Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/18pdf/17-1011_mkhn.pdf
Page Number: 15.0

12 

JAM v. INTERNATIONAL FINANCE CORP. 

Opinion of the Court 

eign immunity.  Ibid. 

We  do  not  agree.  The  delegation  provision  is  most
naturally  read  to  allow  the  President  to  modify,  on  a 
case-by-case  basis,  the  immunity  rules  that  would  other-
wise apply to a particular international organization.  The 
statute  authorizes  the  President  to  take  action  with  re-
spect  to  a  single  organization—“any  such  organization”—
in light of the functions performed by “such organization.”
28  U. S. C.  §288.  The  text  suggests  retail  rather  than
wholesale  action,  and  that  is  in  fact  how  authority  under
§288 has been exercised in the past.  See, e.g., Exec. Order 
No.  12425,  3  CFR  193  (1984)  (designating  INTERPOL  as
an  international  organization  under  the  IOIA  but  with-
holding  certain  privileges  and  immunities);  Exec.  Order 
No.  11718,  3  CFR  177  (1974)  (same  for  INTELSAT).    In 
any event, the fact that the President has power to modify
otherwise  applicable  immunity  rules  is  perfectly  compati-
ble  with  the  notion  that  those  rules  might  themselves
change over time in light of developments in the law gov-
erning foreign sovereign immunity.

The D. C. Circuit in Atkinson also gave no consideration 
to  the  opinion  of  the  State  Department,  whose  views  in 
this area ordinarily receive “special attention.”  Bolivarian 
Republic of Venezuela v. Helmerich & Payne Int’l. Drilling 
Co., 581 U. S. ___, ___ (2017) (slip op., at 9).  Shortly after
the  FSIA  was  enacted,  the  State  Department  took  the
position that the immunity rules of the IOIA and the FSIA
were now “link[ed].”  Letter from Detlev F. Vagts, Office of
the Legal Adviser, to Robert M. Carswell, Jr., Senior Legal
Advisor,  OAS,  p. 2  (Mar.  24,  1977).    The  Department 
reaffirmed  that  view  during  subsequent  administrations,
and  it  has  reaffirmed  it  again  here.2   That  longstanding 

—————— 

2 See Letter from Roberts B. Owen, Legal Adviser, to Leroy D. Clark, 
Gen.  Counsel,  EEOC  (June  24,  1980)  in  Nash,  Contemporary  Practice 
of the United States Relating to International Law, 74 Am. J. Int’l. L. 917,