Opinion of the Court
regard to the identity or status of the defendant.” C. Keitner, Prosecuting Foreign States, 61 Va. J. Int’l L. 221, 242 (2021). Nor will we create a new clear-statement rule requiring Congress to “clearly indicat[e] its intent” to include foreign states and their instrumentalities within §3231’s jurisdictional grant. Brief for Petitioner 11.
Halkbank also points to §3231’s predecessor: a provision of the Judiciary Act of 1789 granting district courts “cognizance of all crimes and offences that shall be cognizable under the authority of the United States.” §9, 1 Stat. 76. In Halkbank’s view, other statutory provisions from that same era—including several that referred to suits against foreign actors—suggest that Congress would have expressly referenced foreign states and their instrumentalities if Congress had intended the 1789 provision to reach those entities. And Halkbank says that we should read §3231 like its predecessor provision. The premise is unsupported. The 1789 provision, like §3231 itself, contains no exception for prosecutions of foreign states or their instrumentalities. And this Court has never suggested that the 1789 provision contains an implicit exception. So the 1789 provision does not help Halkbank’s argument that we should find an implicit exception in §3231.
Finally, Halkbank invokes a separate provision of the 1789 Judiciary Act granting district courts jurisdiction over “all civil causes of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction.” §9, id., at 77. Halkbank asserts that this Court has construed that provision not to confer jurisdiction over foreign state entities. Brief for Petitioner 22, 25 (citing Schooner Exchange v. McFaddon, 7 Cranch 116 (1812)). It follows, Halkbank says, that the 1789 Act’s similar general reference to “all crimes and offences” and its successor §3231’s reference to “all offenses” likewise must be interpreted not to reach foreign states and their instrumentalities.
