Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-1566_l5gm.pdf
Page Number: 8.0

Cite as:  596 U. S. ____ (2022) 

5 

Opinion of the Court 

with that more common approach, and now vacate the judg-
ment below. 

II 
The FSIA, as indicated above, creates a uniform body of
federal law to govern the amenability of foreign states and 
their instrumentalities to suit in the United States.  See su-
pra, at 3.  The statute first lays down a baseline principle
of foreign sovereign immunity from civil actions.  See §1604. 
It then lists a series of exceptions from that principle (in-
cluding  the  expropriation  exception  found  to  apply  here). 
See §§1605–1607; supra, at 3.  The result is to spell out, as 
a matter of federal law, the suits against foreign sovereigns 
that American courts do, and do not, have power to decide. 
Yet the FSIA was never “intended to affect the substan-
tive  law  determining  the  liability  of  a  foreign  state  or  in-
strumentality”  deemed  amenable  to  suit.    First  Nat.  City 
Bank v. Banco Para el Comercio Exterior de Cuba, 462 U. S. 
611, 620 (1983).  To the contrary, Section 1606 of the statute 
provides: 

“As to any claim for relief with respect to which a for-
eign state is not entitled to immunity under [the FSIA], 
the foreign state shall be liable in the same manner and 
to  the  same  extent  as  a  private  individual  under  like 
circumstances.” 

So when a foreign state is not immune from suit, it is sub-
ject to the same rules of liability as a private party.  Which 
is just to say that the substantive law applying to the latter 
also applies to the former.  See  First Nat. City Bank, 462 
U. S., at 622, n. 11.  As one court put the point, Section 1606
directs a “pass-through” to the substantive law that would 
govern a similar suit between private individuals.  Oveissi 
v.  Islamic  Republic  of  Iran,  573  F. 3d  835,  841  (CADC 
2009).  The provision thus ensures that a foreign state, if 
found ineligible for immunity, must answer for its conduct