Court Opinion

ID: 9476770
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:05:05.938409+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:30.127902
License: Public Domain

KEARSE, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent from the majority’s conclusion that the district court has subject matter jurisdiction over the present suit to recover money damages from defendant Argentine Republic (“Argentina”) for its bombing of a Liberian tanker in international waters some 600 miles from the Argentine coast. In my view, the majority has disregarded a clear Congressional intention to deny United States courts jurisdiction over such matters where, as here, the foreign state asserts a defense of sovereign immunity.
The majority holds that Argentina is not entitled to recognition of its claim of sovereign immunity, and thereby to have the case dismissed for lack of jurisdiction, because the Alien Tort Statute, codified at 28 U.S.C. § 1350 (1982), provides that “[t]he district courts shall have original jurisdiction of any civil action by an alien for a tort ... committed in violation of the law of nations____” The majority views this provision as “no more than a jurisdictional grant based on international law,” and rules that the scope of the grant depends on “[t]he evolving standards of international law.” Ante at 425. I disagree.
At the outset, it should be recognized that though substantive international law is part of the common law of the United States, see Filartiga v. Pena-Irala, 630 F.2d 876, 887 (2d Cir.1980), federal court subject-matter jurisdiction is not a matter of common law. Such jurisdiction exists only to the extent that Congress has bestowed it, “in the exact degrees and character which to Congress may seem proper for the public good.” Cary v. Curtis, 44 U.S. (3 How.) 236, 245, 11 L.Ed. 576 (1845) (footnote omitted); Sheldon v. Sill, 49 U.S. (8 How.) 441, 12 L.Ed. 1147 (1850). Thus, even assuming that when Congress passed the Alien Tort Statute in 1789 it intended to allow federal subject-matter jurisdiction to ebb and flow with the vicissitudes of “evolving standards of international law,” a premise of which I am skeptical, I cannot see how we can properly disregard the clearly restrictive provisions of the Foreign *430Sovereign Immunities Act (“FSIA”) passed in 1976, codified at 28 U.S.C. §§ 1330, 1602-1611 (1982), which were “intended to preempt any other State or Federal law (excluding applicable international agreements) for according immunity to foreign sovereigns.” H.R.Rep. No. 1487, 94th Cong., 2d Sess. (“House Report”), reprinted in 1976 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News (“USCCAN”) 6604, 6610.
Section 1602 of the FSIA provides that “[c]laims of foreign states to immunity should henceforth be decided by courts of the United States and of the States in conformity with the principles set forth in this chapter [i.e., 28 U.S.C. §§ 1602-1611].” To me, the plain language of this provision means that the FSIA established the exclusive framework within which the courts of the United States were, from 1976 onward, to rule on foreign states’ claims of sovereign immunity.
If further clarification be required, the legislative history of the FSIA is replete with it. For example, the Report of the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, in addition to stating that the FSIA was intended to preempt any other law with regard to foreign sovereign immunity, stated that the FSIA “sets forth the sole and exclusive standards to be used in resolving questions of sovereign immunity raised by foreign states before Federal and State courts in the United States.” House Report, 1976 USCCAN at 6610 (emphasis added). See also id. at 6604 (FSIA’s purpose was “to define the jurisdiction of United States courts in suits against foreign states [and] the circumstances in which foreign states are immune from suit”); id. (FSIA was designed “to provide when a foreign state is entitled to sovereign immunity”); id. at 6613 (FSIA “sets forth the legal standards under which Federal and State courts would henceforth determine all claims of sovereign immunity raised by foreign states”); id. at 6610 (“setting forth comprehensive rules governing sovereign immunity, the [FSIA] bill prescribes: the jurisdiction of U.S. district courts in cases involving foreign states ...”); id. at 6611 (the bill added 28 U.S.C. § 1330, which “provides a comprehensive jurisdictional scheme in cases involving foreign states”).
It is hardly surprising, therefore, that the United States Supreme Court has noted that the FSIA “contains a comprehensive set of legal standards governing claims of immunity in every civil action against a foreign state.” Verlinden B. V. v. Central Bank of Nigeria, 461 U.S. 480, 488, 103 S.Ct. 1962, 1968, 76 L.Ed.2d 81 (1983) (“Verlinden”).
Looking to the substantive provisions of the FSIA, I see no basis for denying Argentina’s claim of sovereign immunity in the present case. Section 1604 states, in pertinent part, that “a foreign state shall be immune from the jurisdiction of the courts of the United States and of the States except as provided in sections 1605 to 1607 of this chapter.” 28 U.S.C. § 1604. Thus, the FSIA “starts from a premise of immunity and then creates exceptions to the general principle.” House Report, 1976 USCCAN at 6616. “[I]f the claim does not fall within one of the exceptions, federal courts lack subject-matter jurisdiction.” Verlinden, 461 U.S. at 489, 103 S.Ct. at 1969 (footnote omitted). The exceptions created in §§ 1605-1607 center principally on the foreign state’s conduct of commercial activities, plainly not at issue in the present case, and on noncommercial torts committed within the United States {see House Report, 1976 USCCAN at 6619: “the tortious act or omission must occur within the jurisdiction of the United States ...”), a condition also plainly not met here.
Finally, it is evident that in enacting the FSIA, Congress did consider and make provision with respect to claims of alleged violations of international law. Thus, the House Report noted that in only “two categories of cases [would § 1605(a)(3)] deny immunity where ‘rights in property taken in violation of international law are in issue.’ ” House Report, 1976 USCCAN at 6618. The two categories involve cases where the property (or property exchanged for it) either (a) is present in the United States, or (b) is owned or operated by the foreign state claiming immunity. 28 U.S.C. *431§ 1605(a)(3). Neither circumstance is present here.
In sum, I believe it clear from both the statutory language and the legislative history that (1) the FSIA provides the exclusive framework within which the courts of the United States are to resolve a foreign state’s claim of sovereign immunity, and (2) within that framework, recognition of such immunity is to be the rule, subject only to such exceptions as are expressly provided in the statute. Since the FSIA does not set forth any exception denying immunity in a case such as the present one, I would affirm the judgment of the district court dismissing this action.