATS liability. That is, Plaintiffs’ allegations are not limited to any specific, narrow category of conduct, such as hijacking civilian aircraft or suicide bombing civilian targets. Rather, Plaintiffs allege a broad range of alleged terrorist acts, linked only by the facts that the victims are civilians and the intent is to intimidate. See Pis.’ First Resp. at 23-24 (DE 111) (“There is a clearly defined and widely accepted prohibition in international law against acts intended to cause death or serious bodily injury to a civilian when the purpose of such an act, by its nature or context, is to intimidate a population.”). Plaintiffs thus attempt to group this broad, ill-defined class of conduct under the umbrella of “terrorism,” or material support thereof, and create a cause of action against it under the ATS. Given that Plaintiffs’ generalized terrorism claims are similar to those rejected in Tel-Oren, Saperstein, and Barboza, this Court will follow those decisions and reject Plaintiffs’ attempt to categorize these broad claims as violations of the law of nations. See Amergi v. Palestinian Auth., 611 F.3d 1350, 1364 (11th Cir.2010) (“[T]he ATS does not broadly provide for causes of action. The federal courts are empowered to open the door only to a narrow class of claims, and the tort asserted [here] — a single murder purportedly in the course of an armed conflict — is anything but narrow.”) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). The Court first notes that disagreement among the international community regarding the definition of terrorism, which Tel-Oren recognized in 1984, continues today. See, e.g., United States v. Yousef, 327 F.3d 56, 106-08 (2d Cir.2003) (“We regrettably are no closer now than eighteen years ago to an international consensus on the definition of terrorism or even its proscription; the mere existence of the phrase ‘state-sponsored terrorism’ proves the absence of agreement on basic terms among a large number of States that terrorism violates public international law.... We thus conclude that the statements of Judges Edwards, Bork, and Robb remain true today .... ”); Mwani v. Bin Ladin, No. 99-125, 2006 WL 3422208, at *3 n. 2 (D.D.C. Sept. 28, 2006) (“The law is seemingly unsettled with respect to defining terrorism as a violation of the law of nations.”). Such continued disharmony underscores the difference between Plaintiffs’ unsettled, controversial terrorism claims and the clearly defined, universally recognized 18th-century paradigmatic international-law claims discussed in Sosa. Next, the Court rejects Plaintiffs’ argument that international-law sources establish a modern, well-defined, universally accepted norm against terrorism. Plaintiffs cite dozens of international treaties, United Nations resolutions and declarations, and regional conventions for this point. See Pis.’ First Resp. at 24-25 nn. 15-19 (DE 111). Plaintiffs’ argument seems to culminate with the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism, U.N. Doc. A/54/109 (Dee. 9, 1999) (“Financing Convention”), which Plaintiffs contend codified an existing international norm against terrorism created by decades of treaties and conventions. Article 2 of the Financing Convention provides: (1) Any person commits an offence within the meaning of this Convention if that person by any means, directly or indirectly, unlawfully and wilfully, provides or collects funds with the intention that they should be used or in the knowledge that they are to be used, in full or in part, in order to carry out: (a) An act which constitutes an of-fence within the scope of and as defined in one of the treaties listed in the annex; or (b) Any other act intended to cause death or serious bodily injury to a civilian, or to any other person not taking an active part in the hostilities in a situation of armed conflict, when the purpose of such act, by its nature or context, is to intimidate a population, or to compel a government or an international organization to do or to abstain from doing any act. The Court finds that the Financing Convention neither codifies nor creates an international-law norm against terrorism or financing terrorism. First, the Financing Convention does not establish a universally accepted rule of customary international law. An international treaty “will only constitute sufficient proof of a norm of customary international law if an overwhelming majority of States have ratified the treaty.” Flores v. S. Peru Copper Corp., 414 F.3d 233, 256 (2d Cir. 2003) (second emphasis added). The “evidentiary weight to be afforded to a given treaty varies greatly depending on [ ] how many, and which,- States have ratified the treaty.” Id. The more States that ratify a treaty, and the greater influence of those States in international affairs, the greater the treaty’s evidentiary value towards establishing an international-law norm. Id. at 257. Importantly, the inquiry into whether a treaty establishes a rule of international law is limited to the period of the events giving rise to the alleged injuries. See Vietnam Ass’n for Victims of Agent Orange v. Dow Chem. Co., 517 F.3d 104, 123 (2d Cir.2008) (stating that ATS claims must rest on a rule of international law “that was universally accepted at the time of the events giving rise to the injuries alleged”); Khulumani v. Barclay Nat’l Bank Ltd., 504 F.3d 254, 325 (2d Cir.2007) (Korman, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (explaining that under international law “conduct may be punished only on the basis of a norm that came into force prior to when the conduct occurred”) (internal quotation marks omitted). In April 2002, when the Financing Convention came into force, only 26 of the 192 nations of the world, or roughly 14%, had ratified it. In February 2004, when Chiquita’s alleged payments to the AUC terminated, 111 States, or roughly 58% of the nations of the world, had ratified the Financing Convention. These figures do not constitute the “overwhelming majority” necessary to establish a widely accepted norm of international law prohibiting financial support for terrorism at the time of Chiquita’s purported wrongful acts. Second, the norms in the Financing Convention are not well-established. Rather, the signatories to the Financing Convention dispute many of the rules therein, as illustrated by the many declarations and reservations, i.e., non-consents and varying interpretations, appended to the convention. For instance, Egypt declared that it “does not consider acts of national resistance in all its forms, including armed resistence against foreign occupation and aggression with a view to liberation and self-determination, as terrorist acts.” Egypt’s declaration prompted an objection by the Czech Republic, which declared that it “considers the declaration to be incompatible with the object and purpose of the Convention.” Moreover, a substantial number of states declared that they are not bound to entire subject areas of the Convention. For example, Bahrain, Thailand, and Venezuela each declared that six of the nine treaties upon which the Finance Convention is based do not apply to it. Similarly, Brazil, China, Guatemala, Syria, and Vietnam declared the same with regard to three of the treaties. Such disagreements, non-consents, and divergent interpretations of the Finance Convention demonstrate that the prohibitions of the convention are disputed and not well-established. Plaintiffs’ briefing also provides several footnotes that string cite dozens of other international treaties, United Nations resolutions and declarations, and regional conventions that Plaintiffs contend prohibit specific acts of terrorism. See Pis.’ First Resp. at 24-25 nn. 15-19 (DE 111). Plaintiffs do not discuss any of these sources, but contend that they created the international norm against terrorism that the Financing Convention ultimately “codified.” Because the Court finds that the Financing Convention did not codify an international norm against terrorism, and because Plaintiffs provide no discussion regarding how these string-cited sources establish an international norm, the Court does not individually address these many treaties, resolutions, and conventions. The Court notes generally, however, that many of these sources address norms not applicable to the allegations here. The Court further notes that many of these sources address the subject of terrorism, if at all, only at a high level of abstraction and do not provide any definition of terrorism. Thus, like the Financing Convention, these additional sources also fail to provide a well-defined, universally accepted norm of international law against terrorism or material support thereof. Plaintiffs next argue that “nearly every state has incorporated the international prohibition against terrorism in its domestic laws.” Pis.’ First Resp. at 25 (DE 111). The United States, Plaintiffs highlight, enacted the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (“AEDPA”) in 1996, Pub.L. No. 104-132, 110 Stat. 1214 (codified at 18 U.S.C. § 2338B), and the USA Patriot Act in 2001, Pub.L. No. 107-56, 115 Stat. 272, as prohibitions against terrorism. Under Sosa, however, a norm of international law sufficient to create a claim under the ATS must be drawn from international, not domestic, laws See Sosa, 542 U.S. at 732 & n. 20, 124 S.Ct. 2739 (observing that “whether a norm is sufficiently definite to support a cause of action” under the ATS involves a “related consideration [of] whether international law extends the scope of liability for a violation of a given norm to the perpetrator being sued”); see also Presbyterian Church of Sudan v. Talisman Energy, Inc., 582 F.3d 244, 259 (2d Cir.2009) (“Sosa and our precedents send us to international law to find the standard for accessorial liability.”); Khulumani, 504 F.3d at 269 (Katzmann, J., concurring) (“We have repeatedly emphasized that the scope of the ATCA’s jurisdictional grant should be determined by reference to international law.”); Abecassis v. Wyatt, 704 F.Supp.2d 623, 654 (S.D.Tex.2010) (“Sosa establishes international law as the touchstone of the ATS analysis.”); Doe v. Drummond Co., No. 09-1041, DE 43, Slip op. at 20 n. 21 (N.D.Aa. Apr. 30, 2010) (“Drummond II ”) (“Sosa supports the broader principle that the scope of liability for ATS violations should be derived from international law”). Reliance on domestic laws, even those of the United States, cannot support recognition of an international norm under the ATS. See Flores, 414 F.3d at 249 (“Even if certain conduct is universally proscribed by States in their domestic law, that fact is not necessarily significant or relevant for purposes of customary international law.... [F]or example, murder of one private party by another, universally proscribed by the domestic law of all countries (subject to varying definitions), is not actionable under the ATCA as a violation of customary international law .... ”); Filartiga, 630 F.2d at 888 (“[T]he mere fact that every nation’s municipal law may prohibit theft does not incorporate the Eighth Commandment, ‘Thou Shalt not steal’ [into] the law of nations. It is only where the nations of the world have demonstrated that the wrong is of mutual, and not merely several, concern, by means of express international accords, that a wrong generally recognized becomes an international law violation within the meaning of the [ATS].”) (alterations in original) (internal quotation marks omitted); Barboza, No. 06-61527, DE 39, Slip op. at 18 (rejecting the plaintiffs’ reliance on the ATA, AEDPA, and USA Patriot Act as evidence of an international-law norm against financing terrorism). Finally, Plaintiffs urge this Court to follow the district court’s decision in Almog v. Arab Bank, PLC, 471 F.Supp.2d 257 (E.D.N.Y.2007), which Plaintiffs contend supports their claim that terrorism is actionable under the ATS. There, survivors of Israeli citizens killed by Palestinian suicide bombers sued a Jordanian bank alleged to have provided financial services that facilitated Palestinian groups’ terrorist attacks. The district court held that “organized, systematic suicide bombings and other murderous attacks against innocent civilians for the purpose of intimidating a civilian population are a violation of the law of nations.” Id. at 285. To the extent that Almog can be read as holding that terrorism, or material support thereof, constitutes a violation of the law of nations, the Court respectfully disagrees with that conclusion for the reasons discussed above. In recognizing an international norm against suicide bombing and other attacks on civilians, the Almog court relied largely on the Financing Convention and the International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings. See Almog, 471 F.Supp.2d at 276-78. As discussed above, this Court finds that the Financing Convention fails to establish a universally recognized, well-settled norm of customary international law. Moreover, and as noted above, the Bombing Convention addresses terrorism at a highly abstract level and does not provide any definition of the subject. The Court thus disagrees with Almog’s conclusion that these conventions support an international norm, under Sosa’s stringent requirements, prohibiting terrorism. Almog is also distinguishable in that the court there did not recognize an ATS claim for terrorism in general, as Plaintiffs here urge upon this Court. Rather, Almog rested its holding on the specific allegations before it, which the court described as suicide bombings and assassinations of civilians. See id. at 264 (listing representative allegations from Almog’s amended complaint). Indeed, the court explained that its holding was limited to the specific factual allegations before it, and not based upon a cause of action for “terrorism” generally. See id. at 280 (“[T]here is no need to resolve any definitional disputes as to the scope of the word ‘terrorism,’ for the Conventions expressing the international norm provide their own specific descriptions of the conduct condemned. Although the Conventions refer to such acts as ‘terrorism,’ the pertinent issue here is only whether the acts as alleged by plaintiffs violate a norm of international law, however labeled.”). For the foregoing reasons, the Court concludes that Plaintiffs’ terrorism-based claims are not actionable under the ATS. Like Tel-Oren, Saperstein, and Barboza, and mindful of Sosa’s mandate that courts exercise great caution in recognizing new ATS claims, this Court finds that a claim for terrorism in general, or material support thereof, is not based on a sufficiently accepted, established, or defined norm of customary international law to constitute a violation of the law of nations. Accordingly, the Court lacks subject-matter jurisdiction under the ATS over Plaintiffs’ terrorism-based claims and those claims are dismissed. 3. Practical Consequences Chiquita also contends that Sosa’s directive that courts consider the “practical consequences,” such as foreign-policy implications, of recognizing new ATS claims precludes this Court from recognizing Plaintiffs’ terrorism-based claims. While the Court need not address this issue given the dismissal of Plaintiffs’ terrorism-based claims, the Court will briefly address it here because Chiquita weaves this theme throughout its briefing, arguing that the Court should decline to exercise jurisdiction over all of Plaintiffs’ claims because this action will touch on foreign-policy and political issues. The Court finds nothing extraordinary about Plaintiffs’ claims, such that the potential- for adverse foreign-policy consequences balances against adjudication on the merits. Many courts have adjudicated ATS claims based on allegations involving significant foreign-relations issues, some involving allegations nearly identical to those here. See, e.g., Drummond II, No. 09-1041, Slip op. (addressing ATS claims arising out of AUC’s alleged violence in the course of the Colombian civil war); Aldana v. Del Monte Fresh Produce, N.A., 416 F.3d 1242 (11th Cir.2005) (holding that the plaintiffs sufficiently pleaded ATS claims against a U.S. company that allegedly hired private Guatemalan security forces to torture labor unionists); Kadic, 70 F.3d 232 (addressing ATS claims arising out of the Bosnian genocide); Almog, 471 F.Supp.2d 257 (addressing ATS claims arising out of suicide bombings by Palestinian terrorist organizations in Israel). There is no indication that those cases “imping[ed] on the discretion of the Legislative and Executive Branches in managing foreign affairs.” Sosa, 542 U.S. at 727, 124 S.Ct. 2739. Adjudicating Plaintiffs’ claims is similarly unlikely to risk unwarranted judicial interference with the political branches’ foreign policy vis-avis Colombia. Indeed, unlike other ATS cases addressing significant foreign-policy issues, neither the U.S. nor Colombian governments have voiced any concern regarding this Court’s jurisdiction over Plaintiffs’ claims. See, e.g., In re South African Apartheid Litig., 617 F.Supp.2d 228, 276-77 (S.D.N.Y.2009) (adjudicating ATS claims arising from U.S. companies’ business practices with the Apartheid-era government of South Africa despite a statement of interest from the U.S. State Department stating that “continued adjudication of the above-referenced matters risks potentially serious adverse consequences for significant interests of the United States” and that continued litigation “will compromise a valuable foreign policy tool”); Presbyterian Church of Sudan v. Talisman Energy, Inc., No. 01-9882, 2005 WL 2082846, at *1 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 30, 2005) (upholding ATS claims despite the “United States Government [having] submitted a Statement of Interest ... expressing concerns regarding the impact of this litigation on this Nation’s foreign affairs”). This Court will not decline to exercise jurisdiction over Plaintiffs’ ATS claims solely because the allegations touch on issues concerning Colombian officials and the Colombian civil war. See Amergi 611 F.3d at 1365 (“There can be little doubt that the ATS permits federal courts to assert jurisdiction over hot-button matters of international law.”); Khulumani, 504 F.3d at 263 (“[N]ot every case touching foreign relations is nonjusticiable and judges should not reflexively invoke these doctrines to avoid difficult and somewhat sensitive decisions in the context of human rights.”) (internal quotation marks omitted); Kadic, 70 F.3d at 249 (“Although these cases present issues that arise in a politically charged context, that does not transform them into cases involving nonjusticiable political questions. The doctrine is one of ‘political questions,’ not one of ‘political cases.’ ”) (internal quotation marks omitted). The Court also rejects as a basis for dismissal Chiquita’s argument that hearing Plaintiffs’ claims would give rise to thousands of new ATS claims stemming from its alleged support to the AUC, resulting in unmanageable litigation. The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure provide adequate procedures for managing large, complicated lawsuits, including class actions involving thousands of plaintiffs. Moreover, Chiquita’s position risks rewarding offenders who commit large-scale, as opposed to individual, international torts. Under Chiquita’s argument, an offender who commits a small number of international-law violations would be subject to ATS claims in federal court, while an offender who commits thousands of offenses, thereby making any lawsuit more complex, could escape liability. The Court refuses to adopt such a rule. B. Plaintiffs’ Additional ATS Claims As a threshold matter, the Court rejects Chiquita’s suggestion that the Court’s ruling on Plaintiffs’ terrorism-related claims disposes of Plaintiffs’ remaining ATS claims. Chiquita argues that all of Plaintiffs’ ATS causes of action are really just material-support-for-terrorism claims that Plaintiffs attempt to “shoehorn” into other theories of ATS violations, such as war crimes, crimes against humanity, torture, and extrajudicial killing. The Court disagrees with this assessment of Plaintiffs’ claims. The complaints allege multiple, distinct non-terrorism causes of action— claims that federal courts have recognized as independent, valid ATS claims — and the Court will analyze Plaintiffs’ claims as such. The Court now turns to Chiquita’s specific arguments directed at Plaintiffs’ ATS claims. Chiquita first argues that Plaintiffs’ ATS claims for (1) cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment, (2) violation of the rights to life, liberty and security of person and peaceful assembly and association, and (3) consistent pattern of human-rights violations are not recognized violations of the law of nations. The Court agrees. First, while asserting these causes of action in their complaints, Plaintiffs’ briefing ignores entirely Chiquita’s arguments for dismissing these claims and provides no authority recognizing these causes of action under the ATS. Without any authority recognizing these claims, the Court cannot conclude that they are sufficiently established or universally recognized under international law to satisfy Sosa’s requirements for recognizing new ATS claims. Additionally, other courts have expressly rejected these types of claims under the ATS. See, e.g., Aldana, 416 F.3d at 1247 (“We see no basis in law to recognize Plaintiffs’ claim for cruel, inhuman, degrading treatment or punishment.”); Ville da Aldana v. Fresh Del Monte Produce, Inc., 305 F.Supp.2d 1285, 1299 (S.D.Fla.2003) (“[T]his Court cannot let this claim proceed as Plaintiffs have not established the existence of [a] customary international law ‘right to associate and organize.’ ”), rev’d in part on other grounds, 416 F.3d 1242 (11th Cir.2005); Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., 456 F.Supp.2d 457, 467 (S.D.N.Y.2006) (dismissing the plaintiffs’ claim for violations of the “rights to life, liberty, security and association” because there “is no particular or universal understanding of the civil and political rights covered by Plaintiffs’ claim, and thus, pursuant to Sosa, these ‘rights’ are not actionable under the ATS.”) (internal quotation marks omitted), rev’d in part on other grounds, 621 F.3d 111 (2d Cir.2010); Sarei v. Rio Tinto PLC, 221 F.Supp.2d 1116, 1162 n. 190 (C.D.Cal.2002) (“[P]lain-tiffs have not demonstrated that prohibitions against cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment (other than torture) and gross violations of human rights constitute established norms of customary international law.”), rev’d in part on other grounds, 456 F.3d 1069 (9th Cir.2006), aff'd in part, rev’d in part, and vacated in part en banc, 487 F.3d 1193 (9th Cir.2007). Having provided no authority recognizing these claims under international law, the Court follows the many cases holding that these causes of action are not cognizable under the ATS. The Court now turns to Plaintiffs’ remaining ATS claims: torture, extrajudicial killing, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Chiquita’s