The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (28 USC 1604) generally shields foreign sovereigns from suit in United States courts, but permits suit here if rights in property have been taken in violation of international law. This decision holds that property that a foreign sovereign takes from its own citizens, however wrongfully, does not fall within the exception to foreign sovereign immunity because international law has long recognized that a sovereign’s dealing with its own citizens’ property is a matter solely of domestic, not international, concern.