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DOJ Urges 7th Circuit to Shield Iranian Artifacts From Seizure by Terrorism Victims
Arguments focus on foreign sovereign immunity
The National Law Journal
November 02, 2009
While the United States and Iran heatedly battle over nuclear disarmament on the world stage, they joined forces last week before the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The court heard arguments on Oct. 26 in a case asking whether the Field Museum in Chicago and the University of Chicago must give up artifacts purportedly owned by Iran as compensation for victims of a terrorist bombing allegedly sponsored by Iran. The U.S. government as amicus curiae sided with Iran in an effort to overturn a trial court ruling backing the victims' efforts to seize the artifacts.
"The questions of foreign sovereign immunity at issue in this case are ones of significant interest to the United States," Sharon Swingle, an attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice, said in oral arguments. "They have an impact not just in this case obviously, but in all litigation involving foreign states in U.S. courts and also have a ramification for the treatment of the U.S. in foreign courts abroad."
The case grew out of a 2003 default judgment in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, which found Iran liable for $71 million in damages caused by a 1997 terrorist bombing in Jerusalem. Subsequently, victims filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois seeking to seize the artifacts as payment.
Last week Iran was appealing a 2008 decision by the lower court to reconsider an earlier decision forcing Iran to list its U.S. assets and a 2006 decision that only Iran, and not a third party, can seek to shield its assets from the default judgment. Iran stayed out of the case until the 2006 ruling, but afterward hired Thomas Corcoran Jr. of Washington, D.C.-based Berliner, Corcoran & Rowe. He declined to comment.
"Iran is hiding behind the skirt of the U.S. government," said David Strachman, a partner with McIntyre, Tate & Lynch in Providence, R.I., who represents the victims.
At oral argument, the 7th Circuit panel seemed to favor the arguments of the United States, Iran and the institutions, questioning the lower court's authority to disregard the artifacts' apparent statutory immunity. The artifacts "enjoy presumptive immunity" under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, said Judge Diane Sykes. "It can hardly be interpreted otherwise -- that's what it says."
