Page:Türkiye Halk Bankasi A.Ş. v. United States.pdf/13

10 In response to all of that evidence of the FSIA’s exclusively civil scope, Halkbank emphasizes a sentence of the FSIA codified at 28 U. S. C. §1604: “Subject to existing international agreements,” a “foreign state shall be immune from the jurisdiction of the courts of the United States and of the States except as provided in sections 1605 to 1607 of this chapter.” Halkbank contends that §1604 renders it immune not only from civil suits but also from criminal prosecutions.

In complete isolation, §1604 might be amenable to that reading. But this Court has a “duty to construe statutes, not isolated provisions.” Graham County Soil and Water Conservation Dist. v. ''United States ex rel. Wilson'', 559 U. S. 280, 290 (2010) (internal quotation marks omitted). And the Court must read the words Congress enacted “in their context and with a view to their place in the overall statutory scheme.” Davis v. Michigan Dept. of Treasury, 489 U. S. 803, 809 (1989). When we consider §1604 alongside its neighboring FSIA provisions, it becomes overwhelmingly evident that §1604 does not grant immunity to foreign states and their instrumentalities in criminal matters.

Section 1330(a) is the place to start. This Court has explained that “Sections 1604 and 1330(a) work in tandem.” Argentine Republic v. Amerada Hess Shipping Corp., 488 U. S. 428, 434 (1989). Indeed, the public law containing the FSIA begins with §1330 and then later follows with §1604. See 90 Stat. 2891–2892. Recall that §1330(a) confers district-court jurisdiction over “any nonjury civil action against a foreign state” as to “any claim for relief in personam with respect to which the foreign state is not entitled to immunity.” Section 1604 then confers immunity on foreign states unless an enumerated statutory exception applies. See §§1605–1607.

Reading the two provisions together (as we must) and