The U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments on Dec. 3 over whether a group of Holocaust survivors have enough proof to sue Hungary over property seized during the Nazi’s occupation of the country.
The case, which has been ongoing for over a decade, raises questions about the level of immunity foreign countries receive from prosecution within the United States.
Under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976, foreign nations are generally immune with some exceptions—including the one purportedly in this case, which is whether the property involved is connected to commercial activity carried out in the United States. In other words, the exception requires some kind of commercial nexus between the property in question and activity in the United States….