The Ninth Circuit wrote that because the case "touched on foreign relations and potentially controversial political issues, it tempting to jump to the conclusion that such claims are barred by the political question doctrine" but that the court should "scrutinize each claim individually" rather than "abdicate the court's Article III responsibility". The Ninth Circuit also determined that the U.S. government had not yet taken a position on the issue and that it was not the subject of a treaty or executive agreement. The Ninth Circuit distinguished the case from "Kadic v. Karadzic" because "the claims in Kadic focused on the acts of a single individual during a localized conflict rather than asking the court to undertake the complex calculus of assigning fault for actions taken by a foreign regime during the morass of a world war".