Legality in the United States

Main Elements of a Claim Under § 1605A FSIA

Challenges to the legality of the exception

According to research about Legality from the Federal Judicial Center:Defendants have repeatedly argued that the terrorism exception is unconstitutional, and courts have repeatedly rejected the claims. In Wyatt v. Syrian Arab Republic, for example, the court denied the defendant’s claim that the exception “‘exposes’ the final judgments of Article III courts to potential rescission by the president and Congress, thereby violating the separation of powers between the judicial and political branches.”337 Defendants have also argued that the terrorism exception violates international law. The D.C. Circuit has rejected the contention that the exception violates the United Nations Charter by abrogating foreign sovereign immunity for those states designated as sponsors of terrorism and thereby denies such states “equality with others in violation of Article 2.1 of the United Nations Charter.”338 In Gates v. Syrian Arab Republic, the court rejected the defendant government’s claim that the executive branch’s designation of a state as a sponsor of terrorism, which constitutes a critical element of the abrogation of sovereign immunity under the statute, inherently constitutes a non-justiciable “political question” under Baker v. Carr. Note: FSIA is the acronym of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976.

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• Foreign Immunities
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