Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act

New Scholarship on the Argentinian Sovereign Debt Litigation

For more than a decade in the early 00s, Argentina’s $100 billion sovereign debt default dominated the transnational litigation news headlines – and, indeed, global financial news. Hundreds of cases were filed against Argentina in U.S. courts with long-term implications for foreign sovereign immunity and foreign direct investment.   Many of those cases were consolidated before…

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Russia Should Not be Designated a State Sponsor of Terrorism

Editor’s Note: This article also appears in Just Security.

Members of Congress and President Zelenskyy of Ukraine have called for U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to designate Russia a state sponsor of terrorism, and late last month the Senate Foreign Relations Committee reported out a resolution to this effect. The designation would have important…

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A Primer on State Law in Transnational Litigation

The procedural and substantive rules that U.S. courts apply in transnational litigation come from many sources, including the U.S. Constitution, international treaties, customary international law, federal statutes, federal rules, and federal common law (both preemptive and non-preemptive)—but also, state statutes, state rules, and state common law. This primer focuses on the underappreciated role of state…

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Throwback Thursday: International Association of Machinists v. OPEC

In 1978, the International Association of Machinists (IAM), a labor union, sued OPEC and its member countries for violating U.S. antitrust law by operating a cartel. The district court held that OPEC countries were immune from suit under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA). On appeal the Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s dismissal on…

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Throwback Thursday: The Tate Letter and Foreign Sovereign Immunity

Seventy years ago this week, Department of State Legal Adviser Jack Tate wrote to Attorney General Philip Perlman to announce a sea change in State’s litigation practice vis-à-vis foreign sovereign immunity. The so-called “Tate Letter” informed the Department of Justice that State would shift from the “classical” approach to sovereign immunity to what’s known as…

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A Primer on Foreign Official Immunity

Foreign official immunity refers to rules of international and domestic law that shield foreign officials from suit and from criminal prosecution. These rules are related to the rules of foreign sovereign immunity, codified in the U.S. Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA), but they differ from those rules in many respects. Rules of foreign official immunity…

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Havlish Plaintiffs File a Potentially Misleading Brief Claiming Entitlement to Afghan Central Bank Assets

The 2021 return of the Taliban to power in Afghanistan has led to litigation in the United States over the assets of the Afghan Central Bank (“DAB”).  As I explained in an earlier post, an executive order by President Biden froze about $7.0 billion in DAB assets held in New York. A license from the…

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CVSG in Usoyan v. Turkey: Can Turkey Use Force in the United States to Protect Its President?

A violent clash in Washington, D.C. between Turkish security forces and protestors has led to civil litigation with interesting questions about the authority of foreign security details and the immunity to which foreign governments are entitled. Turkey has petitioned for certiorari, and the Supreme Court has shown an interest in the case by calling for…

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Can Corporations Claim Foreign Official Immunity?

In a recent cert petition, the Israeli company NSO Group asks the Supreme Court to consider whether corporations are entitled to conduct-based immunity when they act as agents of foreign governments. The Ninth Circuit answered no to that question, reasoning that the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) comprehensively covers the immunity of corporations like NSO….

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Second Circuit Holds that Forum Non Conveniens Applies Under the FSIA

In Aenergy, S.A. v. Republic of Angola, the Second Circuit held that the standard doctrine of forum non conveniens applies to suits against foreign states under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA). This holding is consistent with what the D.C. Circuit has said about forum non conveniens in FSIA cases. The Second Circuit’s decision would likely…

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Ingrid (Wuerth) Brunk

Vanderbilt Law School
ingrid.wuerth@vanderbilt.eduEmail

William Dodge

George Washington University Law School
william.dodge@law.gwu.eduEmail

Maggie Gardner

Cornell Law School
mgardner@cornell.eduEmail

John F. Coyle

University of North Carolina School of Law
jfcoyle@email.unc.eduEmail

Zachary D. Clopton

Northwestern Pritzker School of Law
zclopton@law.northwestern.eduEmail

Luana Matoso

Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law
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Curtis A. Bradley

University of Chicago Law School
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Pamela K. Bookman

Fordham University School of Law
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Matthew Salavitch

Fordham Law School
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Hannah Buxbaum

Indiana University Maurer School of Law
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Paul B. Stephan

University of Virginia School of Law
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Noah Buyon

Duke University School of Law
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Naman Karl-Thomas Habtom

University of Cambridge
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Ben Köhler

Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law
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Melissa Stewart

University of Hawai'i, William S. Richardson School of Law.
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Ian M. Kysel

Cornell Law School
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