Jurisdiction Under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act for Nazi War Crimes of Plunder and Expropriation

The United States follows the restrictive view of sovereign immunity which does not automatically immunize a foreign sovereign from suit arising from actions of the sovereign nation or its instrumentalities that are equated with the actions of "private" parties as opposed to "public" actions of a sovereign. Within that definition of "private" conduct are actions involving the taking of property in violation of international law or that amount to commercial dealings, such as buying, selling and lending, that are equivalent to the commercial activity of private parties. The restrictive theory of sovereign immunity has been practiced by a number of sovereign nations since the early part of the twentieth century, but the question exists as to when the United States first officially announced its adherence to the restrictive doctrine. Many courts and scholars have traced the official adoption to what has come to be called the Tate Letter in 1952. In fact, there is a fundamental misconception in the present jurisprudence of certain United States courts that the Tate Letter effected a complete turnabout from system of absolute sovereign immunity to one of restrictive sovereign immunity. This reading simply is unsupported by the cases.