Exceptional Judgments: Revising the Terrorism Exception to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act

Abstract

In 2016, family members of victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks sued Iran in the Southern District of New York for aiding and abetting al Qaeda in the perpetration of those attacks. They proceeded under the terrorism exception to foreign sovereign immunity, which allows plaintiffs to sue foreign nations appearing on the State Department\u27s list of state sponsors of terrorism. When Iran failed to appear in court, a judge awarded the class a default judgment of $1.8 billion in damages. The massive judgment was consistent with other terrorism­ exception judgments against Iran; to date, plaintiffs have won at least$50 billion in default judgments of this kind