Opinion ID: 672302
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The treaty provision.

Text: 52 Section 1604 of the FSIA provides that a foreign sovereign's immunity from suit is [s]ubject to existing international agreements to which the United States [was] a party at the time of the enactment of [the FSIA]. One such agreement, the Hague Convention, in turn provides that the inhabitants of an occupied country may not be required to tak[e] part in military operations against their own country, (Article 52) and that [a] belligerent party which violates [this prohibition] shall, if the case demands, be liable to pay compensation. (Article 3). 53 In the Nuremberg Trial decision the Tribunal makes official what is in any event clear, that the Nazi regime acted in flagrant violation of the terms of the Hague Convention, including Article 52. 6 F.R.D. 69, 123 (1946). Therefore, Mr. Princz argues, the compensation provisions of the Hague Convention are in conflict with the FSIA's immunity provision, thus invoking its exception for prior existing treaty obligations. Binding precedent is clearly to the contrary, and clearly correct. 54 In Amerada Hess, the Supreme Court held that the treaty exception of the FSIA applies when international agreements 'expressly conflic[t]' with the immunity provisions of the FSIA, and that an international convention that only set[s] forth substantive rules of conduct and state[s] that compensation shall be paid for certain wrongs.... [d]o[es] not [necessarily] create private rights of action.... 488 U.S. at 442, 109 S.Ct. at 692. The cases are unanimous, however, in holding that nothing in the Hague Convention even impliedly grants individuals the right to seek damages for violation of [its] provisions. Tel-Oren v. Libyan Arab Republic, 726 F.2d 774, 810 (D.C.Cir.1984) (Bork, J., concurring); accord Goldstar (Panama) S.A. v. United States, 967 F.2d 965, 968-69 (4th Cir.1992); Dreyfus v. Von Finck, 534 F.2d 24, 30 (2d Cir.1976); Handel v. Artukovic, 601 F.Supp. 1421, 1425 (C.D.Cal.1985). 55 For the foregoing reasons, we conclude that none of the exceptions to sovereign immunity provided in the FSIA applies to the facts alleged by Mr. Princz. Therefore, we need not decide whether the FSIA applies retroactively to this case; for Mr. Princz' suit is barred by the FSIA even if we do give retroactive effect to that Act--and more to the point, to the exceptions to sovereign immunity that it recognizes. 56