Good question. The issue is whether ‘Alien’ refers to the offshore tort, the plaintiff or the defendant. Certainly the tort takes place offshore under the ATCA. In 1991 congress resolved the vagueness of the wording by saying both Americans and aliens can be plaintiffs, there should be at least one American defendant and there can also be alien defendants. In these four cases referenced in the article, there are both Americans and aliens named both as plaintiffs and as defendants.
Thank you. Without trying to go down the “Atlas Shrugged” route regarding the number and complexity of the laws - the more I learn about our laws and the court cases that (effectively) define them, the more I appreciate the simplicity of the Constitution’s language.