Page "Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act" Paragraph 2

The FSIA is in practice primarily a jurisdictional statute.

For the most part, it indicates what conditions must be met in order for a lawsuit against a foreign state to be instituted, not what conduct by a foreign sovereign is actionable.

If a foreign defendant qualifies as a " Foreign State " under the FSIA, the Act provides that it shall be immune to suit in any U. S. Court — federal or state — unless a statutory exception to immunity applies.

The applicability of an exception to immunity is a matter of subject-matter jurisdiction, meaning if there is no exception to immunity, a court cannot hear the claim and must dismiss the suit.

But technically, the law goes beyond a merely jurisdictional law.

In Verlinden B. V. v. Central Bank of Nigeria, defendant challenged the jurisdiction of the district court, saying that FSIA could not give jurisdiction to the district court since it was not a case " arising under " federal law.

The Supreme Court then found that since any invocation of jurisdiction under the FSIA would necessarily involve analysis of the exceptions to FSIA, FSIA cases by definition arise under federal law.