dollars communist states have been engaging in widespread exposed creation of property from american nationals and denying that the international law takings require them to pay compensation converse an active series of targeted measures including the expropriation exception to counter the state's rejection of the law taking exception lest u s courts hear claims against foreign sovereigns when rights and property taken in violation of international law are an issue language invoked the established international law doctrine known as the law of takings as the restatement and other sources show the doctrine addresses only nations takings of foreigners property and by referring to a congress incorporated its limits into the expropriation exception the pla ignore this context try to turn this modest exception into a novel tool for suing foreign sovereign just for human rights and law worthwhile ations occurring in their own countries that reading should be rejected for three reasons st it ignores the established meaning of the exceptions words when enacted in one thousand and seventy six nd it creates a jurisdictional mismatch with the exceptions text the exception focuses on rights and property giving georgia section over property claims it would be bizarre for the courts to decide if a state has violated human rights law by murdering its own nationals just as a jurisdictional hook to hear a property claim finally every out little cat and points away from a reading that would depart sharply from the restrictive theory but the us deeply in breach of the international of state immunity blur the jurisdictional lines over foreign sovereign swear clarity is needed most causes friction and foreign relations and risk reciprocal treatment against the us congress can take these risks if it wants to but it hasn't  yet council just to make sure your position is because this suit involves property rights it should not be regarded as a qualification of the international referring to the international law of takings that the legislators would have known in one thousand nine hundred and seventy six when in acting the statute against that backdrop well why then do you look why do you think that expropriation of property well i guess my question is why that is if it is part of a campaign of genocide that doesn't alter the fact that it's simply taking property i think there's there's three reasons your honor that in terms of the evidence that congress was asking when you are taking is wrongful under international law and nd is the statutory context you have a seventeen decision of this court followed by a series of targeted responses of increasing force to foreign nations that refused to taking but can the just imagine that there is a campaign st of all of genocide but in conjunction with the part of the there is an absolute to take all of the property including jewelry art and even the extraction of gold teeth for example taking of things like spectacles i mean you can go down the list of some of the awful things that were done can that be a part of genocide can that taking be a part genocide not separate from genocide well your honor if in  fact a country is taking property with the intention of physically destroying a people or a part of a people which gets its own questionably a genocidal act but the question again is what congress intended in a three was it invoking any kind of anything that could be described as a taking or does it have to be the grog man of the queen in here or the ground of the claim in the example you gave would be genocide but congress did not see fit to create any kind of exception for genocide claims or other international human rights or a lot of work claims but this don't you think one thousand six hundred and five age in the way that it sort of allows for a  another country is an commercial activity in the u s but it created a carve out for not sharing claims that hard about just left the preexisting commercial nexus definition but it also aged expressly leaves the definition of property taken in violation of able to bring a suit against a private person who participated bribed but he cannot sue the government is that right that's correct ok so now we're looking for whether he could sue the this seems to be the st take in his op that has arisen on this theory am i right is there a precedent your honor these cases began to arise a few years ago that the fisher abolition cases on the th circuit and then t property well i'd say a few things in response to that st of all the entity from which the property was allegedly taken was was a company the consortium which was itself owned by three firms underneath which were also companies so this is a case of claim to takings from german national companies but in response to your question as to the individuals which was finalized in the summer of one thousand nine hundred and thirty five according to the amended complaint which is before the nuremberg laws went into existence before before jewish germans were stripped of german citizenship so it wouldn't be relevant here finally to the extent that they were  stripped of citizenship if the question under the international law of takings is not the citizenship but is the nationality of the individuals well that would get into some very difficult questions concerning the nationality of people who live in parts of eastern europe that were that had been disputed among the countries in that region for some time getting getting back to the issue of international law under your interpretation prior to nine hundred and thirty eight in other words cases in which the property of non german jews with taken by the rd reich there's nothing in the record with regard to that either way your honor but i have no doubt that that occurred well for the current would it be more than a trivial number of cases and if so why would congress has gone out of its way to define the cover period as beginning  and thirty three dollars i can't speak as to the number of cases that it was that's a historical question again it's not been litigated here but i would say as to why congress would define the covered period as beginning in one thousand nine hundred and thirty three congress was doing something very simple it was saying the entire nazi era from the time that the nazis came to the power until the time they were defeated by allied forces or settlement or council what is your prince nation about the argument hungary makes the arguments presented in the hungry hungary and for the solicitor general in our case you do not have however a remaining claim in which we would have to decide the comedy issue if we decide against you on this main issue hypothetically if you decided in our favor in this case there would be no i am sorry i misspoke yes if you decided in our favor on this issue then there would be no reason for you to reach the comity question in our case number two we are generally instructed self guided to rely on the plain meaning of the words that are presented in the statute and the plain words in the statute here is in violation of international law and it's clear to me that genocidal acts taking property masham from from nationals would be an act of genocide i think that's clear from the clarification act today so why don't we plough the pla meaning of the statues and why should we look to customary international law as opposed to simply the plain meaning of the words i think you are you have to look at the plain meaning of the words in their context and in their time and as bostic made clear recently when there is a difference in the meaning at the time of americans opposed to the present day and there's evidence of that you do need to look to that here we have concede the point that property can be taken in as as as as part of as an important element of genocide so that property and can be taken and in violation of international law  so that to solve the problem in a matter of reading and the plain meaning of the text what it meant then as well as what it now means now i think the important thing is to read the clause as a whole and the term here is taken in violation of the property taking at issue in this case i don't think so your honor because i think the question is what's the growth of them if there's a claim that there were conditions of life that were created that led to the potential destruction of a people that's a claim of genocide that's genocidal at certainly taking property can create conditions of life that are intended to destroy people and that clearly is a violation of the law of genocide but that doesn't mean that it's a violation of the law of taking and people you indicated that the jewish victims of the holocaust were stripped of their citizenship but not nationality and are therefore still barred by the domestic takings rule but if they can't access th historically here the claims are that this transaction occurred in the summer of one hundred and thirty five which is a little let's put aside the date on the facts the new leader thirty answer to justice alito suppose that they were in fact stripped of their citizenship before the taking but that you said that doesn't matter because they're still nationals and i'm as he will in what relevant sense to that make a difference that would require this court to go down the path of determining the international law of nationality i will say that there is no bad treatment exception under the international law of nationality and if it were read it's not in the international law taking it is not a human rights principle it's a principle of nation to nation rights and of the transfer of wealth and in that sense this would create an enormous expansion of the international law of takings if you viewed people who were stateless as being somehow immune from the ordinary rules of the international law of takings so the domestic law the room taking law is far as you concerned would permit a state to forbit every almost everybody in it in its jurisdiction from from any any recourse and then pose no problem i mean to be very or hundreds again this is not something that's been briefed so i can't really i can only say that here where there's no question that people were citizens and nationals the international of our last question i'm sorry to interrupt but i have time requires me to do so what we do you say it wasn't it was forfeited but of course the pla scope of the international laws takings that they never did even in their opposition brief here they doubt they just point out that they believe that the rule should apply in the context of genocide kavanaugh thank you and good morning counsel page ten of your reply brief you say i'm quoting it is literally possible to read the exception to mean takings that violate any principle of international law and quote and to follow up on questions asked by justices so my or in kagan why isn't that the end of the case i mean this court held in the solomon target the mere fact that something is literally possible does not mean it's what it's what the text meant and in dolan this court has noted that reading a statute to the outer limits of its definitional possibilities are sometimes in error in the context of the f s a this court has made repeatedly clear that it's important to remember what congress was going after and what congress was going after was codified in the restrictive theory and avoiding friction in international relations to read this to the outer limits of its definitional possibilities to to this phrase apart into different pieces and say it can cover this is to create friction in international relations it's to risk reciprocity in the ways discussed in the previous case thank you just to spare so counsel you said earlier that the expropriation exception there would be jurisdiction for s court to hear a claim by a foreign national against say germany for the for a claim that germany took that foreign nationals property as part of the genocide of the whol jurisdictional equivalent of a thermonuclear weapon turning the scope of genocide to the merits of a swatting a fly which is looking at the underlying merits determining whether there was a common law conversion would in the private context that  everybody agrees could go forward under the international law if takings of this were a suit brought by foreign nationals would that involve the court in the same kind of qualifier that judge katz is identifying here having to determine the scope of system about the broad reading of a three of the plaintiffs provide and the st to track what you heard earlier in simon under plaintiff's view of the expropriation exception it's easier to sue a foreign sovereign than it is to sue a private defendant under extraordinary here when we're talking about subjecting a foreign sovereign to potential liability for the greatest human rights abuses in history the rd is clarity with regard to jurisdiction especially for foreigners in helmand in the context of expiration exception this court made it clear that clarity is particularly important in our view if there is the international law taking in their view it's on balance it any international law that anyone can think of in the human rights or law for context you counsel mr nadler mr chief justice and may please the court the united states deplores the atrocities committed against him so the nazi regime and has long had a policy of encouraging germany and other countries to provide mechanisms to afford a measure of justice respondents though have sought to sue in the u s court but the exceptional sovereign immunity on which they rely is limited to violations of the international law of taking response to the uncompensated expired creation of americans property by cube and others by contrast to rid the expropriation exception of opening us courts to suit based on human rights violation would constitute a major department departure from size tax structure and context and require us courts to make sensitive judgments about a foreign state's treatment of persons within its territory mr neither you you began by mentioning the united states policy of encouraging dispute resolution mechanisms to address questions such as the one before us how do you judge the adequacy of those alternatives and isn't that something that should enter into seems pretty clear at the time that the only x the only international law address he had taking this was it was of inspiration which had to do with with whether compensation was awarded to a foreign national so the question the question of any remedy is between a state and its nationals was entirely internal well that's the main policy as i gather of of the united states is simply  converse of of the rule that international law does prevent the uncompensated taking of the property of nationals of another country because that violates the rights of that other country thank you counsel justice thomas thank you alien's property or the national of another nation how that would play out whether whether there is some other way to look at it with respect to stateless persons or persons deprived of citizenship that is something that the  sovereign with a non citizen of course being able to to to sue that sovereign under fs but the citizen not being able to and then the big question mark with respect to the  naturalized or status person again that question has not how that plays out has not been developed but the reason why the national of another nation  show is because of the domestic taking which will it is a product of state responsibility to another state and an individual national of that state can sue for foreign expropriation how the loss of citizenship or deprivation of citizenship would play out within the within the expropriating country something that has not been developed has not been developed in this case but just as prior this is a thirty thousand question so you may not have an answer but in reading this thought well it's been quite a long time that the united states has favored some kind of reparations for victims of all kinds of real horror as in the world genocide apartheid slavery we heard that the other day and they still go on certainly here the the disadvantage you point out of reading this statute the way you don't want to read but we have not joined the international court it is more difficult for a private person to bring a case under the a t s is now interpreted  eizenstat says these things should be worked out through informal mediation and other kinds of negotiations i'm not sure if they've been done so has now turned but this is the only way it's either nothing to deal with these problems and to get together some kind of compensation or we're left with our great effort to have achieved almost nothing the united states for twenty years has been urging country just to adopt st of all right after the war there were a number of reparations and compensation programs for victims in more recent times starting with the washington principles the united states has been a leader urging other countries to establish their own mechanisms for the restitution tracking down and restitution or compensation for property that has been taken different countries have responded some more  fully others less so the united states continues to urge and work with those countries particularly germany there was a joint statement issued in two thousand and eighteen in which the united states recognize that more needed to be done with respect to the advisory commission that germany has set up there are questions about whether remedies would be available in german law the washington principles rest on an understanding of different countries may have different approaches to these questions some could be lawsuit some could be mediation panels arbitration panel things like that justice alito we've talked to felt the the stripping of citizenship what about untouched whether there was a violation of international law and what that term means it related it really rather than bringing those claims within the immunity that was granted under that special statute when property was brought into the comprehensive via clinton the entire period of the nazi regime so that all those claims would be able to take advantage of that jurisdictional nexus but again it left on touched the question of what taken in violation of international law means with some printer munity for taking either from nationals or non nationals money e g the us has done it you claim for taking symbolic to me i'm sorry for interrupting you but we are on limited time if we're already an exception to the rule i don't see then why we have to read the exception to the rule what the principles that was guide us with respect to the use us as self interest why we shouldn't just read the plain text of the law and import into it the limitations of const customary international wrong with customary international law frankly doesn't waive sovereign immunity idol well i think that this was a very modest exception when it was adopted it was and intended to be and it was if it was an outgrowth or of a piece with congress efforts to respond to the uncompensated garden variety or whatever you want to call them the rest of the regular sorts of takings that are governed by are just compensation clause and there are governed by the customary international law of takings or expropriation it was regarded it's not much of a deviation from the from the restricti theory of sovereign immunity what's being urged here would be a radical departure from that because it would open the u s courts to adjudicating whether foreign governments have engaged in serious human rights abuses here it may be that everybody agrees that there was a genocide and human rights violation occurred and in response to that in fact what the united states has served the countries involved to be responsible for but in other situations where would the court might be asked in the  not always what we consider most relevant and what is your best evidence that this language than it used in a way in term of art with a specialized meaning as opposed to one area of language that should be read in an ordinary way to comprehend these claims whether or not congress thought about the question the time well i mean i think there are a number of things that reinforce that st of all the in the entire phrase is taken in violation of international law which requires reference to international law as it was understood at the time and they were a statement at the time section one hundred and eighty five dollars and this court does look to the restatement in the past to informants question when taking is wrongful under international law which is virtually the language of the exception and that it says for taking by a state of property of an alley and as wrongful under international law in the specified circumstances and this on a claim that such work was taken in connection with the acts of a foreign government as part of a systematic campaign of course of confiscation or misappropriation of works for members of a targeted and vulnerable group doesn't that seem to anticipate that there will be such claims that can be brought under a three i think what it what it does is recognize that some such claims have been brought but it doesn't pass on the question of whether they are valid claims it serves the purpose of not granting those claims an additional immunity in a sense by saying that if the property is broadened to the us it doesn't count as commercial activity but it otherwise to to the international law of expropriations which has to do with whether there was adequate compensation in the public purpose of congress though isn't disadvantage ing holocaust era claims the way it wishes to disadvantage other claims what should that tell us that there was a i suppose special solicitude in having an el al and not cutting off those claims again it only applies when the property  united states and if congress was acting on the assumption or even the belief that some claims were valid that still is the view of the later congress it didn't change the language and this court has often said that the view of the later chief justice and good morning mr nadler you've explained why do you think the statutory phrase means but i just want to explore the rationale behind the distinction what in your view is the justification for denying compensation to citizens of the country in question or may be stated the other way what harms would result from recognizing claims our way the benefits of recognizing the claims well several things said it's an aspect of the role of state responsibility to other states and so when it when the expropriating state takes a property of another state's national side is offending the rights of that state and that individual congress concluded should be able to sue but corresponding to that this court has often said inside the teano and elsewhere that the that that principle is limited to the taking a property of aliens because as a general principle the treatment of a country of its own nationals is not a matter of international concern so what was and if if if a state and this was true in communist states this was  controversy at the time so many states believe that they could take their citizens property without compensation and in the act of state doctrine and sabatino did not interfere with that at all  of those cases discussions took as a given that there would be no compensation or us could not enforce a rule of compensation for an expropriation by another country of its own nationals property that was a given the controversial point was one of the united states was urging about whether international law even spoke to the question of expressing the property of nationals and the restatement and the and the expropriation exception are an expression of congress's view of u s policy yes that that does violate international law but doctors far as it goes and that is what congress was driving at in an acting the f s a not even in u s courts to broader human claims the clarification act clearly assumes that some such claims against nazi era confiscations of property would be going forward and that the foreign sovereign immunity act would not bar them so if your interpretation of the expropriation exception is correct to say that it applies only when there is a foreign national suing a government for the taking of property what kind of class of claims are th guess that would open up some of the difficult questions of nationality and citizenship that justice alito is asking you because we expect there would have been or was there a large subset of claims brought against nazi governments not to control governments by foreign there well several things i mean like all was a case of bio foreign national against guns starr sure but i think the bigger point is that congress knew there were such claims but i don't think that  the same thing as congress determining that those were that those could that the that they fell within the expropriation act and in fact again the clarification action employee refers to the taking of property within the meaning a three which refers one back to what a three means so really what congress was doing was not taking away the opportunity of someone who had such a claim to rely on the loan of property to a u s museum stablish in the commercial nexus but it didn't do more than that and i think the court should it should insist upon a much more explicit and conscious determination by congress to open up u s courts to these sorts of claims which are far beyond what congress had in mind what is enacted the f s a thank you counsel a minute to wrap up mr nadler thank you mr chief justice and an important thing to remember here is that enforce that by insisting upon a clear statement by congress to depart from the of from the restrictive theory the problem here or beyond the statutory text and context and background and structure the fact that this would put the courts of the united states in the business of making some sort of judgment about the conduct of foreign governments including perhaps some of our closest allies and invite other countries to open their courts to claims based on situations in th the expropriation exceptions and circumstances involving the taking of property by foreign nationals in the traditional sense of requiring the compensation and not tied to the violation of international law thank you m and natural meaning of that phrase chosen by congress applies to petitioners property takings during the holocaust and now he's deemed german jews to be non german aliens outside of the rule of law at the moment the regime began on january th and three and took their property because of who they were i was puzzled to hear the suggestion earlier that we have not read that issue because we have framed the case in those terms since the complaint and at every stage since  genocide which is itself a violation of international law and nazi government set out explicitly to destroy the german jewish people by taking their property and congress as specifically identified the nazis looting of art from the jewish people as genocidal this is not a new kind of human rights case it's a property rights case briefly with respect to comedy charming unity is the broadest expression of what justice prior this morning called a motivating princip what sergeant defendant would not claim a parent out interest in property within its own territory every one of the takings or property of aliens that the children are say are covered by the law which immediately faced this assertion congress to set the rules and the court  d not write them down so what do you do with the international court of justice determination that it would in fact be a violation of international law to refuse to grant immunity to a state expropriation of its own nationals property business just as i think the answer is one that ms harrington provided and that mr nadler in part conceded and that is that there is no other nation that provides jurisdiction fo in this way so if the expression exception would violate international law it already had an already has for almost forty five years well what is your best evidence that there is a genocide exception to the general rule that the expropriation exception is limited to the taking of foreign nationals property to see justice having there are two answers to that one is that it is alluded to in an earlier comment genocide was already recognized as a violation of jungle as to as to how to treat expropriations from citizens and their restatement addresses when the taking of property from an alien violates international law but the section about takings from aliens and considerable treatment by u s policymakers and the executive in particular the letter from mr tate nine hundred and forty nine that it was the policy of executive never rescinded since to remove any  taking is in the context of more general violations of human rights so that you call fall within this in other words how broadly would you articulate the if you want to call it  genocide exception to the normal rule now of course the st answer is you know whatever it is it covers this case but do you have a more general rule that would be applied in other situations to the st is property torture is not caused by the taking of property in fact the torture victim protection act specifically to shoes torture by definition anything or causing other than physical anguish to the st is the claim that the international human rights norm ask you sound in the taking of property in the st instance and those other norms do not and the nd position i would say your honor is as the final sort of boundary against all this is well then look to what congress has said as a congress recognize this as a sort of property taking as a violation of international law or a genocide the list that list is vanishingly small and even though it's been said that congress has recognized as genocide after considerable debate fewer of those still again a genocide convention has multiple avenues if you states that whenever that occurred has been a loss of property or the taking of property so wouldn't virtually every one of those involved be covered by your argument multiple ways and if you kill the members of the group and then you take their property taking didn't cause the genocide it was alongside it but if you take the property as germany did explicitly to destroy the group of people and remove it from the  versus the other you commit the genocide before you take the property or the property before you take the agenda before you commit the genocide but then be without a size we have said i think in other cases that john because i would submit that if there was any taking of property recognized in nine hundred and seventy six as in violation of the law of nations it was what this petitioner did between nine hundred and thirty three and nine hundred and forty five is not hard to about property involved in a violation of international law and as justice thomas others have pointed out it seems to me there are loads of violations of international law involving in violating involves property n to have cruel and i'm human degrading treatment i mean the list goes on and on of what violates international law and many of them involve property and if we can bring these kinds of actions here so can these other countries do the same and accuse us i mean what about japanese internment which involves thirty thousand people in world war two who were not american citizens but were of japanese origin and the st time we to china for the  principle that would say we should have the actions here that are universal law visible and won't hurt to chaos if they're brought everywhere and that's a fairly strong argument and so i think but that's why i want to children from other countries and they take the property indeed whether or not you call it labor as a property they take other property too and so they come to court and seven hundred judges in this doesn't cause the deprivation of the houses they own in the adjacent country it doesn't involve the deprivation of some kind of their clothing and sometimes their gold teeth is justice thomas i mean terrible things and it was the prospect of changing those medication that brought the parties to the table in this case congress has recognized sure it's better we can work it out but it's clearly not possible that it would be here action as congress  strong unanimous policy in two thousand and sixteen that these claims survive again to go back to the clarification act if congress has recognized it really isn't a need i think for a further inquiry justice  i want to make sure i understand the scope of your argument times in your brief particularly when you refer to the absence from the provision in question of any reference to aliens you seem to be making an  taking that violate any principle of international law would be or is your argument women to those aspects constitute genocide or those that are part of a campaign of genocide or is it a whole other cost specific argument my argument your honor is extend certainly to genocide extend certainly to the whole cost and it would extend to any other norms of which i international law has expanded greatly prior to world war two it was largely if not entirely limited to relations between nations and reaction to the whole cost to those harr customary international law has reached out and now protests named human rights would your argument apply to any taking violates any principle of human rights recognized any in the past that some people claim are genocidal sometimes these are highly disputed i will go through the list d i hope there won't be more in the future but given human nature that's a possibility wouldn't your argument genocide but only those that have been specifically recognized in some other statute that does not govern this particular case what would be our justification for drawing a distinction it would be to your adversary's position that the sie has to be read to apply that the only international customary international law was the customary international law that limits application ok he when he presented a question we say he's right that person mary international law does not apply to the takings of national that's the rule we set up what's left of your case is one of the things that i'm dealing with in my own head is how would we determine and i know the i'm making make their argument but given that there hasn't  question how can we ask the court below to determine that question outside of an academic discussion the exception itself to test a little bit here what more do you think congress would have had to say to limit it to sort of standard international law it's appropriations i think this know what they were talking about relates i don't think so your honor because again it should be a term of art it has to be specific and has to be used similarly elsewhere even this phrase doesn't appear in the in the nd a compartment the words international law do b it around that phrase is slightly different and so if congress is using slightly different words we must assume it had a slightly different intention and maybe we should put it where this kind of ordinary mean gives the foreign sovereign immunity for public at so why in that context shouldn't we be thinking a little bit more than we typically do about actually what congress had in mind when it when it  drafted these exceptions well i think you are certainly playing textual interpretation has the benefit of simplicity in this case if you are interested in the context and you look to the legislative history of which not in this case the low stars are taking without that it wouldn't fair compensation enough for public purposes arbitrary discriminatory and it would have been very easy some are in those hearings let alone the law itself for  the statute uses the word take and then the restatement spoke of international law takings takings in violation of international laws in the manner that your opponents suggest this remained true despite knowledge of the genocide convention and the hague convention which would have contained language more like what you're asking us to read into the statute and then you've got the hickenlooper a well and that's all before we even get to some of the other statutory clues that judge cassis pointed out why doesn't that as a matter of ordinary meaning at the time the statutes passage stand is pretty strong evidence to violations of international law including those in a session and those in this session are takings from united states citizens so ease is exemplary but not exhaust sure there are going to be many others but i'm not under some understanding what your limiting principle is it seems to be some sort of causation analysis can you explain that to me a little bit further stronger actually going to court  austria if he or she hadn't bought a ticket in the united states but that wasn't enough and those other human rights norms and i mentioned and i just had this mentions violations are not caused by a deprivation of property you can't torture someone by taking his or her property you may take someone's property when you impressed them into an involuntary servitude by taking doesn't follow the servitude and so you would say here that taking a property caused a genocide but taking a property doesn't cause terrorism or slavery is that here or you look yes because the genocide convention and knowledge is deliberately inflicting on the group of conditions of life calculated to bring but i don't think anybody would contend that the taking of property was the only or maybe even the most grotesque aspect of the genocide and i don't see why the same couldn't be said of other human rights violations mr o'donnell interested in whether you could have brought this soon any kind of country other than germany in other words does any other country waive sovereign immunity for foreign and that would suggest i suppose that there is a universal norm or close to universal norm of international law to provide immunity for nations in those circumstances and least immunity argument is really the term of art argument to this language have a settled meaning at the time and we've explored that back and back and forth a little bit justice thomas i think asked you whether your reading of the fs would be a significant departure and you said no significant apart from the understanding at the time you said no one thing i want to ask you permitting claims to proceed on allegations of the takings incurred occurred in the context of the greek just violations of international law this one of the decisions referring to the current cases we're talking about this line of decisions appears to expand the scope of sixteen thousand five hundred and eighty three dollars well beyond the original intent of the congress potentially opening courts of the united states to a wide range of property related claims arising out of for an internal conflict characterized by widespread human rights violations so what's your response to the reporter's note in the current restatement saying that this line of decisions goes well beyond what congress would have understood he are my response starts with where i began today and that is the court's meaning if nothing else and elmer that there may be a category that violates international law and i think think it would've been well understood by the congress i looked this up in the congressional historians forty percent of home had served in world war two as had the president i think to depose the inverse of a question the court that i think is a li squads in which rights and property taken and violation of the takings clause or in violation of the th amendment i mean and moreover when you go to the when you go to the clarification acts it does use the word taking  and referring back and looking now and in each to be if you look down into the subsections it talks about the taking having argument depend that much on the distinction between taking and property taken  ordinary meaning of the terms and relying just on you know property taken in violation of international law rather than saying it in the term of our way at the same time you've pointed to all kinds of limitations that might exist outside of that ordinary meaning of the text for example this is just genocide or just of congress calls it genocide can you identify some of the limiting principle so you said maybe this is just the whole accost the nazi holocaust or maybe this is just genocide maybe it's a genocide if congress have to limit yourself i'm not saying you have to limit yourself to the test and learn nothing else from other words or context i'm not saying that because of course i think the context supplied the answer is web and in that case you would say what he did about this episode did or did not violate international law and how you know it's very difficult to see an example of the justice course between giving you for example house property taken in the course of enslaving people wouldn't fall into the very same logic that you're articulating here i think you're struggling to identify limits because you know that it's problematic to interpret it so broadly that it would have been seven hundred to six judges in the country adjudicated all these kinds of claims language in the fs i a as originally passed that would limit claims based on the nationality of victims of government property takings and despite the presence in the clarification act of language specifically recognizing the full extent but that the regimes are treating enforced sales as properly within the expiration exception unique among not to use it and congress intended to disadvantage the nazis st victims german jews this makes no sense with regard to comedy which i have not spent much time on i would say the as i said it's a district court judge is the defendant is immune unless an exception applies and i think in this circumstance of the game of baseball the judge in a scenario can be thought of looking empire in of st of all the clarification act i think it's important to remember that it only involves a heart that is physically present in the united states that's a consequential distinction when we're talking about foreign sovereign immunity nd of all with regard to what to do if you find that the expropriation exception applies only to violations of the international law of takings this is not a situation where remand is appropriate the plaintiffs have never claimed that the consortia or the firms where were not german nationals you will find a paragraph in any of the briefs at any stage of this litigation this is something that should be resolved finally here in the courts been given to literally possible meanings or is consistent with the background that congress was legislating against and with the understanding of the term taking in violation of international law as it was understood in the restatement which this court has used to understand s s i a exceptions in the past even if the plain text doesn't decide you should look to the canons and all of them cut in our favor i'd like to highlight three of them st of all clarity especially regarding foreign sovereigns is particularly important it's a doctrine with enormous diplomatic consequences and congress knew the clarity was important it didn't create an exception letting foreign sovereigns be sued for sovereign acts without knowing the boundaries that it was legislating under our interpretation congress knew the international law taking its doctrine that the us had long advocated for with the specific content and coverage of the players interpretation congress didn't know the boundaries was any principle of international law that's a big set one that can keep changing congress didn't want to lose control of a sensitive diplomatic area like this nd their rating would ignore judicial interpretations of the very similar language of the nd it can do for amendment and there's no doubt the congress knew international law of state immunity and rid of a large hole in the restrictive theory that congress was caught applying for and tries to limit the consequences to genocide but the genocide genocide convention doesn't use the word takings were taken and as several members of the court of noted today slavery systematic racial discrimination and other norms like crimes against humanity where the laws of war can all involve taking almost seven hundred dollars judges several of you have noted which as a new world courts judging the nations of the world for alleged violations of international human rights and the law of war much more should be required from the text to reach this result thank you thank you counsel the case is submitted