Samantar v. Yousuf
Citation and Court
560 U.S. 305 (2010), Supreme Court of the United States
Facts
Yousuf and other Somali nationals sued Mohamed Ali Samantar, a former Somali prime minister and defense minister living in the United States, for torture and extrajudicial killing committed during his tenure. Samantar argued that the FSIA immunized him as an official of a foreign state.
Issue
Whether the FSIA provides immunity to individual foreign government officials, or whether FSIA immunity extends only to the foreign state itself and its agencies and instrumentalities.
Holding
The FSIA does not govern the immunity of individual foreign government officials; a foreign official is not a “foreign state” within the meaning of the FSIA, and his immunity (if any) is determined by common law principles.
Rule / Doctrine
The FSIA’s immunity provisions apply to foreign states, their agencies, and instrumentalities — not to individual officials acting in their personal capacity. Individual foreign officials’ immunity from suit in U.S. courts is governed by federal common law, which courts must develop on a case-by-case basis.
Significance
Samantar was a landmark ruling that opened U.S. courts to human rights suits against individual foreign officials, since foreign officials could no longer automatically claim FSIA immunity. On remand, the Fourth Circuit held that former officials acting outside their official capacity have no common law immunity either.