Justice Kennedy wrote that the evidence about whether suits against foreign corporations were among those norms was mixed. That meant, he wrote, that a clear answer from Congress was required before the suits could be allowed in light of the diplomatic friction they can create.

“Courts are not well suited to make the required policy judgments that are implicated by corporate liability in cases like this one,” he wrote.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Clarence Thomas joined all of Justice Kennedy’s opinion, and Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Neil M. Gorsuch much of it.

In concurring opinions, Justices Alito and Gorsuch wrote that they would have gone further, expressing doubts about whether the court has interpreted the 1789 law correctly.

In dissent, Justice Sotomayor said Justice Kennedy’s analysis was flawed.

“Nothing about the corporate form in itself justifies categorically foreclosing corporate liability,” she wrote. “Each source of diplomatic friction that respondent Arab Bank and the plurality identify can be addressed with a tool more tailored to the source of the problem than a blanket ban on corporate liability.”

Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer and Elena Kagan joined Justice Sotomayor’s dissent.

The Supreme Court had agreed to decide the question of corporate liability for human rights violations once before, in 2011, in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum. After hearing arguments on the question in 2012, though, the court asked the parties to brief and argue a broader issue: whether American courts may ever hear disputes under the law for human rights abuses abroad, whether the defendant was a corporation or not.

In 2013, the court said that there was a general presumption against the extraterritorial application of American law, ruling against Nigerian plaintiffs who said foreign oil companies had aided in atrocities by Nigerian military and police forces against Ogoni villagers.