hear an argument first this morning in case sixteen ten ninety four republic of sudan versus harrison mr kern mr chief justice and may it please the court when we're talking about a mailing and a requirement that the mailing be addressed and dispatched to a specified person we naturally understand that to require that the mailing bear the address specifically when congress intended there to be an intermediary between the sender and the ultimate recipient it said so it said that in a four where it addressed service through the u s secretary of state it said that in b to where it authorized the service through an agent in the united states no counterpart in a three i have to say of my first instinct if i wanted to mail something to the head or cabinet member of foreign country i would that would be my first thought why don't you deliver to the embassy that the idea of mailing it to the foreign minister in some country and assuming it's going to get they're going to be reasonable time a bigger much more much more likely to reach them through the embassy yeah well i don't think that can be squared with the plain language of sixty no wait eighty three or again the surrounding provisions of the f s a service provisions if a foreign minister the head of the ministry of foreign affairs does not have an office in it in the diplomatic missions so it literally would not be complying with the statutory language to send a mailing to that diplomatic mission sometime somebody suppose somebody sent you a letter know my address is always held out as seven zero one thirteen three washington d c so that might that might get to me but it wouldn't be compliant with wang with the statutory requirement like we see in  three and justice alito furthermore sixteen zero eight c with their you return receipt requirement how would that square if a package was sent to me in new york city with the recipient up there in the mail room sign the return receipt that hardly guarantees that's hardly proof of delivery to the ultimate recipient when it's going through an intermediary in that exists i'm not so sure that the addressed and dispatch language do the trick for you i mean if you want to any u s embassy around the world i think you would see posts that you would see mounted on the wall picture of the secretary of state which signifies in a sense of the secretary this is under the jurisdiction of the department of state under the jurisdiction well it's just a little i guess i would draw an analogy i don't know what circuits you're the circuit justice for probably the third circuit perhaps would would a package sent to a federal district court in new jersey be addressed in dispatch to your honor i think not particularly if it's accompanied by a requirement that it be a return receipt that would be evidence of you know my name and it might not be but when i was on the third circuit my office was in new york but the headquarters of court was in philadelphia and i used to get mail that was addressed to me u s court of appeals market street philadelphia we're talking about a statutory provision that has to be applied literally and strictly i say strictly because requires strict compliance it's certainly not for compliance to address a package to newark for a third circuit mr curran i guess i'm wondering the the statutory language does not say at his own office  and and in the absence of that kind of language i suppose this is maybe what the chief justice was was gesturing towards too that there seems something special about the embassy situation that's not like one of these  third circuit situations that's just everybody understands that embassies are supposed to be the point of contact if you want to do anything with respect to a foreign government i don't agree with that i think anyone who's informed or looks into it would conclude that the embassies are there to service diplomatic functions not to be a catchall recipient for service of process or other things being sent to the foreign state  we'll get into the vienna convention in a bit but the diplomatic missions have a very specified and limited role and it's and there's no suggestion in a lot of the u n conventions or otherwise that it's there to for the and it said it was being sent to the ministry of foreign affairs but it was addressed and dispatched to the sudanese embassy here in washington d c on massachusetts avenue   wanting to sue or play news they're there for the convenience of the host country sudan in this case right and to facilitate diplomatic communications between the countries i would have thought it would be much more i mean they tell us not i would have thought to be much more convenient for them to get notice that they're going to be sued in the united states at the united states embassy i mean i would have thought otherwise it's you know who knows it's going to get lost or much more likely for them to hear about it if you give it to the embassy here yeah i think that the the amicus briefs that your honor has received that this court has received from foreign states suggest otherwise in fact i think the reality is a foreign embassador located in washington d gets at the prospect of receiving service of process doesn't know what to do with it doesn't know what it's all about they're generally not lawyers next the one and somebody in khartoum isn't someone in kharto knows this is the kind of thing we see from time to time we better get this to the our legal team the legal advisors team or the justice department across the street they they do have a full panoply of expertise there these many of these diplomatic missions in washington are skeleton sketch staffs with an ambassador one or two assistants and a staff generally of people of nationalities different from the sending country ma to the address and dispatch concept much of the brief was centered around that being where the minister sits in the capital of a foreign state but there are many countries where the the foreign minister doesn't necessarily sit in the capital or let's assume an emergency something's happened that minister c and he's now sitting in a nearby building or in another city within the state or even he's decided he's going to come and spend three months in the united states it's one of these ministers who thinks he should visit all foreign countries for an extended period just in dispatch to his home in the foreign state to his normal place of business what what what's how do we define if i'm writing this opinion because i don't actually think you mean of the ministry of foreign affairs that's implying the an official address and not a home address but if it is there by the way i but based on my research there aren't many countries that have a minister of foreign affairs not in the state capital i think there are about three but let's let's use an example let's take south africa where the minister of foreign affairs has offices in both pretoria and cape town but but coincidentally there's also a single mailing address but if it in that situation i think it will be perfectly acceptable for the package to be sent to any one of those addresses because they are all addresses of the of the head of the foreign ministry it's strictly a factual question where is the address of the foreign minister and once is his or her official address is that it i think it should be the official address but but again here it wasn't sent to any address of the foreign minister when this statute was in the acted do you think congress thought that sending something return receipt requested to khartoum for example was was a simple thing it would be like sending something return receipt requested to i don't know where someplace in the united states you know what we have we have a rich record of the legislative history here so we know a lot about what congress or were were maybe more accurately the state department and the department of justice thought when they were drafting is that you'd in the mid seventy's on that point congress recognized that in many situations that return receipt might not be coming back either due to problems with the mail system or a declaration of signing it in the foreign country but congress was was strategic in this hierarchy they set up in sixteen zero eight has got number four a simple way to do this with the us postal service and yes and a receipt request of them and it comes back from the far reaches of the world yes but it did require the cooperation of the mail service in the foreign country and the reliability of that wasn't always assured for sure because there are over one hundred foreign countries that this thing could be mailed to but again there's the catch all and and speaking of the legislative history here it powerfully confirms what i propose is the natural reading of sixteen zero eight three because congress in the initial draft that again was sponsored by the department of state contemplated delivery of the service package to the embassy in washington addressed to the ambassador or other head of the mission and that led to a immediate concern that it was transgressing the vienna convention and the inviolability of diplomatic missions and congress and the department stayed there for changed the statu behavior yeah your honor is probably referring to the radius case yeah but that case is quite different that case did not involve service on a foreign mission it involved service on the residency of a diplomatic agent who was then no longer in service and who did not enjoy immunity and there was no other way to serve that former diplomatic agent and in the u k a supreme court decision the court expressly distinguished this situation with a service on a foreign state or of the mission of a foreign state saying that that was precluded by section twelve the u k s one hundred seventy eight immunity statute so i don't think the radius case mission and the reports the parallel reports the house report and the senate report are both very expressed in saying we're changing the statute to avoid the vienna convention problem is problematic with respect to the vienna convention but i think the the u k court felt that it was boxed in with some bad facts and that it had to provide a way to have service a process four does specify an address you know it says addressed in dispatched by the clerk of the court to the secretary of state in washington d c so what and sixteen zero eight three eight does not say at his office in the sudan correct so the question is what inference do we draw from that contrasts and i submit that the proper inference to draw is it confirms that everybody's thinking that the foreign minister gets served whether it's that the u s secretary of state or the foreign foreign minister they're all getting served in their official offices in their home capital i think it confirms that also in this this might sound a little strange but because i don't really quite understand that because here they clearly thought that they had to specify when they wanted to specify you know at his office on on in washington d c but they did they didn't say c street in foggy bottom so under those were not put under the plaintiff's theory oh if it's not precluded then any other indirect method of service is ok too so maybe you can send it to the white house knowing that secretary pompei business there occasionally i don't think i don't think that that's the answer but but but furthermore the nine hundred seventy three legislative history suggests that at that time  analogizing service on a foreign state with service on a foreign corporation there's even a decision by the second circuit that has judge friendly on the on the court that reaches that exact conclusion that it's the the analogy is to foreign corp well that concern and the possibility that someone could try to serve a foreign corporation through a u s state secretary of state was a legitimate concern at the time and may have motivated the further specification that we're talking about that secretary of state in washington d c and not a secretary of state in austin texas and as your honor may know in the magnus case that's exactly what the plaintiffs tried to do they tried to serve process on a foreign state through the texas secretary of state in austin so congress may have been trying to clarify that that's not acceptable now on the vienna convention established now our friends suggest that we perhaps were and maybe the s t s office as well were trying to obscure the one nine hundred fifty eight commentary which suggested that service could be done by mail  compliant with the vienna convention i reject any suggestion we were obscuring anything our brief addresses in great depth the japanese proposal voiced by mr talk that was proposing that the actual text of the vienna convention article twenty two should be changed to allow service by mail that proposal was roundly rejected it was withdrawn and never adopted so the language of article twenty two as adopted by at the vienna convention by the committee of the whole indicates that the attendees at the convention recognized that service by mentioned the legislative history and really the drafting history of the f s a itself because when congress considered this issue this very issue it initially had a service by mail to an ambassador rich everyone understood to be serviced by mail to the embassy in the first draft of the f s a and that was in fact rejected as mr kerr noted for syslog because of this concern of inconsistency with the vienna convention and the way that congress knew that there was this concern was that other states in fact came to the state department and said that this was a problem and exactly where i was going to go next which is that the united states does not accept service by mail on one of its embassies abroad and that is true even if a mail remember flurries signs for the package so in that instance the united states sends back a diplomatic note informs the sender that we do not consider that to be proper service under international law we will not be appearing in court and we will not be honoring a default judgment why are you why doesn't that why does something united states accept so the united states doesn't accept your honor because it's not consistent with the vienna convention and with international law more generally but is there are more particular harm that comes from accepting it and then the say you know i think there is an administrator ability harm no of course i think the of international law is itself so i'm ready and then moving on from that i think that the harm is that united states has embassies all over the world obviously and sort of deputizing each of those to accept service on behalf of the united states is quite problematic it's even more problematic if you up to standard like the one that my friend suggests that page thirty four of their brief which is that service would be permissible at any place likely to have a direct connection to the foreign ministry that would open up consulates for example there are countries that have forty consulates in the united states and some have similar treatment were extended to united states abroad you could see that there would be a variety of places where service would be made and that obviously from an minister ability standpoint is quite problematic i still don't quite understand it in practical terms although i see your point about the consulates but say that the united states is sued in germany if process is served on the embassy in germany and some embassy there would promptly send them to the state department in washington but i also suspect that the state department in washington would some did back to the embassy in germany too because if it was necessary to go into a german court somebody would have to find attorneys to go into court to represent the united states some foreign country justice alito i'm not sure that's actually how it would work best how would it work so my understanding your honor is that the office of foreign litigation actually in washington d c oversees all that foreign litigation and so it makes perfect sense in our system that we would want that to be coming to the secretary of state in washington d c if at all and in that case under diplomatic note we rather than through direct mail service but i think it's important to note that all of these questions sort of get to this idea that while it might make sense for service on an embassy maybe that will in fact reach the foreign minister but i think in addition to the textual point that mr curran made which is in subsection v two of the statute when congress expected an agent to accept service in the united states that was actually spelled out in the statute it's also true that in subsection b three again another provision governing for an agency is instrumentalities but not governing foreign states there is a provision for methods of service that are reasonably calculated to provide actual notice and so i think when congress wanted a looser sort of whatever will actually get it back to the intended recipient standard it actually said so and we see that again in subsection b three i would also point out that there was some discussion about subsection a for of the legislation that we've been discussing this morning the service was to be made on an ambassador rather than or did not expressly say on the embassy but everyone understood that to be where it would be and that's in fact by other nations raised objections to the united states and by the united states asked or by the state department suggested a change to the statute and so i think similarly it sort of makes sense in the evolution of the statute to understand that when congress moved service from the ambassador which was understood to be at the embassy quite literally across oceans to the foreign minister it was similarly understood to be at the foreign ministry rather than at the embassy in the united states again because that's something that was specifically rejected i already different process lower process than what's normally acceptable so what difference does it make that it's different than what you do now surrender two responses to that one  practical one legal my practical understanding is that attempted service by mail to the and to united states embassies abroad happens nearly every day and so that is actually a very large concern for us as a practical matter whereas attempted service by mail to the state department is actually quite much less frequent just on the practicalities as a legal matter obviously we think that the united states has a reciprocity interest in having foreign litigants or foreign sovereigns brought into our courts only under the same circumstances that we ask abroad i don't think that there is a way to to read be three that doesn't permit a service by mail to the foreign state but to the foreign ministry in the foreign state and so i think our reciprocity interest really come in where we think the text is clear under a three that you can't serve on an embassy but if you know there's any ambiguity there that's where we think our reciprocity interests should be brought to bear i would know more generally i think the united states interests here are not only in reciprocity they're also in convention that foreign nations would be affronted by sending a letter to someone sending a letter to their embassy i just don't understand i understand the idea that they don't want the police officers coming knocking on the door and saying i've got a search warrant or or whatever but it's hard to imagine someone's reaction to getting a letter in the mail to be that they're affronted by it mr chief justice i don't think this is an ordinary letter  not just a regular letter it is a letter that has are a summons that has a very serious judicial consequences and so i think it is not just a regular drop off of morality why isn't any more of an affront if you send it to one place and a few sundered to the other well just foreign minister or the foreign ministry abroad is not protected by the vienna convention and so there isn't this idea that you have inviolability of those promised so that is the way that that states are more likely to expect to get this service particularly an a for was discussed earlier if it comes through diplomatic channels under it for there's a regulation that suggests that the state department under eighty four can conserve to the embassy if the foreign state otherwise if the foreign states the requests or if other was appropriate so is that also a violation of the vienna convention it's not your honor two points on that the first is that under again as a practical matter that happens quite infrequently that is really in extreme circumstances where we either don't have an embassy abroad and don't have a protecting power that can deliver the summons but on the legal matter under vienna convention article forty one section two diplomatic channels which are well established way of states communicating with each other never violate emission inviolability so that simply isn't a concern and i think this is an important point that a four is both always available and never a violation of diplomatic immunity so it is not as though respondents will not be able to alternately complete service in this case or meaning that the return receipt did not come and then the state department in the usual case will send the materials after ensuring that they're correct are going to satisfy all the statutory requirements will send those materials to the united states embassy abroad which will in turn transmit it to the foreign ministry in the foreign state thank you counsel by sending it to the sudanese embassy a component of the foreign ministry where it was signed for and accepted the relevant provision of the fs does not contain sudan's requirement that the complaint be sent to the address of the headquarters of the foreign ministry in the foreign state and even if the relevant provisions were ambiguous sudan's proposed interpretation is not necessary to comply with the vienna convention which does not prohibit service by mail at an embassy consistent with the plain language every one of them in some manner or form it basically says serve the person or the entity where they live where they're doing business now you would say this is doing business in the embassy but since it's being addressed to the foreign minister he is not physically there except for an occasional visit it seems a natural understanding under most due process concerns that you serve the person where you're likely to find them just the sort of my arse not at most embassies except in the rare visits which are very big state things so i'm not sure that you can avoid reading addressed and dispatched as having some point about state service rules but i think that that cuts in our favor and not against us in our brief it page twenty three we cite a number of federal provisions that are to the same effect that a wide range of contexts ranging from f d a notices to the longshoreman's act various federal statutes and rules specify places where documents should be served they specify residences or businesses or last known addresses and in fact federal rules for i one be specifies that service of documents on the united states should go to the attorney general of the united states at washington d c and so it certainly is true that ordinarily one would serve documents said you know a home or an official address but ordinarily that address is specified and where it is not specified our submission here is a quite modest straightforward textural one it is that the embassy is an official address of the foreign ministry it is a component an extension of the foreign ministry  is certainly true as justice alito suggested that if you walk into any american embassy you're likely to see a picture of the secretary of state if you go to their website you'll see the seal of the secretary of state if you go to the website we can't ignore that it's not the place where the person usually is going to send it to the person and not to some far distant place where that person may be on occasion but justice sotomayor as you are well aware the outer bound of due process the notion that it must be reasonably calculated to give notice in our standard gives effective ad because be aware from our brief we think that the phrase dead addressed and dispatched requires the service pack to be sent in an but you can go in by mail and place a burden on the embassy by requiring either that it put it in its diplomatic path pouch or hand deliver it or do something else to the mailing for you to the foreign minister isn't that the exact kind of burden that the convention was intended to avoid i do not think that there is anything strange about the distinction between a process server on the one hand and service by mail on the other if you take a look at the critical piece of drafting history the nine hundred fifty eight revised commentary which weekly is the definitive commentary of the international law committee on the vienna convention in the paragraph on which we are either very paragraph they draw precisely this distinction and the reason i would submit that they draw this distinction and this is also captured in lord sampson's opinion for the u k supreme court and reyes is that there is something relating to dignitary interests about personal service the notion that some person is going to turn up at the embassy or skulk around at the embassy and wait for someone to arrive so that they can hand them a document your argument and i find it ambiguous so we'll assume it's ambiguous i look to purpose that's the sort of my or did i i cut out a little against you because you'd mentioned left one word out of your the beginning you said you wanted three hundred billion dollars judgment you left out the word default it was a deep well of judgment and of course that's the concern that's the purpose concern that they have one ambassador or an assistant and four people working in the mail room who are all american citizens never even been to the country and they don't know what to do and you only have sixty days to answer ok and so who knows what's going to happen that piece of paper in many embassies more than sixty days before they even get it over their country or that but purpose i'll give you something on that because that's not my question then i thought i thought well i can't get too far on purpose not sure about consequences what about history and tradition and there i asked my law clerk to go look up what other countries do and this is what i found i found of course we have five here austria libya saudi arabia u a e are in the sudan they all say we do it the state department's way then canada the same belgium the same twenty two countries have signed  a convention which says in the absence of an existing agreement service on a foreign country must be to the ministry of foreign affairs ok that's so we got twenty two more and then i tried to find one the other way couldn't find one vault sumption and what sumption was about is what he said it was about a former ambassador a service in his resident a look and they say foreign states are different and then there's some language that helps you and then i look at what we did here and what we did here is the congress wanted to do it your way and state wrote them a letter and nobody says that that vienna convention in viability is clearly yours or clearly yours what they say is there's an issue about it and because there is an issue and because there is an issue they said to congress the state don't do it this isn't the way we do it and after the state wrote them that letter they changed the law they dropped the language that said you can serve an embassy ok so so far i have u s history i have at least twenty two said twenty seven countries i could find nothing the other way except arguable dictum in a case that involve now i put that long question to you because i want to give you a chance to say no i'm wrong there are thirty two countries who do it differently or whatever you want to say i'm not going to say you're wrong just as prior but i will address what i think were really the three parts of your question first tech second policy and third the practice of other countries so we've heard that the tax is you know our submission is quite simple it's not that this is an ambiguous provision it's that it's a broad provision and the best evidence of that is that in the very next  paragraph a for a location is specified in all of the statutes and rules that we state in our brief a location is specified and so if there is not a location that does not connote ambiguity it connotes breath and the embassy in the words of justice kagan something special it is the extension of the foreign ministry in the united states and so it is quite a modest step to say that that is an address at which service of process to the foreign minister is proper now on the issue of policy i think that the best response to your concern about policy and i knowledge that there was a default judgment in this case though no one can dispute that sudan had actual notice of this case and of course more than actual notice of the ongoing colletti geisha which had been going on for many years but even if you put that aside the simple response to all of the policy considerations offered by my colleagues on the other side is that under eighty three it is completely within the control of the foreign state whether to accept a three service not only at its embassies but more generally and i would urge this court to take a look at the policy of the united states which we cited in our brief and we've provided correct website in our supplemental letter it's a very brief document which makes clear that not only does the united states not accept service at its embassies it would not accept mail service even at the state department the sole ways in which the united states except service if you look at page two of the current version of the policy is either through diplomatic channels or through the hague service convention which is what a two refers to all we are saying is that if this court gives full effect to the language of subsection eighty three a country can adopt such a policy and implement such a policy and if for instance some letter or package got inadvertently signed for the country could send it back immediately that is of course not what took place here in all three of the lawsuits sudan sign the receipt you can take a look at the joint appendix page i believe seventy four and see the return receipt for yourself and so a country can avoid a three service if it so chooses either all together or at the embassy now with regard to the practice of other countries i would certainly acknowledge that eighty three is an unusual provision under any of our interpretations service of process by mail is not provided under the laws of many other countries it is true that a number of countries do provide for service of process by mail diplomatic personnel where it's a complaint against diplomatic personnel and that is of course the upshot of the law in the u k as lord sumption discusses in paragraph fifteen of his opinion but i think that that illustrates w government's interest in this case is unfounded u s law has been non reciprocal since the f s a was and acted in one thousand nine hundred seventy six u s law has permitted service or process by mail where many other countries do not but i think that ya maybe my purpose thing was i'm not sure how overstated because i do worry about these small embassies but text you can't get me to for you i mean it's it is ambiguous but i still have the simple fact that every other country in the world has a different policy and we did too and now you point out correctly that there  other ways that they could get to the same policy elsewhere in the statute if they want to and the problem is not me but no i mean this seriously and i don't mean it to be facetious botswana perhaps does not have a lawyer like you and to turn over to these countries often very small often without adequate legal advice something that departs from a simple legal rule that every one of them  followed in one form or another in the past is something that makes me nervous well i mean that offer a fourth answer is that you ought not to be nervous about that because there are things that countries can do in your  hypothetical one thing they can do is if the package gets transmitted to the foreign ministry and someone sees it and says we should not have accepted service it could be returned immediately in applying ordinary principles of rescission we're aware of at least one district court decision in which a court has said well you returned it right away and so we're going to treat this as if service was not effective but i think more importantly and again there is evidence of this in the lower court case law if a country after the fact does not  in fact transmit the service packet appropriately the country can come in and object to any default or to a subsequent default just by those who will subject to the discretion of the district court they're not  rules they're not absolute rules but i think what happens i think to use a country let's assume a country that's more than twenty four hour mailing away and they only have a pouch once a week it gets to them they send it back it's now going to take whatever amount of time to come back and the judge says no waiting a month waiting six weeks is just too much time that doesn't respect the dignitary expectations of all other states including this one of the united states for the that there are many countries that don't have the resources to figure out what a default judgment means to figure out where they're going to go and they don't know who to transmit things to and the chances are just much greater that the right authorities will get the piece of paper if you send it to the ministry which is likely to be better staffed in their own country i mean perhaps i think you could still have the risk of the same problem under petitioners and the united states is interpretation because after all the practical reality is that it's not the foreign minister himself or herself who's going to be responding to this lawsuit it's going to be the equivalent of our office of foreign litigation so there's going to be a routing issue location that is likely to have a direct line of communication to the foreign minister so would that apply to every consulate would it apply to the number two person in the embassy the number three person in the embassy they all have a direct line of communication i think that the the better view is that if it is an official address of the foreign ministry that is likely to have a direct line of communication i think mr curran agrees that it has to be an official address so a home address or other address would not qualify i think that that would satisfy our standard but i think that if this court were concerned about that breath and i'll explain in a minute why the court uniquely for victims of terror attacks against state sponsors of terrorism under section sixty five a it is true that this issue of service goes to personal jurisdiction under i believe it's section thirteen thirty b this is a personal jurisdiction issue i do want to say one last thing in response to justice alito before i forget and that is that you know if the court is concerned about consulates and u missions again the court could distinguish embassies on the ground that embassy is performing unique function and of course a country could adopt a policy of not accepting service at its consulates or at the u n mission as a practical matter i don't think it's going to matter very much and we did look at the case law and i think we found around three cases where parties have attempted service at consulates or u n missions i think the reason it wouldn't matter is that if there isn't available address in the united states i e the embassy there's not going to be any need to attempt service on the consulate or on the u n mission in new york rather than in washington d c and i do think that one factual point here there is emphasizing this method of service was first attempted by my  in the rocks case in two thousand and four the reason that we attempted service at the embassy was for the simple reason that in two thousand and four sudan was at the tail end of its civil war and it was very hard even to find someone who would deliver a package to khartoum with the requisite return receipt and so this case really illustrates why this policy makes sense it makes sense because the embassy is indeed the extension of the foreign ministry in the united states and it can choose how it wants to process or transmit a service package when it is accepted there is no requirement that it use the diplomatic pouch and in two thousand and eighteen there are faster ways of making a transmission  turning about let me address that directly what you know i would think textually you've had very difficult time drawing a line around embassies i mean you can you suggest we might do that i suppose we can do just about anything  textually i don't see how you make that argument i don't think consulates trade offices tourism offices that are part of the ministry would all be included i would think under your well i think our textual argument is that at least the connotes some notion of expeditious and properness and we're all in an agreement about the relevant dictionary definitions and i think with an embassy ex ante i think it is reasonable to think that it's going to get to the foreign minister because of the direct line of communication because embassies are directly in communication with foreign ministries on positing all sorts of different kinds of entities that are also i think communication with and risk responsible to ultimately the foreign minister so i'm not sure how i wouldn't qualify well i think it's just that it is less like it arrive in an expeditious manner if you send it to a tourist office and the like that may very well not be a component of the foreign ministry i think we're in agreement again that it has to be an official address of the foreign ministry i got a minimum and i do want to say second question what do we do about the fourth subsection which does specify diplomatic means for the secretary of state if you failed under three you go to four and four says then you send to the secretary of state here in washington united states secretary of state and the secretary will then use diplomatic means to get it to the folks and when congress speaks so clearly about the question of diplomatic means and one place we tend to usually think it's excluded elsewhere well we do about that well i don't think that that hurts us and in fact i think that a four helps us in numerous respects the first is of course the plain text argument that their congress specified location for the initial delivery and i understand that argument that's not my question yes and i think to be sure a for is you know the fallback is potentially available in the kumar case where the fourth circuit rejected our interpretation where in the process of attempting service right now under a four and working with the state department to do that in the way that a forest service operates is that you deliver the service packet first to the secretary of state interesting lee and somewhat responsive to mr kerns point you know the secretary of state has a lot of buildings even in washington in the state department on its website all right all right well now let's let's get to the question all right well i'm i'm not going to filibuster i just want to make sure that the court understands that we understand that this is the state department is large i  question is just speaks there that the secretary will then use diplomatic means to get the service affected and there is an express discussion of diplomatic means correct and its presence and for would suggest its absence and three was not accidental under our normal canons of interpretation that i'm telling you something you already know well so what's the what's the answer to that's a somewhat different argument i think from the arguments that sudan in the united states have made and so let me address it directly let's say a disagree with that yeah so i don't think that the reference to diplomatic channels in any way excludes service at diplomatic premises and that's for the simple reason that i think diplomatic channels has a very well defined meaning  at your reading of three is that it has to get to the foreign minister and the only way it can get to the foreign minister you say it will happen effectively and with great dispatch if i give it to the embassy maybe a few other places so you are using diplomatic means well we are i would hesitate to say that we're using diplomatic means other than in the very generic sense just discourse it which is say that in any form of a three service you know you are going through the foreign ministry the question is how are you going through the foreign ministry and indeed if you take a look at the regulation if you're interested in a four i think the government's own regulation is quite informative it's twenty two c f r ninety three point one it's cited in the briefs and it i mean the eighty three that th embassy is going to send it through diplomatic pouch or otherwise to the foreign ministry right or some other means but again diplomatic channels it's a defined term and it refers to communication from one sovereign to the other you know that is what diplomatic channels means and so if you look at the relevant regulation it sets out the various ways in which that occurs and it is certainly true as ms ross said that the probably the most common way this occurs is that the state department sends a service package to the united states embassy in khartoum and it attempts to deliver the service as a practical matter as a practical matter is that hard to accomplish another words the system going forward if we were to say you can't do it in embassies is there a problem going under that mechanism well you know the problem is that i don't think it's necessarily certain that you'll be able to attain service we're certainly hopeful that we will be able to attain service under a four in the kumar case but again you know this court has to give effect t congress's judgment are you aware of any problems trying to effectuate service generally under any four well i think it could break down if there is not it could there's not a diplomatic relationship there's i mean that's the bottom line right is that if there is not a diplomatic relationship there are not going to be diplomatic channels but i think tellingly the regulation for a fee for service contemplates the possibility of service of process at the embassy in the united states state which i think the law is the notion that this is somehow forbidden by the vienna convention in your research did you find a single example an example of someone tried a foreign they couldn't get it done i'm not aware of an example i can't say that i've actually research that specific question but of course we're interpretating above all a federal statute here and congress established a hierarchy and justice prior to the extent that a three is unusual i think the telling fact is that congress preferred  aware of any cases of a forest service failing so that a party is completely out of luck i think that if there would be such a case it would be in a context in which the united states has no diplomatic relations and therefore there are diplomatic channels and of course that's not unlikely possibility in the event of a state sponsor of terrorism which is after all the context in which a three is most likely to be so many of them have embassies in the united states where there is no diplomatic relations well i think that that is you know to be fair and on an unusual situation and it certainly is true that their hope with any walk one of these mechanisms is going to succeed in a ford does exist as a fallback but the point our whole point about  point you're making is it's not a big deal to allow service at an embassy even though the united states objects and even though it's just as prior points no other country appears to allow that and in my response in addition to that is is it really a big deal to from your perspective going forward i know about this case but going forward as a system to go through the a four mechanism rather than a three at an embassy well i would flip that around and say that it's not a big deal to permit service on the embassy under a threat that slice lee because a country can adopt a policy and simply decide not to accept it but then but if i were starting afresh like the chief justice is first question might agree with you but the united states and all the countries in the vienna convention all seem to say actually it is a big deal but i think that there are two separate questions the first is does the vienna convention prohibit service of process by mail and there i would respect we submit that all of the relevant in the language of article twenty two the drafting history the commentary including the u k supreme court's decision erast point in our favor the second is what is the current practice of idea of service of process by mail is not somehow alien it's just that congress in adopting a three did do something a little bit unusual in providing a mechanism for service or process by mail even for what  in this particular case if you had to go back and if we were to rule against you and you succeed in achieving service under a for is there any indication that sudan would appear well i think that's a question for mr kerr and but we would certainly have to start over in this case and i think that the reason why that is particularly and equitable here is because in this case we would essentially be held to have failed to serve properly by failing to comply with a requirement that does not appear on the face of the statute and in a context in which sudan unquestionably had actual notice of the litigation and again as this case comes to the court it comes to the court on the assumption that sudan excepted service here notwithstanding sudan's late effort to cast doubt on that proposition and so notwithstanding sudan's judgment to accept service under a three we would have to start at this late phase and we're not even talking about an objection that was raised in the underlying litigation we're talking about an objection that was raised in the very ill at the very last minute in response to turnover orders and that would be the height of unfairness to the cole victims the judgment of the second circuit should be a you counsel and you have two minutes remaining mr kirn justice alito sudan is committed to appearing and defending itself it believes that the default judgment was ill founded it has substantial defenses and i would like to contest the charges is there you want to suggest that the government of sudan had forgotten about the cole incident or didn't realize that this litigation was going on and i didn't get notice and didn't know that this litigation was going on well we do have a bonafide concern about the way the service package was sent right page eighty seventy five of the joint appendix show is the postal service record and it shows that the package was not actually delivered to the embassy but it actually didn't get rid of the question  have no idea whether responsible people in khartoum knew about the litigation so in know about it before the sixty day period for replying and prevented the default judgment passed i don't know when there's nothing in the record on that but again actually as you know you know that they knew as of as of when i mean the process was mail they have to return it sixty days later they're eligible for  yes now do we know when they really knew about it before the default or after the i think it was after the motion for default judgment but before the default judgment itself but that's that's my assessment of the record my my colleague mr sham again advocates a reading of sixteen zero eighty three that is  broad and unpredictable and leaves too much creativity for plaintiffs and courts thank you counsel the case is submitted