Part I Introduction, Article 1

The present Convention applies to the immunity of a State and its property from the jurisdiction of the courts of another State. It is not unusual for the opening operative provision of a multilateral standard-setting treaty to comprise a general statement delineating the treaty’s scope.1 This is the form and ostensible function of Article 1 of the Convention. But like numerous provisions of its sort,2 it says little more than what might otherwise be gleaned from the succeeding provisions of the treaty. Rather than meaningfully circumscribing the application of...