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Extracted Text (OCR)
Cite as: 586 U.S. (2019) 7
BREYER, J., dissenting
the International Monetary Fund, Art. IX, §8, Dec. 27,
1945, 60 Stat. 1413, T. I. A. S. No. 1501. UNRRA required
members, absent waiver, to accord the organization “the
facilities, privileges, immunities, and exemptions which
they accord to each other, including ... [i]mmunity from
suit and legal process.”. 2 UNRRA, A Compilation of the
Resolutions on Policy: First and Second Sessions of the
UNRRA Council, Res. No. 32, p. 51 (1944). And the UN
Charter required member states to accord the UN “such
privileges and immunities as are necessary for the fulfill-
ment of its purposes.” Charter of the United Nations, Art.
105, 59 Stat. 1058, June 26, 1945, T. 8S. No. 998.
These international organizations expected the United
States to provide them with essentially full immunity.
And at the time the treaties were written, Congress un-
derstood that foreign governments normally enjoyed im-
munity with respect to their commercial, as well as their
noncommercial, activities. Thus, by granting international
organizations “the same immunity from suit” that
foreign governments enjoyed, Congress expected that
international organizations would similarly have immu-
nity in both commercial and noncommercial suits.
More than that, Congress likely recognized that immu-
nity in the commercial area was even more important for
many international organizations than it was for most
foreign governments. Unlike foreign governments, inter-
national organizations are not sovereign entities engaged
in a host of different activities. See R. Higgins, Problems
& Process: International Law and How We Use It 98
(1994) (organizations do not act with “‘sovereign author-
ity,” and “to assimilate them to states ... is not correct’).
Rather, many organizations (including four of the five I
mentioned above) have specific missions that often require
them to engage in what U.S. law may well consider to be
commercial activities. See infra, at 12.
Nonetheless, under the majority’s view, the immunity of
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| Filename | HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_028565.jpg |
| File Size | 0.0 KB |
| OCR Confidence | 85.0% |
| Has Readable Text | Yes |
| Text Length | 2,070 characters |
| Indexed | 2026-02-04T17:04:16.736400 |