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University of Pittsburgh School of Law

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Germany v. Philipp

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Shifting Sands For The Stateless Under The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, Vivian Grosswald Curran Jan 2025

Shifting Sands For The Stateless Under The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, Vivian Grosswald Curran

Articles

The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) grants foreign sovereigns immunity from suit in U.S. courts, but also sets forth some exceptions. One exception to a foreign sovereign’s immunity occurs if its expropriation of property violates international law. Where the sovereign has expropriated property from its own nationals, however, the sovereign still remains immune from suit. This “domestic takings” rule is consistent with general principles of international law, although international law increasingly has been challenging a State’s right to mistreat its own nationals. In 2023, in Simon v. Republic of Hungary, the D.C. Circuit considered the issue of stateless plaintiffs, …


Appraising The U.S. Supreme Court’S Philipp Decision, Vivian Grosswald Curran Jan 2021

Appraising The U.S. Supreme Court’S Philipp Decision, Vivian Grosswald Curran

Articles

This article assesses the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) after the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Germany v. Philipp. Philipp’s rejection of a genocide exception for a foreign state’s act of property expropriation comports with the absence of such an exception in the FSIA’s text. The article also suggests that the genocide exception as it had been developing was a detrimental development in FSIA interpretation, and was also harmful to international human rights law, inasmuch as it distorted the concept of genocide. The Philipp Court’s renewed focus on the international law of property, rather than of human rights, should …