Reading Room Document

Suspension of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act in Litigation Involving Iranian Assets

It is doubtful that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act can be utilized to override conflicting provisions of a comprehensive and specific federal statute such as the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, particularly where such action is not demonstrably necessary to dealing with the underlying national emergency. The OLC does not provide release dates for its opinions, so the release date listed is the date on which the opinion was authored. The original opinion is available at www.justice.gov/file/22381/download.

July 22, 1980