Page:Budha Ismail Jam, et al. v. International Finance Corporation.pdf/2

2 continuously equivalent. The IOIA is thus like other statutes that use similar or identical language to place two groups on equal footing. See, e. g., Civil Rights Act of 1866, 42 U. S. C. §§1981(a), 1982; Federal Tort Claims Act, 28 U. S. C. §2674. Whatever the ultimate purpose of international organization immunity may be, the immediate purpose of the IOIA immunity provision is expressed in language that Congress typically uses to make one thing continuously equivalent to another. Pp. 6–9.
 * (b) That reading is confirmed by the “reference canon” of statutory interpretation. When a statute refers to a general subject, the statute adopts the law on that subject as it exists whenever a question under the statute arises. In contrast, when a statute refers to another statute by specific title, the referenced statute is adopted as it existed when the referring statute was enacted, without any subsequent amendments. Federal courts have often relied on the reference canon to harmonize a statute with an external body of law that the statute refers to generally. The IOIA’s reference to the immunity enjoyed by foreign governments is to an external body of potentially evolving law, not to a specific provision of another statute. Nor is it a specific reference to a common law concept with a fixed meaning. The phrase “immunity enjoyed by foreign governments” is not a term of art with substantive content but rather a concept that can be given scope and content only by reference to the rules governing foreign sovereign immunity. Pp. 9–11.
 * (c) The D. C. Circuit relied upon Atkinson’s conclusion that the reference canon’s probative force was outweighed by an IOIA provision authorizing the President to alter the immunity of an international organization. But the fact that the President has power to modify otherwise applicable immunity rules is perfectly compatible with the notion that those rules might themselves change over time in light of developments in the law governing foreign sovereign immunity. The Atkinson court also did not consider the opinion of the State Department, whose views in this area ordinarily receive “special attention,” Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela v. Helmerich & Payne Int’l Drilling Co., 581 U. S. ___, ___, and which took the position that immunity rules of the IOIA and the FSIA were linked following the FSIA’s enactment. Pp. 11–13.
 * (d) The IFC contends that interpreting the IOIA immunity provision to grant only restrictive immunity would defeat the purpose of granting immunity in the first place, by subjecting international organizations to suit under the commercial activity exception of the FSIA for most or all of their core activities. This would be particularly true with respect to international development banks, which use the tools of commerce to achieve their objectives. Those concerns are