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10 

FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY v. PHILIPP 

Opinion of the Court 

not “property takings in violation of international law.”  Tr. 
of  Oral  Arg.  70.  This  distinction  between  “takings”  and 
“taken,”  they  say,  is  the  difference  between  incorporating
the specific international law governing takings of property 
and incorporating international law writ large.  Ibid. 

We would not place so much weight on a gerund.  The text 
of  the  expropriation  exception  as  a  whole  supports  Ger-
many’s  reading.    In  its  entirety  the  clause  provides  that
United  States  courts  may  exercise  jurisdiction  over  a  for-
eign sovereign in any case 

“in which rights in property taken in violation of inter-
national law are in issue and that property or any prop-
erty  exchanged  for  such  property  is  present  in  the 
United States in connection with a commercial activity
carried on in the United States by the foreign state; or
that property or any property exchanged for such prop-
erty is owned or operated by an agency or instrumen-
tality  of  the  foreign  state  and  that  agency  or  instru-
mentality  is  engaged  in  a  commercial  activity  in  the 
United States.”  28 U. S. C. §1605(a)(3). 

The exception places repeated emphasis on property and 
property-related  rights,  while  injuries  and  acts  we  might
associate with genocide are notably lacking.  That would be 
remarkable if the provision were intended to provide relief
for  atrocities  such  as  the  Holocaust.    A  statutory  phrase
concerning property rights most sensibly references the in-
ternational law governing property rights, rather than the
law of genocide.

What  is  more,  the  heirs’  interpretation  of  the  phrase
“taken in violation of international law” is not limited to vi-
olations of the law of  genocide but extends  to any human 
rights  abuse.  Their  construction  would  arguably  force
courts themselves to violate international law, not only ig-
noring the domestic takings rule but also derogating inter-