Page:Türkiye Halk Bankasi A.Ş. v. United States.pdf/23

4 First, the Court points to 28 U. S. C. §1330. That provision grants federal courts subject-matter jurisdiction over civil cases against foreign sovereigns when one of the exceptions provided in §§1605–1607 applies. From this grant of civil jurisdiction, the Court reasons, it is a “natural inference” that §1604’s immunity rule must apply only in civil cases. . More naturally, however, it seems to me that any inference from §1330 runs the other way. Section 1330 shows that when Congress wanted to limit its attention to civil suits, it knew how to do so. Section 1604 contains no similar language restricting its scope to civil disputes. Instead, it speaks far more broadly, holding that a foreign state “shall be immune” unless a statutorily specified exception applies. Normally, when Congress includes limiting language in one section of a law but excludes it from another, we understand the difference in language to convey a difference in meaning (expressio unius est exclusio alterius). See, e.g., Bittner v. United States, 598 U. S. 85, 94 (2023); Department of Homeland Security v. MacLean, 574 U. S. 383, 391 (2015). The Court’s interpretation of the FSIA defies this traditional rule of statutory construction. Today, the Court does to §1604 exactly what it recognizes we may not do to §3231—grafting an atextual limitation onto the law’s unambiguous terms (in this instance, adding a “civil”-only restriction).

Second, the Court suggests we should read §1604 as affording immunity only in civil cases because §1605’s exceptions apply only in civil cases. Ante, at 11. But here both the premise and the conclusion seem to me mistaken. If some of §1605’s exceptions apply only in civil cases, others speak more expansively. Take the exception relevant here. The commercial-activities exception found in §1605(a)(2) denies sovereign immunity “in any case … in which the action is based upon a commercial activity carried on in the United States by the foreign state.” (Emphasis added). Nowhere does this exception distinguish between civil and