On July 11, 2011, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed the district court’s rejection of a suit by activists brought under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), an obscure 1789 law that lay dormant for nearly 200 years before activists began seeking to invoke it in the past several decades. In doing so, the Court’s ruling will make it more difficult for others seeking to hold multinational corporations liable for alleged human rights violations based on similar allegations. The decision was a victory for WLF, which filed a brief in the case in support of Firestone. The Court’s opinion, however, leaves the door open for ATS suits alleging violations of clearly established international norms. WLF had argued that federal law does not permit nonresident aliens to file tort suits in federal court based on overseas events having no connection to the United States.