Supreme Court Opinion Interprets International Organizations Immunity Act (IOIA)

Cite as: 586 U.S. (2019) 7 Opinion of the Court day. We think petitioners have the better reading of the statute. A The language of the IOIA more naturally lends itself to petitioners’ reading. In granting international organiza- tions the “same immunity” from suit “as is enjoyed by foreign governments,” the Act seems to continuously link the immunity of international organizations to that of foreign governments, so as to ensure ongoing parity be- tween the two. The statute could otherwise have simply stated that international organizations “shall enjoy abso- lute immunity from suit,” or specified some other fixed level of immunity. Other provisions of the IOTA, such as the one making the property and assets of international organizations “immune from search,” use such noncom- parative language to define immunities in a static way. 22 U.S. C. §288a(c). Or the statute could have specified that it was incorporating the law of foreign sovereign immunity as it existed on a particular date. See, e.g., Energy Policy Act of 1992, 80 U.S. C. §242(c)(1) (certain land patents “shall provide for surface use to the same extent as is provided under applicable law prior to October 24, 1992”). Because the IOIA does neither of those things, we think the “same as” formulation is best understood to make international organization immunity and foreign sover- eign immunity continuously equivalent. That reading finds support in other statutes that use similar or identical language to place two groups on equal footing. In the Civil Rights Act of 1866, for instance, Congress established a rule of equal treatment for newly freed slaves by giving them the “same right” to make and enforce contracts and to buy and sell property “as is en- joyed by white citizens.” 42 U.S. C. §§1981(a), 1982. That provision is of course understood to guarantee continuous equality between white and nonwhite citizens with respect HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_028549