The Act also establishes specific procedures for service of process, attachment of property and execution of judgment in proceedings against a foreign state.

The FSIA provides the exclusive basis and means to bring a civil suit against a foreign sovereign in the United States.

In an early case, The Schooner Exchange v. M'Faddon, 11 U.S. 116 (1812), the Supreme Court held that a private party could not sue the government of France.

In that case, the Supreme Court concluded that a plaintiff cannot sue a foreign sovereign claiming ownership to a warship which had taken refuge in Philadelphia.

[6] Though the Act places the determination of sovereign immunity fully in the hands of the judiciary, many courts have expressed reluctance to find that a defendant is a sovereign if the "state" in question is one that the U.S. government has not officially recognized, even if the defendant may arguably satisfy the definition of statehood under international law.

Once the defendant establishes that it is a foreign state, for the lawsuit to proceed, the plaintiff must prove that one of the Act's exceptions to immunity apply.

The exceptions define both the types of actions as to which immunity does not attach and the territorial nexus required for adjudication in U.S. courts.

The most common exceptions are when the foreign state waives immunity (§ 1605(a)(1)) or agrees to submit a dispute to arbitration (§ 1605(a)(6)), engages in a commercial activity (§ 1605(a)(2)), commits a tort in the United States causing "personal injury or death, or damage to or loss of property" (such as a common traffic collision) (§ 1605(a)(5)), or expropriates property in violation of international law (§ 1605(a)(3)).

In response to the decision of Cicippio-Puleo v. Islamic Republic of Iran that made it difficult to seek private cause of action lawsuits against foreign states even with the Flatow Amendment, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 greatly expanded the terrorism exceptions by moving these as a whole to § 1605A, making foreign states liable for the actions of their officers in cause of action lawsuits, and expanding exceptions for torture, extrajudicial killing, aircraft sabotage, and hostage-taking.

[12] In Argentine Republic v. Amerada Hess Shipping Corp., 488 U.S. 428 (1989), the Supreme Court held that the FSIA provides the "sole basis for obtaining jurisdiction over a foreign state".

The Supreme Court concluded that because the Israeli government did not directly own a majority of the companies shares, the corporations could not be considered foreign states and the FSIA therefore did not apply.

In reaching its conclusion, the court also held that the determination as to whether a defendant qualifies as a foreign state is made at the time the plaintiff files the complaint.

The majority of Federal Courts of Appeals had concluded that individuals are covered under § 1603(b) as "agencies or instrumentalities" of foreign states.

In a unanimous opinion written by Justice Antonin Scalia, the Supreme Court held that Argentina was not entitled to sovereign immunity.

[20] In June 2017, a divided panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit found the FSIA did not prevent the survivors of a Holocaust victim from suing to recover art stolen by Nazi plunderers.

[23][24] FSIA has been invoked by state-owned enterprises as well as their subsidiaries and joint ventures, particularly those owned by the People's Republic of China, accused of industrial espionage and intellectual property theft, as a defense from legal action.

While an earlier case by the hostage was successful in winning compensatory damages in his original suit, the DC Circuit Court ruled that the amended FSIA did not allow for a private cause of action against a foreign state, only against individuals.

This decision filtered through the other circuit courts, which prompted Congress to significantly modify the exemptions related to terrorism in the 2008 NDAA to specifically allow for foreign states to be sued on a private cause of action, retroactively applying this to the other legal cases pending at the time.

[29] Congress responded in 2016 by overriding President Obama's veto of the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA), amending FSIA and allowing the families' suit against Saudi Arabia to proceed in U.S.

[30] Later the same day, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 7–1 ruling (Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor recused herself from both cases without giving a reason for doing so), gave permission for those bondholders to seek information on Argentina's assets in the United States and abroad by issuing subpoenas to banks to trace those assets.

[34] On March 25, 2014, U.S. Representative Steve Chabot introduced the Foreign Cultural Exchange Jurisdictional Immunity Clarification Act (H.R.

[36] However, the changes made by the bill would not provide any immunity to art or objects that were "taken in violation of international law by Nazi Germany between January 30, 1933 and May 8, 1945".

[36] The Congressional Budget Office reported that "under current law, works of art loaned by foreign governments generally are immune to certain decisions made by federal courts and cannot be confiscated if the President, or the President's designee, determines that display of the works is in the national interest.

[40] With the bill becoming a law it added an amended the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act to allow the families of 9/11 to sue the sponsors of "terrorist attacks on U.S. soil", as chairman Goodlatte said on the override vote.