Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/18pdf/17-1011_mkhn.pdf
Page Number: 14.0

Cite as:  586 U. S. ____ (2019) 

11 

Opinion of the Court 

ments”  did  not  mean  “virtually  absolute  immunity.”  The 
phrase is not a term of art with substantive content, such
as  “fraud”  or  “forgery.”   See  id.,  at  22;  Gilbert  v.  United 
States,  370  U. S.  650,  655  (1962).    It  is  rather  a  concept
that  can  be  given  scope  and  content  only  by  reference  to 
the rules governing foreign sovereign immunity.  It is true 
that  under  the  rules  applicable  in  1945,  the  extent  of  im-
munity  from  suit  was  virtually  absolute,  while  under  the 
rules applicable today, it is more limited.  But in 1945, as 
today, the IOIA’s instruction to grant international organ-
izations the immunity “enjoyed by foreign governments” is
an  instruction  to  look  up  the  applicable  rules  of  foreign
sovereign immunity, wherever those rules may be found—
the common law, the law of nations, or a statute.  In other 
words,  it  is  a  general  reference  to  an  external  body  of 
(potentially evolving) law. 

C 
In  ruling  for  the  IFC,  the  D. C.  Circuit  relied  upon  its
prior  decision  in  Atkinson,  156  F. 3d  1335.    Atkinson 
acknowledged the reference canon, but concluded that the 
canon’s  probative  force  was  “outweighed”  by  a  structural 
inference  the  court  derived  from  the  larger  context  of  the
IOIA.  Id.,  at  1341.  The  Atkinson  court  focused  on  the 
provision of the IOIA that gives the President the author-
ity to withhold, withdraw, condition, or limit the otherwise 
applicable  privileges  and  immunities  of  an  international 
organization,  “in  the  light  of  the  functions  performed  by 
any  such  international  organization.”  22  U. S. C.  §288. 
The  court  understood  that  provision  to  “delegate  to  the
President  the  responsibility  for  updating  the  immunities
of  international  organizations  in  the  face  of  changing 
circumstances.”  Atkinson, 156 F. 3d, at 1341.  That dele-
gation,  the  court  reasoned,  “undermine[d]”  the  view  that
Congress  intended  the  IOIA  to  in  effect  update  itself  by
incorporating changes in the law governing foreign sover-