Wednesday, December 6, 2017
Can
American victims of terrorism seize and sell ancient Persian
antiquities located at the University of Chicago to satisfy a court
judgment against Iran? That's the question the United States Supreme
Court considered on Monday in the case of Rubin v. Islamic Republic of Iran, a case examining the mechanics of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA).
Foreign
countries generally are immune from lawsuits filed in American courts.
But the FSIA outlines exceptions to this rule, including a terrorism
exception codified at 28 U.S. Code § 1605A. Congress penned this section in 2008 to allow plaintiffs to sue designated state sponsors of terror that caused injury, harm, or death.
To satisfy a civil
judgment won in a 1605A terrorism case, a victorious plaintiff would seek out the foreign nation's assets under § 1610(g)(2), which allows the plaintiff to take control of “[a]ny property
of a foreign state, or agency or instrumentality of a
foreign state….”
But are the assets that can be attached to execute the court judgment limited to those that are "used for a commercial
activity" as specified by § 1610(a)?
Or can the assets be any kind whatsoever, including antiquities housed
at a museum? That was the topic of oral argument in the Rubin case.
Rubin pits American victims of a Jerusalem suicide bombing against the country of Iran, a country designated by the US government as a state-sponsor of terror. Hamas claimed responsibility for the Iranian sponsored attack in 1997, and a federal district court in
Washington, DC in 2003 awarded the plaintiffs $71.5 million in a default judgment,
holding Iran culpable. Read about the lengthy and complex case history here.
Since then, the plaintiffs/petitioners
have tried to secure their award through the attachment process by
taking control of ancient Iranian artifacts located in a variety of American cultural institutions, including the Persepolis and Chogha Mish antiquities collections, excavated during the 1930's and 1960's and housed in the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute through a long-term academic loan...
