By: Derek Hawkins//February 28, 2018//
United States Supreme Court
Case Name: Rubin, et al. v. Islamic Republic of Iran, et al.
Case No.: 16-534
Focus: FSIA – Immunity – Property
The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 (FSIA) grants foreign states and their agencies and instrumentalities immunity from suit in the United States (called jurisdictional immunity) and grants their property immunity from attachment and execution in satisfaction of judgments against them. See 28 U. S. C. §§1604, 1609. But those grants of immunity are subject to exception.
Petitioners hold a judgment against respondent Islamic Republic of Iran pursuant to one such exception to jurisdictional immunity, which applies where the foreign state is designated as a state sponsor of terrorism and the claims arise out of acts of terrorism. See §1605A. The issue presented in this case is whether certain property of Iran, specifically, a collection of antiquities owned by Iran but in the possession of respondent University of Chicago, is subject to attachment and execution by petitioners in satisfaction of that judgment. Petitioners contend that the property is stripped of its immunity by another provision of the FSIA, §1610(g), which they maintain provides a blanket exception to the immunity typically afforded to the property of a foreign state where the party seeking to attach and execute holds a §1605A judgment.
We disagree. Section 1610(g) serves to identify property that will be available for attachment and execution in satisfaction of a §1605A judgment, but it does not in itself divest property of immunity. Rather, the provision’s language “as provided in this section” shows that §1610(g) operates only when the property at issue is exempt from immunity as provided elsewhere in §1610. Petitioners cannot invoke §1610(g) to attach and execute against the antiquities at issue here, which petitioners have not established are exempt from immunity under any other provision in §1610.
Affirmed
Dissenting:
Concurring: