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Immunity for Cultural Artefacts?
Under the headline Supreme Court Case can Decide Fate of Persepolis Tablets, Ehsan Tabesh analyzed immunity issues relating to disputes over cultural artefacts from Persia presently located in the United States. On the National Iranian American Council website, the May 29, 2009 article draws from analogies in the matter of Republic of Iraq v. Beaty and argues in favor of compensation for victims under FSIA exceptions but questions the exploitation of cultural artefacts to accomplish that purpose. -- Clemens Kochinke, partner, Berliner, Corcoran & Rowe, LLP.
Mon, / Embassy Law Link
Sotomayor and FSIA
Does Supreme Court candidate Sonia Sotomayor hold any special views on sovereign immunity? A per curiam opinion in Raymonde Abrams et al. v. Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer Français, 389 F.3d 61 (2d Cir. 2004), does not shed much light on the issue.
On November 2004, the three-judge panel that included Judge Sotomayor reviewed the case in light of the Supreme Court's Altmann ruling. The higher court had rebuffed an initiative by the Second Circuit to have the lower court review the railroad's immunity under pre-FSIA principles of grace and comity. In the end, the court deferred to the Supreme Court and concluded:
- We are bound by the Supreme Court's decision to defer to comity rather than to approach the situation from the perspective of the injured plaintiffs whose rights have now been altered. Accordingly, the evil actions of the French national railroad's former private masters in knowingly transporting thousands to death camps during World War II are not susceptible to legal redress in federal court today, because defendant has since become a part of the French government and is therefore immunized from suit by the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. Nonetheless, the railroad's conduct at the time lives on in infamy.
Mon, / Embassy Law Link