Breyer, J., dissenting
The law has not changed significantly since this Court decided Hall, and has not left Hall a relic of an abandoned doctrine. To the contrary, Hall relied on this Court’s precedent in reaching its conclusion, and this Court’s subsequent cases are consistent with Hall. As noted earlier, Hall drew its historical analysis from earlier decisions such as Schooner Exchange, written by Chief Justice Marshall. And our post-Hall decisions regarding the immunity of foreign nations are consistent with those earlier decisions. The Court has recently reaffirmed “Chief Justice Marshall’s observation that foreign sovereign immunity is a matter of grace and comity rather than a constitutional requirement.” Republic of Austria v. Altmann, 541 U. S. 677, 689 (2004). And the Court has reiterated that a nation may decline to grant other nations sovereign immunity in its courts. Verlinden B. V. v. Central Bank of Nigeria, 461 U. S. 480, 486 (1983).
Nor has our understanding of state sovereign immunity evolved to undermine Hall. The Court has decided several state sovereign immunity cases since Hall, but these cases have all involved a State’s immunity in a federal forum or in the State’s own courts. Compare Federal Maritime Comm’n, 535 U. S., at 769 (state immunity in a federal forum); Seminole Tribe of Fla. v. Florida, 517 U. S. 44, 47 (1996) (same); Blatchford v. Native Village of Noatak, 501 U. S. 775, 782 (1991) (same), with Alden v. Maine, 527 U. S. 706, 715 (1999) (state immunity in a State’s “own courts”); Will v. Michigan Dept. of State Police, 491 U. S. 58, 67 (1989) (same). None involved immunity asserted by one State in the courts of another. And our most recent case to address Hall in any detail endorses it. See Alden, 527 U. S., at 739–740 (noting that Hall’s distinction “between a sovereign’s immunity in its own courts and its immunity in the courts of another sovereign” is “consistent with, and even support[s],” modern cases).
The dissenters in Hall feared its “practical implica-
