Teleforum

On December 7, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in two cases involving the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA). In Republic of Hungary v. Simon, the issue is whether a district court may abstain from exercising jurisdiction under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act for reasons of international comity, in a matter in which former Hungarian nationals have sued the nation of Hungary to recover the value of property lost in Hungary during World War II but the plaintiffs made no attempt to exhaust local Hungarian remedies.In Federal Republic of Germany v. Philipp, the issue is whether the “expropriation exception” of the FSIA, which abrogates foreign sovereign immunity when “rights in property taken in violation of international law are in issue,” provides jurisdiction over claims that a foreign sovereign has violated international human rights law when taking property from its own national within its own borders, even though such claims do not implicate the established inter