Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act - Jurisdictional Statute

Jurisdictional Statute

The FSIA is in practice primarily a jurisdictional statute. For the most part, it indicates what conditions must be met in order for a lawsuit against a foreign state to be instituted, not what conduct by a foreign sovereign is actionable. If a foreign defendant qualifies as a "Foreign State" under the FSIA, the Act provides that it shall be immune to suit in any U.S. Court—federal or state—unless a statutory exception to immunity applies. The applicability of an exception to immunity is a matter of subject-matter jurisdiction, meaning if there is no exception to immunity, a court cannot hear the claim and must dismiss the suit. But technically, the law goes beyond a merely jurisdictional law. In Verlinden B.V. v. Central Bank of Nigeria, defendant challenged the jurisdiction of the district court, saying that FSIA could not give jurisdiction to the district court since it was not a case "arising under" federal law. The Supreme Court then found that since any invocation of jurisdiction under the FSIA would necessarily involve analysis of the exceptions to FSIA, FSIA cases by definition arise under federal law.

Under the FSIA, the burden of proof is initially on the defendant to establish that it is a "Foreign State," under the FSIA and therefore entitled to sovereign immunity. "Foreign State" is defined at 28 U.S.C. § 1603(a),(b). Once the defendant establishes that it is a Foreign State, for the lawsuit to proceed, the plaintiff must prove that one of the Act's exceptions to immunity apply. The exceptions are listed at 28 U.S.C. §§ 1605, 1605A, and 1607. The most common exceptions are when the Foreign State waives immunity (§ 1605(a)(1)) or agrees to submit a dispute to arbitration (§ 1605(a)(6)), engages in a commercial activity (§ 1605(a)(2)), commits a tort in the United States (such as a common traffic accident case) (§ 1605(a)(5)) or expropriates property in violation of international law (§ 1605(a)(3)). The FSIA also excludes immunity in cases involving certain counterclaims (§ 1607) and admiralty claims (§ 1605(b)). In addition, exceptions for torture, extrajudicial killing, aircraft sabotage and hostage-taking were added by amendment to the FSIA in connection with anti-terrorism law and updated again in 2008.