Customary international law provides immunity to states from the jurisdiction of foreign national courts. The immunity extends to state agencies and to state-owned property, protecting them from adjudicatory jurisdiction and from enforcement measures. Foreign sovereign immunity has important exceptions, including for waiver, for some conduct or property related to commercial activity, and for some torts committed on the territory of the forum state. In the United States, all aspects of foreign sovereign immunity for cases in state or federal court are governed by a federal statute, the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act.
A Primer on Foreign Sovereign Immunity
The immunity of states from the jurisdiction of foreign domestic courts is a long-standing and mostly uncontroversial principle of customary international law. The International Court of Justice has described foreign sovereign immunity as a procedural doctrine of international law, one that “derives from the principle of sovereign equality of the States.” As a practical matter,…
Continue ReadingA Narrow Interpretation of the FSIA’s Expropriation Exception
Introduction Three generations of the Herzog family have sought to recover some $100 million in artwork stolen by Hungarian government officials and Nazi collaborators during and following World War II. The looted works included pieces by the renowned artists El Greco, Renoir, and Monet. To the family’s disappointment, the Court of Appeals for the D.C….
Continue ReadingEnforcing U.S. Judgments Against “Foreign” Assets of Foreign Sovereigns: a Rejoinder
On June 30, 2025, in Petersen Energia Inversora, S.A.U. v. Argentine Republic, a federal district court in New York ordered the Republic of Argentina to “(i) transfer its Class D shares of YPF to a global custody account at BNYM in New York within 14 days from the date of this order; and (ii) instruct…
Continue ReadingChina’s Covid Countersuit
As the Covid pandemic raged in 2020, plaintiffs began filing suits in U.S. courts seeking damages from the People’s Republic of China and other Chinese defendants. In March 2025, a U.S. district court awarded the State of Missouri a default judgment for $24 billion against nine Chinese defendants. In November 2025, another district court awarded…
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