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 ReadingThe New HEAR Act: Just in Time for the Cases That Inspired It?
When President Trump signed the Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act of 2025 on April 13, 2026, most commentary – including my own – generally discussed the Act as a forward-looking change that would help future claimants. Although I mentioned that the Act would apply to “current” plaintiffs, I did not explain which cases that might…
Continue ReadingD.C. Circuit Holds Jurisdictional Discovery in FSIA Cases Not Immediately Appealable
Last Friday, August 14, 2026, the D.C. Circuit held in Rodriguez v. Pan American Health Organization that international organizations, and by extension foreign states, cannot immediately appeal district court orders for jurisdictional discovery aimed at determining if they are immune from suit. (Disclosure: I joined an amicus brief urging the court to take this position.)…
Continue ReadingForum Connections in Arbitration Enforcement
The New York Convention requires signatory states to recognize and enforce foreign arbitral awards, subject only to narrow exceptions set forth in the treaty. The Convention’s fundamental purpose is to facilitate enforcement by making arbitral awards portable, allowing award holders to search the globe for assets (or information about assets) when a counterparty that promised…
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