In Federal Republic of Germany v. Philipp, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously held that a country's taking of property from its own nationals does not fall within the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) exception for “rights in property taken in violation of international law.” The case involved a claim that Nazi officials coerced a consortium of three art firms owned by Jewish residents of Germany to sell a collection of “medieval relics and devotional objects known as the Welfenschatz” to Prussia for “approximately one-third of their value.” The plaintiffs—descendants of the members of the consortium—argued that the coerced sale constituted genocide, thus bringing their claim within the FSIA exception. The Supreme Court disagreed, holding that “the expropriation exception is best read as referencing the international law of expropriation rather than of human rights” and that international law does not bar a state's taking of the property of its own nationals. The Court declined to reach Germany's alternative argument that international comity required dismissal of the case, and it vacated and remanded a companion case, Republic of Hungary v. Simon, that also posed the comity question.

中文翻译：

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美国最高法院裁定《外国主权豁免法》的征收例外不延伸至国内征收

在德意志联邦共和国诉菲利普，美国最高法院一致认为，一个国家从本国国民那里获取财产不属于《外国主权豁免法》（FSIA）中“违反国际法获取的财产权利”的例外。该案涉及声称纳粹官员强迫德国犹太居民拥有的三个艺术公司财团以“价值约三分之一”的价格向普鲁士出售“中世纪遗物和被称为 Welfenschatz 的虔诚物品”的收藏品。原告（该财团成员的后代）辩称，强制出售构成种族灭绝，因此将他们的主张纳入 FSIA 例外。最高法院不同意，认为“征用例外最好理解为引用国际征用法而不是人权法”，并且国际法并不禁止一国征用其本国国民的财产。法院拒绝达成德国的替代论点，即国际礼让要求驳回该案，并撤销并发回了一个伴随案件，匈牙利共和国诉西蒙案，这也提出了礼让问题。