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8 

FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY v. PHILIPP 

Opinion of the Court 

Compania,  S. A.  v.  Brush,  256  F. Supp.  481,  487  (SDNY 
1966)  (interpreting  the  Hickenlooper  Amendment  to  dis-
place Sabbatino but dismissing the suit on the ground that 
“confiscations by a state of the property of its own nationals, 
no matter how flagrant . . . , do not constitute violations of 
international law”), summarily aff ’d, 375 F. 2d 1011 (CA2 
1967); Banco Nacional de Cuba v. Farr, 383 F. 2d 166, 173– 
176 (CA2 1967); Restatement (Second) of Foreign Relations
Law  of  the  United  States  §185  (1965)  (Restatement  (Sec-
ond));  Lillich,  The  Proper  Role  of  Domestic  Courts  in  the 
International Legal Order, 11 Va. J. Int’l L. 9, 29, 34 (1970). 
Congress  used  language  nearly  identical  to  that  of  the 
Second Hickenlooper Amendment 12 years later in crafting 
the  FSIA’s  expropriation  exception.    As  noted,  it  provides
that United States courts may exercise jurisdiction over a
foreign sovereign in any case “in which rights in property
taken  in  violation  of  international  law  are  in  issue.”    28 
U. S. C. §1605(a)(3).

Based on this historical and legal background, courts ar-
rived  at  a  “consensus”  that  the  expropriation  exception’s 
“reference to ‘violation of international law’ does not cover 
expropriations of property belonging to a country’s own na-
tionals.”  Republic of Austria v. Altmann, 541 U. S. 677, 713 
(2004) (BREYER, J., concurring). 

B 
The heirs urge us to change course.  They read “rights in
property taken in violation of international law” not as an
invocation  of  the  international  law  governing  property
rights,  but  as  a  broad  incorporation  of  any  international 
norm.  Focusing on human rights law, the heirs rely on the
United  Nations  Convention  on  Genocide,  which  defines 
genocide as “deliberately inflicting on [a] group conditions
of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in
whole or in part.”  Convention on the Prevention and Pun-
ishment of the Crime of Genocide, Art. II, Dec. 9, 1948, 78