Chimène Keitner
UC Hastings Law

Chimène Keitner (@KeitnerLaw) is Alfred & Hanna Fromm Professor of International Law at UC Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco. Her expertise spans the fields of international law, international civil litigation, national security law, and emerging issues in cyberlaw. She served as Counselor on International Law at the U.S. Department of State and as an Adviser on Sovereign Immunity for the American Law Institute’s Restatement (Fourth) of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States. She has also served as a member of the Executive Council of the American Society of International Law and as founding co-chair of the International Law Association’s Study Group on Individual Responsibility in International Law. Professor Keitner holds an A.B. in History & Literature from Harvard, a D.Phil. in International Relations from Oxford, where she was a Rhodes Scholar, and a J.D. from Yale Law School, where she was a Paul & Daisy Soros Fellow.
Expert Recap and Analysis of Halkbank Oral Argument at the Supreme Court
Editor’s Note: This article also appears in Just Security. On January 17, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in Türkiye Halk Bankasi A.S. (Halkbank) v. United States. The case asks whether Halkbank, which is majority-owned by the Turkish Wealth Fund (TWF), enjoys immunity from criminal prosecution in U.S. courts. Last spring, I previewed the unresolved…
Continue ReadingCriminal Proceedings and the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act
Congress enacted the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 (FSIA) to address the inconsistent application of doctrines of state immunity to civil suits against foreign states and state-owned enterprises. The statute confers jurisdictional immunity on these entities, subject to enumerated exceptions. Most litigation under the FSIA involves whether a particular defendant qualifies as a foreign…
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