Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Neil Gorsuch are trading barbs, rather frequently, in the first sitting of the Supreme Court’s new term.

It’s all quite civil of course. Fraternalism, good cheer, and a stiff upper lip are the order of the day on the Roberts Court. What’s a little jiggery-pokery between brothers in black? Perhaps nothing. But in the early days of October Term 2017, Gorsuch has frequently questioned the received wisdom of his Court, prompting from Ginsburg a flash of pique.

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As in the Gill argument, at one point Gorsuch took an originalist tack, and asked lawyer Jeffrey Fisher if the Congress which adopted the ATS understood international law to be part of U.S. law. This question matters because the ATS allows lawsuits from foreign nationals in American courts for violations of “the law of nations.” In essence, Gorsuch is suggesting that the scope of possible ATS actions and defendants is quite restricted, because the 1789 Congress’s conception of international law as a component of American law was limited to a narrow range of topics, like piracy, if it exists at all.

Fisher replied that the Supreme Court, in a 1900 case called Paquete Habana, concluded that the 1789 Congress integrated international law with American law.