An attorney for families suing Arab Bank over its alleged sponsorship of terrorism urged U.S. Supreme Court justices to set aside their concerns that holding the bank liable could exacerbate diplomatic tensions.

The case at hand grew out of terrorist attacks carried out by Hamas and other groups between 2004 and 2010 during the Second Palestinian Intifada, the Arabic word for uprising. Claiming that the Jordan-based Arab Bank sponsored the violence by processing $2.5 million in payments at its New York City branch, relatives of some 6,000 foreign victims filed suit in Brooklyn.

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Justice Anthony Kennedy turned to the issue of norms during arguments by Jeffrey Fisher, an attorney for the families with Stanford Law School.

“Norms control behavior,” said Kennedy, who usually serves as a tiebreaker in cases split along party lines. “And we’re saying that corporations with this extensive liability under respondeat superior now must conform their behavior. That seems to me to be a norm.”

Fisher fired back at the justice that statutes of limitations and the rules of evidence also influence the way a corporation acts.

“So just the mere fact that it’s going to influence corporate behavior does not make it a norm question,” Fisher said.

Urging the court to set aside its concerns about straining foreign relations, Fisher said the argument is not persuasive enough to immunize corporations.

“Some ATS cases do not involve foreign relations at all,” Fisher said, abbreviating the Alien Tort Statute. “Take piracy, for example. So a foreign relations argument cannot justify the categorical rule the Second Circuit has laid down in this area.”