Fuld v. Palestine Liberation Organization

(Slip Opinion)              OCTOBER TERM, 2024                                       1

                                       Syllabus

         NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is
       being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued.
       The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been
       prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader.
       See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 

.


SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

                                       Syllabus

           FULD ET AL. v. PALESTINE LIBERATION
                   ORGANIZATION ET AL.

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR
                 THE SECOND CIRCUIT

        No. 24–20. Argued April 1, 2025—Decided June 20, 2025*


Before the Court are two separate lawsuits filed in the United States
   District Court for the Southern District of New York under the Anti-
   terrorism Act of 1990 (ATA). The ATA creates a federal civil damages
   action for U. S. nationals injured or killed “by reason of an act of inter-
   national terrorism.” 

(a); see also §2333(d)(2) (permit-
   ting aiding and abetting liability). Respondents (defendants below)
   are the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Palestinian Au-
   thority (PA)—entities responsible for carrying out governmental func-
   tions for parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
      The question presented is whether the exercise of personal jurisdic-
   tion over respondents under the Promoting Security and Justice for
   Victims of Terrorism Act (PSJVTA) violates the Due Process Clause of
   the Fifth Amendment. The PSJVTA names the PA and PLO specifi-
   cally and provides that they “shall be deemed to have consented to per-
   sonal jurisdiction” in ATA cases under two circumstances.
   §§2334(e)(1), (5). The first jurisdictional predicate relates to respond-
   ents’ practice of paying salaries to terrorists in Israeli prisons and to
   families of deceased terrorists—conduct Congress has condemned as
   “an incentive to commit acts of terror.” 

. The second
   ties jurisdiction to respondents’ activities on U. S. soil. §2334(e)(1)(B).
      Petitioners alleged that respondents engaged in conduct triggering
   both jurisdictional predicates. The Second Circuit held that the
——————
   *Together with Waldman et al. v. Palestine Liberation Organization
et al. (see this Court’s Rule 12.4) and No. 24–151, United States v. Pales-
tine Liberation Organization et al., also on certiorari to the same court.
2        FULD v. PALESTINE LIBERATION ORGANIZATION

                                Syllabus

    PSJVTA could not, consistent with constitutional due process, estab-
    lish personal jurisdiction over the PLO or PA.
Held: The PSJVTA’s personal jurisdiction provision does not violate the
 Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause because the statute reasona-
 bly ties the assertion of jurisdiction over the PLO and PA to conduct
 involving the United States and implicating sensitive foreign policy
 matters within the prerogative of the political branches. Pp. 7–21.
    (a) Courts must have personal jurisdiction over parties before re-
 solving cases. Lightfoot v. Cendant Mortgage Corp., 

.
 The Court’s modern personal jurisdiction cases have addressed the
 limitations imposed by the Fourteenth Amendment on the jurisdiction
 of state courts, but the Court has reserved whether the Fifth Amend-
 ment imposes the same restrictions on federal courts. Pp. 7–14.
       (1) The Fourteenth Amendment personal jurisdiction framework
 derives from International Shoe Co. v. Washington, 

, and
 requires that a defendant have sufficient “contacts” with the forum
 State so that maintaining suit is “reasonable” and “does not offend tra-
 ditional notions of fair play and substantial justice.” Ford Motor Co.
 v. Montana Eighth Judicial Dist. Court, 

 (quoting
 International Shoe). Respondents urge application of this familiar
 framework here, noting that the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth and
 Fourteenth Amendments are textually similar. The Court has recog-
 nized, however, that the Amendments “were engrafted upon the Con-
 stitution at different times and in widely different circumstances” and
 thus that “questions may arise in which different constructions and
 applications of their provisions may be proper.” French v. Barber As-
 phalt Paving Co., 

. Pp. 8–9.
    (2) The Fourteenth Amendment’s due process limitations are driven
 by two principles: (1) treating defendants fairly and (2) protecting in-
 terstate federalism, the latter of which ensures “that the States,
 through their courts, do not reach out beyond the limits imposed on
 them by their status as coequal sovereigns in a federal system.” World-
 Wide Volkswagen Corp. v. Woodson, 

. These inter-
 state federalism concerns do not apply to the Fifth Amendment’s limi-
 tations on the power of the Federal Government and the corollary au-
 thority of the federal courts. The Constitution empowers the Federal
 Government—and it alone—with both nationwide and extraterritorial
 authority. Because the State and Federal Governments occupy dra-
 matically different sovereign spheres, the Court declines to import the
 Fourteenth Amendment minimum contacts standard into the Fifth
 Amendment. Rather, the Fifth Amendment permits a more flexible
 jurisdictional inquiry commensurate with the Federal Government’s
 broader sovereign authority. Pp. 9–12.
       (3) While acknowledging that interstate federalism concerns are
                   Cite as: 

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                              Syllabus

irrelevant under the Fifth Amendment, respondents argue that fair-
ness and individual liberty considerations justify applying equivalent
jurisdictional limitations. But the Court has observed in the Four-
teenth Amendment context that interstate federalism concerns may be
decisive. See World-Wide Volkswagen Corp., 

. Accord-
ingly, while these “general fairness considerations” are relevant to the
Fourteenth Amendment inquiry, they do not compel applying equiva-
lent jurisdictional limits here. Pp. 13–14.
   (b) The Court does not delineate the full scope of the Federal Gov-
ernment’s power to hale foreign defendants into U. S. courts. What-
ever the Fifth Amendment’s outer limits, the PSJVTA—which ties fed-
eral jurisdiction to conduct closely related to the United States that
implicates important foreign policy concerns—does not transgress
them. Pp. 14–21.
      (1) The Federal Government’s foreign affairs power must be exer-
cised within constitutional bounds. See American Ins. Assn. v Gara-
mendi, 

, 416–417, n. 9. The Court accordingly reviews
even legislation implicating foreign policy issues to ensure that it has
not crossed a constitutional line. See Holder v. Humanitarian Law
Project, 

. Here, in passing and signing the PSJVTA into
law, Congress and the President made a considered judgment to sub-
ject the PLO and PA to liability in U. S. courts as part of a comprehen-
sive legal response to deterring international terrorism that threatens
the life and limb of American citizens. The PSJVTA reflects the polit-
ical branches’ balanced judgment of competing concerns over national
security, foreign affairs, and fairness to these defendants—entities
with which the Federal Government has complex, longstanding rela-
tionships in which concerns over terrorism have been paramount.
   The PSJVTA is suitably limited to these ends. It does not broadly
expose respondents to myriad civil actions, but applies only to ATA
cases. The Federal Government may craft a narrow jurisdictional pro-
vision ensuring Americans injured or killed by acts of terror have an
adequate forum in which to vindicate their right to ATA compensation.
   The statute’s jurisdictional predicates are likewise narrow. The pay-
ments prong furthers the Federal Government’s longstanding policy of
deterring payments that promote acts of overseas terror that may po-
tentially injure or kill Americans. The activities prong, in predicating
jurisdiction on respondents’ U. S. conduct, is a continuation of the Fed-
eral Government’s longstanding, nuanced policy governing the opera-
tions that respondents may conduct on U. S. soil. The PSJVTA thus
ties jurisdiction to specific, narrow conduct directly implicating sensi-
tive and ongoing concerns in respondents’ relationships with the
United States. And the statute’s targeted applicability to only two
enumerated nonsovereign foreign entities put the PLO and PA on full
4         FULD v. PALESTINE LIBERATION ORGANIZATION

                                  Syllabus

    notice that they could be subject to personal jurisdiction in ATA suits
    in U. S. courts. 

(e)(1), (5). Pp. 14–19.
          (2) Because the Court holds that the PSJVTA ties jurisdiction to
    predicate conduct bearing a meaningful relationship to the United
    States, the Court need not consider whether the statute comports with
    cases addressing when defendants may be deemed to have consented
    to jurisdiction. See, e.g., Mallory v. Norfolk Southern R. Co., 

. P. 19.
       (c) Although the Fifth Amendment does not incorporate the Four-
    teenth Amendment minimum contacts standard, the Fifth Amend-
    ment might still require a “reasonableness” inquiry. Asahi Metal In-
    dustry Co. v. Superior Court of Cal., Solano Cty., 

.
    Even assuming such analysis is constitutionally required, the PSJVTA
    easily satisfies the factors previously applied to determine “the reason-
    ableness of the exercise of jurisdiction” under the Fourteenth Amend-
    ment. 

. Reasonableness depends on evaluating “the burden
    on the defendant, the interests of the forum State, and the plaintiff's
    interest in obtaining relief.” 

 The PSJVTA satisfies all three. The
    Federal Government has an exceedingly compelling interest in provid-
    ing a forum for American victims to hold accountable the perpetrators
    of acts of international terror that harm U. S. citizens. American
    plaintiffs have a strong interest in seeking justice through ATA dam-
    ages actions in U. S. courts. Finally, respondents do not assert lack of
    notice or contend that litigating in the United States forces them to
    bear an unfair or unmanageable burden. Accordingly, it cannot be said
    that the PSJVTA’s jurisdictional rule makes litigation so “gravely dif-
    ficult and inconvenient,” Burger King Corp. v. Rudzewicz, 

, as to render the exercise of personal jurisdiction “unreason-
    able and unfair,” Asahi, 

. Pp. 19–21.

 (second judgment) and 74 (first judgment), reversed and
  remanded.

   ROBERTS, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ALITO, SO-
TOMAYOR,    KAGAN, KAVANAUGH, BARRETT, and JACKSON, JJ., joined.
THOMAS, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, which GORSUCH,
J., joined as to Part II.
                        Cite as: 

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                             Opinion of the Court

     NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the
     United States Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of
     Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D. C. 20543,
     [email protected], of any typographical or other formal errors.


SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
                                   _________________

                            Nos. 24–20 and 24–151
                                   _________________


       MIRIAM FULD, ET AL., PETITIONERS
24–20                 v.
  PALESTINE LIBERATION ORGANIZATION, ET AL.

      EVA WALDMAN, ET AL., PETITIONERS
                     v.
  PALESTINE LIBERATION ORGANIZATION, ET AL.

         UNITED STATES, PETITIONER
24–151               v.
  PALESTINE LIBERATION ORGANIZATION, ET AL.
ON WRITS OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF
           APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT
                                 [June 20, 2025]

   CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS delivered the opinion of the
Court.
   Congress passed the Promoting Security and Justice for
Victims of Terrorism Act in 2019. The Act deems the Pal-
estine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Author-
ity—if they engage in specified conduct—to have consented
to personal jurisdiction in civil suits brought in the United
States under the Antiterrorism Act. The question pre-
sented is whether this personal jurisdiction provision vio-
lates the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.
2      FULD v. PALESTINE LIBERATION ORGANIZATION

                      Opinion of the Court

                                I
                                A
   Before us are two separate lawsuits against respondents,
the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Palestin-
ian Authority (PA)—entities responsible for carrying out,
respectively, foreign and domestic governmental functions
for parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. See 

 (CA2 2023). Although the United States does not
recognize respondents as sovereign, other nations do, and
respondents maintain consular facilities and diplomatic
missions around the world. The PLO also maintains an of-
fice in New York City as part of its mission to the United
Nations, in which the PLO participates as a “Permanent
Observer.” 

   Motivated by concerns over respondents’ support for
overseas terrorism, Congress has for decades restricted
their activities on U. S. soil. For example, in the Anti-Ter-
rorism Act of 1987, 

, 

 et seq.,
Congress found that the PLO and its constituent groups
“ha[d] taken credit for, and been implicated in, the murders
of dozens of American citizens abroad.” §5201(a)(4). Con-
gress accordingly limited the PLO’s operations in the
United States. §§5201(b), 5202. Congress has similarly re-
stricted the PA’s ability to conduct activities on U. S. soil.
See Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act of 2006, §7, 

, 22 U. S. C. §2378b. It has also placed limits on the
distribution of foreign aid and other assistance to respond-
ents. See Taylor Force Act, §1004(a), 

, 22
U. S. C. §2378c–1(a).
   As part of its comprehensive legal response to interna-
tional terrorism, Congress also enacted the Antiterrorism
Act of 1990 (ATA), §132, 104 Stat. 2250–2252, 

 et seq.; see H. R. Rep. No. 102–1040, p. 5 (1992). The
ATA creates a civil treble damages cause of action for any
U. S. national injured or killed “by reason of an act of inter-
                     Cite as: 

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                          Opinion of the Court

national terrorism.” §2333(a); see also §2333(d)(2) (permit-
ting aiding and abetting liability). The ATA provides for
nationwide service of process and venue and exclusive ju-
risdiction in federal courts. §§2334(a), 2338.
                                B
   The ATA supplied the underlying cause of action in both
lawsuits now before us. The first was brought by a group of
American citizens (and their estates and survivors) injured
in terror attacks in Israel. It was filed in 2004 in the United
States District Court for the Southern District of New York.
See Sokolow v. Palestine Liberation Org., No. 1:04–cv–397,
1 App. 1–51.1 The case went to trial, and in 2015 a jury
found respondents liable under the ATA. The jury awarded
the plaintiffs $218.5 million in damages, which was trebled
to $655.5 million.
   That victory was short lived. The next year, the Second
Circuit vacated the District Court’s judgment and directed
dismissal for lack of personal jurisdiction. Respondents
were not subject to jurisdiction, the Court of Appeals held,
because the complained of “killings and related acts of ter-
rorism . . . were unconnected to the forum and were not ex-
pressly aimed at the United States.” 

(2016); accord, Livnat v. Palestinian Auth., 

,
57–58 (CADC 2017).
   Congress responded by enacting the Anti-Terrorism Clar-
ification Act of 2018 (ATCA), 

. The ATCA
added a new provision to the ATA, which deemed defend-
ants “to have consented to personal jurisdiction” if they en-
gaged in certain activities in the United States or accepted
particular forms of U. S. foreign assistance. See §4(a), id.,
——————
  1 This case was recaptioned Waldman v. Palestine Liberation Organi-

zation in the Second Circuit. 

 (2023) (per curiam).
Like the parties, we refer to the case as Sokolow, which is how it was
captioned in the District Court. See Brief for Petitioner Miriam Fuld
et al. 9–11; Brief for United States 2, n. 2; Brief for Respondents 5–9.
4      FULD v. PALESTINE LIBERATION ORGANIZATION

                      Opinion of the Court

at 3184. The Sokolow plaintiffs moved for the Second Cir-
cuit to recall its mandate in light of the ATCA. The Court
of Appeals declined to do so, 

, 574–576 (2019),
and the plaintiffs filed a petition for a writ of certiorari in
this Court, see Pet. for Cert. in Sokolow v. Palestine Liber-
ation Org., O. T. 2019, No. 19–764.
                               C
   While the Sokolow certiorari petition was pending, the
landscape changed again—this time, through Congress’s
enactment in December 2019 of the law at issue here: the
Promoting Security and Justice for Victims of Terrorism
Act (PSJVTA), §903, 133 Stat. 3082–3085, 

, 2334. Section 903(c) of the PSJVTA, subtitled “Ju-
risdictional Amendments to Facilitate Resolution of Terror-
ism-Related Claims of Nationals of the United States,” su-
perseded the ATCA’s jurisdictional provisions. 

. Under the PSJVTA’s now operative provision, which
refers to the PA and PLO by name, respondents “shall be
deemed to have consented to personal jurisdiction” in ATA
cases in two specified circumstances. §§2334(e)(1), (5).
   The first jurisdictional predicate relates to respondents’
practice “of paying salaries to terrorists serving in Israeli
prisons, as well as to the families of deceased terrorists”—
conduct which Congress has condemned as “an incentive to
commit acts of terror.” Taylor Force Act, §1002(1), 

. Jurisdiction is triggered under this prong if, after a
specified time, respondents “mak[e] any payment, directly
or indirectly”:
      “(i) to any payee designated by any individual who,
    after being fairly tried or pleading guilty, has been im-
    prisoned for committing any act of terrorism that in-
    jured or killed a national of the United States, if such
    payment is made by reason of such imprisonment; or
      “(ii) to any family member of any individual, follow-
    ing such individual’s death while committing an act of
                  Cite as: 

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                      Opinion of the Court

    terrorism that injured or killed a national of the United
    States, if such payment is made by reason of the death
    of such individual.” §2334(e)(1)(A).
   The PSJVTA’s second predicate ties jurisdiction to re-
spondents’ activities on U. S. soil. The PLO and PA are
deemed to have consented to personal jurisdiction if, after
a specified period, either “continues to maintain,” “estab-
lishes[,] or procures any office, headquarters, premises, or
other facilities or establishments in the United States,” or
otherwise “conducts any activity while physically present in
the United States.” §2334(e)(1)(B). The statute expressly
excludes respondents’ United Nations mission and its an-
cillary activities. §2334(e)(3).
                              D
   Given this legislative development, we granted the
Sokolow plaintiffs’ pending certiorari petition, vacated the
judgment of the Second Circuit, and remanded for “further
consideration in light of the [PSJVTA].” 

(2020). A few days after our remand, a different set of plain-
tiffs—the family of an American citizen stabbed in a 2018
attack in the West Bank—sued respondents under the ATA
in the Southern District of New York, and invoked the
PSJVTA as the basis for personal jurisdiction. See Fuld v.
Palestine Liberation Org., No. 1:20–cv–3374, 2 App. 383–
439.
   Both sets of plaintiffs—the Sokolow plaintiffs back in
District Court and the Fuld plaintiffs there for the first
time—alleged that respondents had engaged in conduct suf-
ficient to trigger both PSJVTA predicates. In response, re-
spondents contended that the PSJVTA violates the Due
Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. The United States
intervened in both cases to defend the law’s constitutional-
ity. See 

(a); Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 5.1(c).
   Both District Courts found evidence that respondents
6      FULD v. PALESTINE LIBERATION ORGANIZATION

                      Opinion of the Court

had engaged in conduct sufficient to satisfy at least the pay-
ments prong. Sokolow v. Palestine Liberation Org., 

, 325 (SDNY 2022); 

,
583, and n. 3 (SDNY 2022). But both courts agreed with
respondents that “an exercise of jurisdiction under either of
the PSJVTA’s factual predicates is unconstitutional.” 607
F. Supp. 3d, at 326; see also 578 F. Supp. 3d, at 595–596.
   The Second Circuit consolidated the cases and affirmed.
Following Circuit precedent “holding that the due process
analyses under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments par-
allel one another in civil cases,” the panel explained that
the statute’s factual predicates involve conduct insufficient
to establish personal jurisdiction. 82 F. 4th, at 91, 102. And
so, it reasoned, “those same activities” could not “reasona-
bly be interpreted” under the deemed consent language as
signaling respondents’ intent to submit to “the authority of ”
U. S. courts. Id., at 91; see also id., at 102–104. The court
therefore held that the PSJVTA could not, consistent with
“the requirements of constitutional due process,” “establish
personal jurisdiction over the PLO or the PA.” Id., at 80; 

 (2023) (per curiam).
   The Second Circuit denied rehearing en banc. Judge
Menashi, joined by two other judges in full and one judge in
part, dissented. In his view, the panel had construed too
narrowly the circumstances under which a foreign entity
may be deemed to have consented to personal jurisdiction.
See 

, 204–205 (2024). The dissent also disa-
greed that “the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment
imposes the same limits on the jurisdiction of the federal
courts that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment imposes on the jurisdiction of the state courts.”

. In the dissent’s view, “the federal government
is not similarly situated to the state governments in the ex-
traterritorial reach of its courts,” and so “the due process
standards limiting the exercise of personal jurisdiction are
not the same.” 

                  Cite as: 

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                      Opinion of the Court

  We granted certiorari to decide whether the PSJVTA vi-
olates the Fifth Amendment. 

 (2024).
                               II
   We have long held that a “court must have . . . power over
the parties before it (personal jurisdiction) before it can re-
solve a case.” Lightfoot v. Cendant Mortgage Corp., 

 (2017). This requirement, we have stated,
“flows . . . from the Due Process Clause.” Insurance Corp.
of Ireland v. Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinee, 

 (1982). Our modern personal jurisdiction cases,
however, have grappled only with the limitations imposed
by the Fourteenth Amendment on state courts. See 4 C.
Wright, A. Miller, & A. Steinman, Federal Practice and Pro-
cedure §1068.1, pp. 696–699 (4th ed. 2015). We have ex-
pressly reserved “the question whether the Fifth Amend-
ment imposes the same restrictions on the exercise of
personal jurisdiction by a federal court.” Bristol-Myers
Squibb Co. v. Superior Court of Cal., San Francisco Cty.,

 (2017) (emphasis added); see also Omni
Capital Int’l, Ltd. v. Rudolf Wolff & Co., 

 (1987).
   To be sure, this is not our first personal jurisdiction case
to have originated in federal court. But under the Federal
Rules of Civil Procedure, “[f]ederal courts ordinarily follow
state law in determining the bounds of their jurisdiction
over persons.” Daimler AG v. Bauman, 

(2014) (citing Rule 4(k)(1)(A)) (applying Fourteenth Amend-
ment analysis to evaluate personal jurisdiction in Federal
District Court). Any difference between the Fifth and Four-
teenth Amendments is therefore implicated in only a subset
of federal cases, such as those in which personal jurisdiction
is—as in the PSJVTA—“authorized by a federal statute.”
Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 4(k)(1)(C). Because we must determine
in these cases the constitutionality of such a statute, the
question we have long reserved is now squarely before us.
8      FULD v. PALESTINE LIBERATION ORGANIZATION

                      Opinion of the Court

                               A
   Our current framework for assessing personal jurisdic-
tion under the Fourteenth Amendment derives from Inter-
national Shoe Co. v. Washington, 

 (1945). Un-
der that framework, “a tribunal’s authority” over a
defendant “depends on the defendant’s having such ‘con-
tacts’ with the forum State that ‘the maintenance of the
suit’ is ‘reasonable, in the context of our federal system of
government,’ and ‘does not offend traditional notions of fair
play and substantial justice.’ ” Ford Motor Co. v. Montana
Eighth Judicial Dist. Court, 

 (2021) (quot-
ing International Shoe, 326 U. S., at 316–317).
   Since International Shoe, “our decisions have recognized
two types of personal jurisdiction: ‘general’ . . . and ‘spe-
cific.’ ” Bristol-Myers Squibb, 

. General ju-
risdiction lies in the forum where the defendant is domiciled
or “fairly regarded as at home.” 

 (quoting Goodyear
Dunlop Tires Operations, S. A. v. Brown, 

(2011)). A court in such a forum “may hear any claim
against that defendant, even if all the incidents underlying
the claim occurred in a different State.” Bristol-Myers
Squibb, 

. No one contends, however, that
the PLO and PA are subject to general jurisdiction in the
United States.
   “Specific jurisdiction is different: It covers defendants
less intimately connected with a State, but only as to a nar-
rower class of claims.” Ford Motor Co., 

. A
state court may exercise specific jurisdiction “over a nonres-
ident defendant only so long as there exist ‘minimum con-
tacts’ between the defendant and the forum State.” World-
Wide Volkswagen Corp. v. Woodson, 

(1980) (quoting International Shoe, 

). The
requisite contacts “for this kind of jurisdiction often go by
the name ‘purposeful availment.’ ” Ford Motor Co., 

. “The defendant, we have said, must take
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                         Opinion of the Court

‘some act by which it purposefully avails itself of the privi-
lege of conducting activities within the forum State.’ ” 

(quoting Hanson v. Denckla, 

 (1958); al-
teration omitted). And the plaintiff ’s claims, we have held,
must “deriv[e] from, or [be] connected with,” those activi-
ties. Goodyear, 

.
   Respondents urge us to apply this familiar Fourteenth
Amendment framework here. See Brief for Respondents
49–50. They point out that the Due Process Clauses of the
Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments are, textually speaking,
nearly identical. Compare Amdt. 5 (“No person shall . . . be
deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of
law.”) with Amdt. 14, §1 (“No State shall . . . deprive any
person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of
law.”).2
   We have long recognized, however, that “[w]hile the lan-
guage of [the two] amendments is the same,” “they were en-
grafted upon the Constitution at different times and in
widely different circumstances of our national life.” French
v. Barber Asphalt Paving Co., 

 (1901). We
have therefore anticipated that “questions may arise in
which different constructions and applications of their pro-
visions may be proper.” 

                               B
  We have repeatedly described the due process limitations
imposed by the Fourteenth Amendment as driven by two
principles: (1) “treating defendants fairly,” and (2) “protect-
ing ‘interstate federalism.’ ” Ford Motor Co., 

 (quoting World-Wide Volkswagen, 

);
see also, e.g., Bristol-Myers Squibb, 

. We
have emphasized, therefore, “that the reasonableness of as-
serting jurisdiction over the defendant must be assessed ‘in
——————
  2 Neither the private petitioners nor the United States asks us to re-

visit the Second Circuit’s determination that respondents, as nonsover-
eign entities, have due process rights. See 

 (2016).
10     FULD v. PALESTINE LIBERATION ORGANIZATION

                      Opinion of the Court

the context of our federal system of government,’ and
stressed that the Due Process Clause ensures not only fair-
ness, but also the ‘orderly administration of the laws.’ ”
World-Wide Volkswagen, 444 U. S., at 293–294 (quoting In-
ternational Shoe, 

; citation omitted).
The requirement that a defendant have minimum contacts
with the forum, we have said, “can be seen to perform
[these] two related, but distinguishable, functions.” World-
Wide Volkswagen, 444 U. S., at 291–292.
   This framing follows from “the principles of interstate
federalism embodied in the Constitution,” id., at 293, and
the related protections of due process which ensure that in-
dividuals are “subject only to lawful power,” J. McIntyre
Machinery, Ltd. v. Nicastro, 

 (2011) (plu-
rality opinion). State sovereign authority is bounded by the
States’ respective borders. We explained as much nearly
one hundred years ago in Burnet v. Brooks, 

 (1933): “The application to the States of the rule of due
process . . . comes from the fact that their spheres of activity
are enforced and protected by the Constitution.” “Due pro-
cess requires that the limits of jurisdiction shall not be
transgressed,” and in our constitutional system, “[t]he lim-
its of State power are defined in view of the relation of the
States to each other in the Federal Union.” 

.
   Our Fourteenth Amendment personal jurisdiction stand-
ards emerged in that vein, as “a consequence of territorial
limitations on the power of the respective States.” Hanson,

. Those standards—and in particular, the
requirement that a defendant have minimum contacts with
the forum State—functionally “ensure that the States,
through their courts, do not reach out beyond the limits im-
posed on them by their status as coequal sovereigns in a
federal system.” World-Wide Volkswagen, 

.
   These interstate federalism concerns, however, do not ap-
ply to limitations under the Fifth Amendment upon the
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                      Opinion of the Court

power of the Federal Government and the corollary author-
ity of the federal courts. The Constitution confers upon the
Federal Government—and it alone—both nationwide and
extraterritorial authority. While “the limitations of the
Constitution are barriers bordering the States and prevent-
ing them from transcending the limits of their authority,”
there is no equivalent “ground for constructing an imagi-
nary constitutional barrier around the exterior confines of
the United States for the purpose of shutting that govern-
ment off from the exertion of powers which inherently be-
long to it by virtue of its sovereignty.” United States v. Ben-
nett, 

 (1914).
   We observed in Burnet, for example, that the geograph-
ical limitations on “the taxing power of the States under the
due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment” do not
equivalently “restrict the taxing power of the Federal Gov-
ernment,” because “[t]he Constitution creates no such rela-
tion between the United States and foreign countries as it
creates between the States themselves.” 288 U. S., at 400–
401, 403, 405; accord, Cook v. Tait, 

, 55–56
(1924). That same year, we recognized—in light of Con-
gress’s “constitutional authority ‘to regulate commerce with
foreign nations’ ”—the Federal Government’s exclusive au-
thority “[i]n international relations and with respect to for-
eign intercourse and trade.” Board of Trustees of Univ. of
Ill. v. United States, 

 (1933) (quoting Art.
I, §8, cl. 3) (rejecting contention that state instrumentality
was immune from paying import duties).
   Of particular salience here, we have also recognized the
National Government’s interest in holding accountable
those who perpetrate an “act of violence against” U. S. na-
tionals—who, even when physically outside our borders, re-
main “under the particular protection” of American law.
Gamble v. United States, 

 (2019). So too
the National Government’s corresponding authority to
make “the killing of an American abroad” punishable as a
12     FULD v. PALESTINE LIBERATION ORGANIZATION

                      Opinion of the Court

federal offense “that can be prosecuted in [U. S.] courts.”

 (citing 

(a)(1)); see also Art. I, §8, cl.
10 (giving Congress power to “define and punish” certain
extraterritorial offenses). Indeed, that background context
informed the enactment of the ATA, which legislators
hoped would “ope[n] the courthouse door to victims of inter-
national terrorism” by “extend[ing] the same jurisdictional
structure that undergirds the reach of American criminal
law to the civil remedies that it defines.” S. Rep. No. 102–
342, p. 45 (1992).
   Given the distinct territorial reach of the Federal Govern-
ment’s sovereign power, it makes little sense to mechani-
cally import the limitations that the Fourteenth Amend-
ment imposes on the authority of state courts, which is
restricted consonant with the States’ more constrained sov-
ereign spheres. See Burnet, 

. Indeed, when
evaluating state court jurisdiction under the Fourteenth
Amendment, we have emphasized that “personal jurisdic-
tion requires” a “sovereign-by-sovereign . . . analysis.”
Nicastro, 

 (plurality opinion). And we have
acknowledged the straightforward premise that “the
United States is a distinct sovereign.” 

 That distinc-
tion makes a difference.
   Accordingly, to the extent that the Due Process Clauses
of the Fourteenth and Fifth Amendments both implicitly
limit the jurisdictional authority of courts, they do so with
respect to the distinct sovereignties from which those courts
derive their authority. Because the State and Federal Gov-
ernments occupy categorically different sovereign spheres,
we decline to import the Fourteenth Amendment minimum
contacts standard into the Fifth Amendment. Rather, the
Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment necessarily
permits a more flexible jurisdictional inquiry commensu-
rate with the Federal Government’s broader sovereign au-
thority.
                 Cite as: 

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                     Opinion of the Court

                               C
   In the cases before us the Second Circuit, relying on Cir-
cuit precedent, declined to apply a different jurisdictional
test from the one required under the Fourteenth Amend-
ment. See 82 F. 4th, at 102–105. The PLO and PA likewise
urge us not to diverge from Fourteenth Amendment princi-
ples. They acknowledge that concerns of interstate federal-
ism cease to be relevant in the Fifth Amendment context,
but nonetheless take the view that related considerations
of fairness and individual liberty justify the application of
equivalent jurisdictional limitations here.
   To be sure, we have occasionally framed the personal ju-
risdiction limits on state courts as “represent[ing] a re-
striction on judicial power not as a matter of sovereignty,
but as a matter of individual liberty,” protecting a defend-
ant from the burden of litigating in an inconvenient forum
with which he has little connection. Omni, 

(quoting Insurance Corp. of Ireland, 

).
These statements are best understood, however, to reflect
the principle that “due process protects the individual’s
right to be subject only to lawful power.” Nicastro, 

 (plurality opinion). And “whether a judicial
judgment is lawful depends on whether the sovereign has
authority to render it.” 

   Interstate federalism concerns accordingly may be deci-
sive for Fourteenth Amendment purposes. In World-Wide
Volkswagen Corp., for instance, we stressed that “[e]ven if
the defendant would suffer minimal or no inconvenience
from being forced to litigate before the tribunals of another
State . . . , the Due Process Clause, acting as an instrument
of interstate federalism, may sometimes act to divest the
State of its power to render a valid judgment.” 

. We echoed the point in Bristol-Myers Squibb. After
acknowledging that “the ‘primary concern’ is ‘the burden on
the defendant,’ ” we emphasized that “[a]ssessing this bur-
den” requires not only “consider[ing] the practical problems
14     FULD v. PALESTINE LIBERATION ORGANIZATION

                      Opinion of the Court

resulting from litigating in the forum,” but also “the more
abstract matter of submitting to the coercive power of a
State that may have little legitimate interest in the claims
in question.” 

. And so we clarified again:
“[A]t times, this federalism interest may be decisive.” 

While certainly germane to the Fourteenth Amendment in-
quiry, the “general fairness considerations” invoked by re-
spondents do not compel the application of equivalent juris-
dictional limits here. Nicastro, 564 U. S., at 883–884
(plurality opinion) (citing World-Wide Volkswagen, 

).
                             III
   Although we hold today that the Fifth Amendment does
not impose the same jurisdictional limitations as the Four-
teenth, we do not purport to delineate the outer bounds of
the Federal Government’s power, consistent with due pro-
cess, to hale foreign defendants into U. S. courts. On this
score, the private petitioners argue that the Fifth Amend-
ment imposes no territorial limits on personal jurisdiction.
See Brief for Petitioner Miriam Fuld et al. 20. The United
States, however, asks us not to embrace—at least for now—
this maximalist theory of federal jurisdiction. The Govern-
ment cautions that the theory is “not easily confirmed as a
historical matter,” and points to “strong policy reasons . . .
against reaching” it, including the possibility that other na-
tions might respond in kind by haling Americans into their
courts under expansive theories of jurisdiction. Brief for
United States 47–48.
   We agree with the Government that we need not address
the private petitioners’ unbounded jurisdictional theory to-
day. The PSJVTA ties federal jurisdiction to conduct
closely related to the United States that implicates im-
portant foreign policy concerns. We are wary to reach fur-
ther and bless more attenuated assertions of jurisdiction
when the cases before us do not require doing so. Cf. Asahi
                  Cite as: 

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                      Opinion of the Court

Metal Industry Co. v. Superior Court of Cal., Solano Cty.,

 (1987) (“Great care and reserve should
be exercised when extending our notions of personal juris-
diction into the international field.” (quoting United States
v. First Nat. City Bank, 

 (1965) (Harlan,
J., dissenting))). It is sufficient unto the day that, whatever
the Fifth Amendment’s outer limits on the territorial juris-
diction of federal courts, the PSJVTA does not transgress
them.
                              A
                              1
   The Federal Government’s “ ‘inherent’ foreign affairs
power,” “like every other governmental power, must be ex-
ercised in subordination to the applicable provisions of the
Constitution.” American Ins. Assn. v Garamendi, 

, 416–417, n. 9 (2003) (quoting United States v. Curtiss-
Wright Export Corp., 

 (1936)). We accord-
ingly review even legislation implicating foreign policy is-
sues to ensure that it has not crossed a constitutional line.
See Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, 

(2010). We will not, however, cavalierly interfere with the
political branches’ “delicate judgments” on matters of for-
eign affairs. Jesner v. Arab Bank, PLC, 

(2018) (plurality opinion); see Bank Markazi v. Peterson,

 (2016) (emphasizing that action in this
realm “warrants respectful review by courts”). And when
the Executive and Congress have spoken with one voice in
that sphere, their coordinate action is “supported by the
strongest of presumptions and the widest latitude of judi-
cial interpretation, and the burden of persuasion would rest
heavily upon any who might attack it.” Youngstown Sheet
& Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 

 (1952) (Jackson,
J., concurring).
   In respectively passing and signing the PSJVTA into law,
Congress and the President made a considered judgment to
16     FULD v. PALESTINE LIBERATION ORGANIZATION

                      Opinion of the Court

subject the PLO and PA to liability in U. S. courts as part
of a comprehensive legal response to “halt, deter, and dis-
rupt” acts of international terrorism that threaten the life
and limb of American citizens. H. R. Rep. No. 115–858, pp.
7–8 (2018). Combating terrorism is, we have recognized,
“an urgent objective of the highest order.” Humanitarian
Law Project, 

. The Federal Government, re-
latedly, has a strong interest in permitting American vic-
tims of international terror to pursue justice in domestic
courts. Cf. Gamble, 

 (recognizing interest
of United States in prosecuting “the killing of an American
abroad . . . in [U. S.] courts”). Indeed, a “key premise” of the
PSJVTA was Congress’s desire to facilitate “the adjudica-
tion of ATA claims like the plaintiffs’,” which it views as
“vital” to “furthering the safety of Americans abroad, facili-
tating compensation for injuries or death, and deterring in-
ternational terrorism.” Brief for United States 29, 36 (cit-
ing Brief for Sen. Charles Grassley et al. as Amici Curiae
on Pet. for Cert. 18–19; H. R. Rep. No. 115–858, at 3–4, 7–
8); see also §903(d)(1)(A), 

 (providing that the
PSVJTA “should be liberally construed to carry out the pur-
poses of Congress to provide relief for victims of terrorism”).
The PSJVTA thus reflects the political branches’ balanced
judgment of competing concerns over “sensitive and
weighty interests of national security and foreign affairs”
and fairness to these particular defendants—entities with
which the Federal Government has complex, longstanding
relationships in which concerns over terrorism have long
been at the fore. Humanitarian Law Project, 561 U. S., at
33–34; see Brief for United States 38, 43.
   The PSJVTA is also suitably limited to those ends. It
does not put respondents at broad risk of being haled into
U. S. courts for myriad civil liability actions. Rather, the
statute applies only to ATA cases, a narrow category of
claims that provide civil remedies only for Americans in-
                    Cite as: 

 (2025)                  17

                         Opinion of the Court

jured by acts of international terrorism. See 4 Wright, Fed-
eral Practice and Procedure §1068.1, at 733 (“[W]hen Con-
gress has undertaken to enact a nationwide service statute
applicable to a certain class of disputes, that statute should
be afforded substantial weight as a legislative articulation
of federal social policy.”). It is permissible for the Federal
Government to craft a narrow jurisdictional provision that
ensures, as part of a broader foreign policy agenda, that
Americans injured or killed by acts of terror have an ade-
quate forum in which to vindicate their right to ATA com-
pensation.
   The statute’s jurisdiction triggering predicates are like-
wise narrow. The payments prong furthers the Federal
Government’s longstanding policy of deterring these sorts
of payments, which the United States has determined pro-
mote acts of terror that may injure or kill Americans. See
Taylor Force Act, 

; Reply Brief for United
States 2.3 And the activities prong—which predicates juris-
diction on respondents’ conduct within the United States—
represents a continuation of the Federal Government’s
longstanding, nuanced policy delineating the operations in
which respondents may permissibly engage on U. S. soil.
See Brief for United States 43. Far from an anything-goes
approach, then, the PSJVTA ties jurisdiction to specific and
narrow conduct that directly implicates issues of sensitive
and ongoing concern in respondents’ relationships with the
United States.

——————
   3 Respondents dispute that such payments reward or incentivize ter-

rorism, and instead characterize the payments as part of a general wel-
fare system. See Brief for Respondents 32–33. Congress has suggested
it thinks otherwise. See Taylor Force Act, 

. We express
no view on the proper characterization of the program. See Holder v.
Humanitarian Law Project, 

 (2010). Nor do respondents’
statements that they “formally revoked” the payments program in Feb-
ruary 2025 bear on our analysis. See Brief for Respondents 31–32; Reply
Brief for United States 11.
18     FULD v. PALESTINE LIBERATION ORGANIZATION

                      Opinion of the Court

   The PSJVTA also limits jurisdiction to only two enumer-
ated nonsovereign foreign entities, both of which have been
subject to a series of congressional enactments aimed at de-
terring terrorism and accomplishing other foreign relations
objectives. See, e.g., 

(a)(3)(B); 22 U. S. C.
§§286w, 2227(a), 2378b(a) and (b), 2378c(a), 2378c–1(a),
5201, 5202. Far from haling just any run-of-the-mill pri-
vate defendant into American courts, the PSJVTA repre-
sents but one targeted aspect of a multifaceted foreign pol-
icy toward these two sui generis foreign entities, both of
which exercise governmental functions in a geopolitically
sensitive region and have decades of “meaningful ‘contacts,
ties, [and] relations’ ” with the United States. Burger King
Corp. v. Rudzewicz, 

 (1985) (quoting In-
ternational Shoe, 

).
                              2
  Respondents, for their part, contend that petitioners
“greatly overstate the significance of the PSJVTA” to Con-
gress’s antiterror efforts. Brief for Respondents 45. They
point out that the statute only applies to them, but not any
“other terrorist group or state-sponsor of terrorism.” Id., at
46; see also id., at 69–70. If anything, though, this sup-
posed underinclusiveness only serves to reinforce that the
statute reflects “delicate judgments” on matters of foreign
policy that are in “the prerogative of the political branches
to make.” Jesner, 

 (plurality opinion).
“Congress and the Executive are uniquely positioned to
make principled distinctions between activities that will
further terrorist conduct and undermine United States for-
eign policy, and those that will not.” Humanitarian Law
Project, 

. Rather than subject to jurisdiction
in its courts a broader range of potential defendants—each
of which presumably would implicate distinct foreign af-
fairs concerns—the Federal Government took a narrower
tack. We decline to second guess why Congress did not use
                  Cite as: 

 (2025)           19

                      Opinion of the Court

a blunter remedial tool to achieve its desired foreign policy
ends. And moreover, the statute’s targeted applicability
put the PLO and PA on full notice that they could be subject
“to personal jurisdiction” in ATA suits in U. S. courts. 

(e)(1), (5).
   In respondents’ view, deference to the political branches
is also unwarranted here because “Congress’s explicit pur-
pose [was] to reverse federal decisions” holding that the
same activities that trigger jurisdiction under the PSJVTA
were “insufficient to support the exercise of jurisdiction un-
der the Due Process Clause.” Brief for Respondents 14, 45.
But we hold today that those lower courts applied the wrong
constitutional test.
                              3
   We need not separately consider whether the statute
comports with our cases addressing the circumstances un-
der which a defendant may be deemed, consistent with due
process, to have consented to jurisdiction. See, e.g., Mallory
v. Norfolk Southern R. Co., 

 (2023). Respond-
ents’ consent-based arguments rest on the premise that
Congress could not in the PSJVTA “transform constitution-
ally-insufficient conduct overseas into grounds for ‘deemed
consent’ to personal jurisdiction in the United States.”
Brief for Respondents 31. The Court of Appeals thought
similarly. See 82 F. 4th, at 91. Since we hold that the stat-
ute ties the assertion of jurisdiction to predicate conduct
that in and of itself bears a meaningful relationship to the
United States, we need not further consider the matter
through the lens of consent.
                           B
  Although we have already made clear that the Due Pro-
cess Clause of the Fifth Amendment does not incorporate
the Fourteenth Amendment minimum contacts standard,
20     FULD v. PALESTINE LIBERATION ORGANIZATION

                      Opinion of the Court

the prospect remains that the Fifth Amendment might en-
tail a similar “inquiry into the reasonableness of the asser-
tion of jurisdiction in the particular case.” Asahi, 

. We need not determine whether such analysis is
constitutionally required because, even if it were, the
PSVJTA easily comports with the factors we have previ-
ously applied to determine “the reasonableness of the exer-
cise of jurisdiction” even under the Fourteenth Amend-
ment. 

. Reasonableness, we have explained, will
depend in each case “on an evaluation of several factors,”
including “the burden on the defendant, the interests of the
forum State, and the plaintiff ’s interest in obtaining relief.”

 The PSJVTA ticks all three boxes.
   For largely the same reasons that we conclude there is a
close connection between the PSJVTA’s predicate conduct
and the United States, it follows that the forum sovereign
has a substantial interest in adjudicating the dispute. We
will not belabor that the Federal Government has an ex-
ceedingly compelling interest, as part of its comprehensive
efforts to deter international terrorism, in providing a fo-
rum for American victims to hold the perpetrators of such
acts accountable. For similar reasons, American plaintiffs
have a strong interest in seeking justice through an ATA
damages action in U. S. courts. Cf. Ford Motor Co., 

 (recognizing the “significant interests” of a fo-
rum State in “providing [its] residents with a convenient fo-
rum for redressing injuries inflicted by out-of-state actors”
(internal quotation marks omitted)).
   Respondents, moreover, “do not complain of any lack of
notice or contend that litigating these cases in the United
States would force them to bear an unfair or unmanageable
burden.” Reply Brief for United States 9. And as the
United States points out, it seems implausible to think oth-
erwise. See Brief for United States 38. Respondents are
“sophisticated international organizations” that operate
“billion-dollar budgets” and “govern a territory recognized
                  Cite as: 

 (2025)                 21

                      Opinion of the Court

as a sovereign state by many other countries.” Ibid.; 101 F.
4th, at 208 (Menashi, J., dissenting from denial of rehearing
en banc). They maintain embassies, missions, and delega-
tions around the world and a longstanding “presence in the
United States” which continues to this day. Brief for United
States 3, 38. Nor could it have come as much of a surprise
that respondents were haled into U. S. courts in these
cases. They have litigated ATA suits here for decades, and
in the PSJVTA were put on clear notice—far more than
most defendants in the mine-run of litigation—that contin-
uing to engage in certain specified conduct would open them
up to potential federal court jurisdiction. See ibid.
   Under these circumstances, we cannot say that the
PSJVTA’s jurisdictional rule makes “litigation ‘so gravely
difficult and inconvenient,’ ” Burger King, 

,
as to render the “exercise of personal jurisdiction . . . unrea-
sonable and unfair,” Asahi, 

.
                        *    *     *
   The PSJVTA reasonably ties the assertion of federal ju-
risdiction over the PLO and PA to conduct that involves the
United States and implicates sensitive foreign policy mat-
ters within the prerogative of the political branches. We
hold that the statute’s provision for personal jurisdiction
comports with the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amend-
ment.
   The judgments of the Court of Appeals for the Second Cir-
cuit are reversed, and the cases are remanded for further
proceedings consistent with this opinion.

                                                   It is so ordered.
                 Cite as: 

 (2025)           1

              THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
                         _________________

                    Nos. 24–20 and 24–151
                         _________________


       MIRIAM FULD, ET AL., PETITIONERS
24–20                 v.
  PALESTINE LIBERATION ORGANIZATION, ET AL.

      EVA WALDMAN, ET AL., PETITIONERS
                     v.
  PALESTINE LIBERATION ORGANIZATION, ET AL.

         UNITED STATES, PETITIONER
24–151               v.
  PALESTINE LIBERATION ORGANIZATION, ET AL.
ON WRITS OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF
           APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT
                        [June 20, 2025]

  JUSTICE THOMAS, with whom JUSTICE GORSUCH joins as
to Part II, concurring in the judgment.
  The Court properly holds that the personal-jurisdiction
provisions of the Promoting Security and Justice for Vic-
tims of Terrorism Act (PSJVTA), §903, 133 Stat. 3082–
3085, 

, 2334, do not violate respondents’
claimed rights under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth
Amendment. See ante, 14–21. In reaching this conclusion,
the majority recognizes that the Fourteenth Amendment’s
“minimum contacts standard” does not apply to the Fifth
Amendment’s Due Process Clause. Ante, at 12. But, rather
than decide what standard does apply, the Court holds only
that the Fifth Amendment at least permits a statute such
as the PSJVTA that “ties federal jurisdiction to conduct
2      FULD v. PALESTINE LIBERATION ORGANIZATION

                THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment

closely related to the United States that implicates im-
portant foreign policy concerns.” Ante, at 14. The Court
leaves for another day the task of defining “the Fifth
Amendment’s outer limits on the territorial jurisdiction of
federal courts.” 

  I would take a different approach. When interpreting
constitutional provisions, we must look to “the text of the
Constitution” as well as “historical evidence from the fram-
ing” that can illuminate “the intent of those who drafted
and ratified it.” McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Comm’n, 

 (1995) (THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment).
The critical question in these cases is what boundaries the
Fifth Amendment’s due process guarantee, as originally un-
derstood, places on the Federal Government’s power to ex-
tend personal jurisdiction over respondents. Historical ev-
idence demonstrates that the answer is “none.” “Because
the majority has adopted an analysis that is largely uncon-
nected to the Constitution’s text and history, I concur only
in the judgment.” 

.
                                I
   “We start with the text of the Fifth Amendment” and in-
terpret its provisions in light of how they were “ ‘understood
in 1791.’ ” Gamble v. United States, 

(2019); see also McIntyre, 514 U. S., at 370–371 (opinion of
THOMAS, J.). The Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause
provides that “[n]o person” shall “be deprived of life, liberty,
or property, without due process of law.” Thus, to show that
the PSJVTA’s jurisdictional provisions run afoul of the
Fifth Amendment’s due process protections, respondents
must establish both that they are “person[s]” protected by
the Fifth Amendment and that the PSJVTA transgresses
their due process rights. These requirements in turn raise
two threshold issues: whether respondents enjoy constitu-
tional rights in the first place, and what “due process of law”
requires. While my conclusions as to both threshold issues
                  Cite as: 

 (2025)            3

               THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment

remain tentative, there are strong reasons to think that
each poses an independently fatal problem for respondents.
At a minimum, however, I would conclude today that the
PSJVTA’s jurisdictional provisions do not violate any plau-
sible understanding of due process.
                              A
   I am skeptical that entities such as the Palestine Libera-
tion Organization (PLO) and the Palestinian Authority
(PA) enjoy any constitutional rights at all, let alone qualify
as “person[s]” for purposes of the Fifth Amendment.
                               1
  The PLO and the PA are foreign bodies that are not rec-
ognized as sovereign by the United States, but that never-
theless carry out governmental functions. Ante, at 1–2.
Although the Federal Government does not take a position
on the question whether such foreign nonsovereign govern-
mental bodies have constitutional rights, Tr. of Oral Arg.
43–45, the Executive Branch has for decades endorsed prin-
ciples that suggest that the Constitution does not protect
these types of entities.
  Begin with the Executive’s approach to “the nature of for-
eign sovereigns.” Constitutionality of Closing the Palestine
Information Office, an Affiliate of the Palestine Liberation
Org., 11 Op. OLC 104, 106 (1987). To be sure, the United
States does not recognize respondents as sovereign states,
ante, at 2, but the Executive’s view of foreign nations’ con-
stitutional rights nevertheless may shed light on respond-
ents’ assertion of constitutional rights here. Foreign sover-
eigns, the Office of Legal Counsel has explained, each
“interac[t] with the United States as a foreign, co-equal sov-
ereign.” 11 Op. OLC, at 106. “[T]he United States interacts
with foreign states not within the constitutional system,
but as a juridical equal, on the level of international law
and diplomacy.” 

. It follows that no sovereign
4       FULD v. PALESTINE LIBERATION ORGANIZATION

                  THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment

can be “ ‘amenable,’ or subject to the other,” ibid., for such
an arrangement would violate the precept that “the body of
the nation, the State, remains absolutely free,” E. de Vattel,
The Law of Nations, Preliminaries, §4, p. lv (J. Chitty ed.
1854).1 Thus, “[a] foreign nation, . . . unlike a foreign na-
tional, does not have rights under the Fifth Amendment.”
Presidential Authority To Settle the Iranian Crisis, 4A Op.
OLC 248, 260, n. 9 (1980).
   The Executive Branch has reached the same conclusion
regarding domestic nonsovereign governing bodies, such as
United States Territories. See Mutual Consent Provisions
in the Guam Commonwealth Legislation, 

, *5 (OLC, July 28, 1994) (“non-state areas” are
“governmental bodies” that “are not protected by the Due
Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment”). “Territories are
but political subdivisions of the outlying dominion of the
United States” and thus relate to the Federal Government
similarly to the way in which municipalities relate “to the
respective States.” National Bank v. County of Yankton,

 (1880). Given that a municipality is “cre-
ated by a state for the better ordering of government,” and
thus has “no privileges or immunities under the federal con-
stitution which it may invoke in opposition to the will of its
creator,” Williams v. Mayor of Baltimore, 

(1933); see also Newark v. New Jersey, 

(1923), the Executive’s conclusion that the same logic
should apply to Territories is reasonable. Accord, e.g.,
Puerto Rico Public Housing Admin. v. United States Dept.
of Housing and Urban Development, 

,
——————
   1 Vattel was “widely consulted by the constitutional generation in the

United States,” and was “invariably invoked as authoritative on matters
of international law by the likes of Alexander Hamilton, James Madison,
James Wilson, Edmund Randolph, Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall, Jo-
seph Story and James Kent, among others.” M. Ramsey, Executive
Agreements and the (Non)treaty Power, 77 N. C. L. Rev. 133, 169–170
(1998) (internal quotation marks omitted).
                   Cite as: 

 (2025)                5

                THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment

325 (PR 1999) (instrumentalities of the Commonwealth of
Puerto Rico are “ ‘non-persons’ ” for purposes of constitu-
tional claims).
   Assuming that the Executive Branch is correct that nei-
ther foreign sovereign governments nor domestic nonsover-
eign Territories enjoy constitutional rights, it is unclear
why the Constitution would treat foreign nonsovereign gov-
ernmental entities such as respondents differently. In the
Executive’s own words, the PLO is at bottom “a foreign po-
litical entity” that “ ‘lies outside the structure of the union.’ ”
11 Op. OLC, at 107 (quoting Principality of Monaco v. Mis-
sissippi, 

 (1934)). Neither it nor the PA
has taken any “general obligation to abide by the constitu-
tional norms to which the federal government and the sev-
eral states are subject, nor are there any effective means to
place [them] on parity with the United States or the states
for purposes of enforcement of particular norms.” 11 Op.
OLC, at 107 (internal quotation marks omitted). It would
seem to follow that neither entity enjoys constitutional pro-
tections.
   In addition to the conclusions of the Executive Branch,
decisions from this Court further suggest that entities like
respondents may not be “person[s]” protected by the Fifth
Amendment. In South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 

 (1966), the Court held that “[t]he word ‘person’ in
the context of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amend-
ment cannot, by any reasonable mode of interpretation, be
expanded to encompass the States of the Union.” Decades
later, the Court cited Katzenbach to suggest that “a foreign
state” might not be “a ‘person’ for purposes of the Due Pro-
cess Clause.” Republic of Argentina v. Weltover, Inc., 

 (1992).
   “Since Weltover, the consensus of circuit courts has fol-
lowed the Supreme Court’s lead and definitively held that
foreign states are not entitled to the protections of the Due
Process Clause.” CC/Devas (Mauritius) Ltd. v. Antrix
6      FULD v. PALESTINE LIBERATION ORGANIZATION

               THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment

Corp., 

 (CA9 2024) (Bumatay, J., dis-
senting from denial of rehearing en banc). The D. C. Circuit
thoroughly analyzed the issue in Price v. Socialist People’s
Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, 

 (2002). Compared
to foreign nations, which are “entirely alien to our constitu-
tional system,” the court explained, domestic States “derive
important benefits and must abide by significant limita-
tions.” 

. It would therefore be “highly incongruous
to afford greater Fifth Amendment rights to foreign na-
tions.” 

 At least two other Circuits have reached the
same conclusion. See Frontera Resources Azerbaijan Corp.
v. State Oil Co. of Azerbaijan Republic, 

(CA2 2009) (“If the States, as sovereigns that are part of the
Union, cannot ‘avail themselves of the fundamental safe-
guards of the Due Process Clause,’ we do not see why for-
eign states, as sovereigns wholly outside the Union, should
be in a more favored position” (citation omitted)); Abelesz v.
Magyar Nemzeti Bank, 

 (CA7 2012) (sim-
ilar).
   These courts’ and the Executive’s determinations that
foreign sovereigns do not fall within the “person[s]” pro-
tected by the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause seem
very likely correct, and it is difficult to see why the Consti-
tution would afford better treatment to foreign nonsover-
eign governmental entities. To conclude otherwise would
imply that foreign governmental entities may receive
greater constitutional protections by engaging in conduct
that leads the United States to refuse to recognize their sov-
ereignty. I seriously doubt that the Constitution compels
such a result. As the Office of Legal Counsel concluded, “[i]t
would be anomalous if the Executive’s decision to withhold
recognition from a foreign political entity . . . invested that
entity with rights greater than those enjoyed by friendly
sovereigns present in the United States.” 11 Op. OLC, at
120, n. 7.
                  Cite as: 

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               THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment

                               2
   Nevertheless, some lower courts have concluded that the
Constitution treats nonsovereign foreign governing bodies
like respondents more favorably than it treats recognized
sovereigns, States, Territories, and municipalities. In Liv-
nat v. Palestinian Authority, 

 (2017), for ex-
ample, the D. C. Circuit held that the Due Process Clause
applies to the PA and the PLO, distinguishing Price as
“appl[ying] to sovereigns alone.” Because neither the PA
nor the PLO are “ ‘recognized by the United States govern-
ment as sovereigns,’ ” the court reasoned, they are therefore
“protected by the Due Process Clause.” 

   The D. C. Circuit’s opinion could be read to embrace a di-
chotomy in which entities are either nonsovereigns, which
enjoy constitutional rights, or sovereigns, which do not. See
ibid.; accord, Waldman v. Palestine Liberation Org., 

 (CA2 2016) (noting that “sovereign states are
not entitled to due process protection,” but rejecting the ar-
gument that respondents lack such protection because “nei-
ther the PLO nor the PA is recognized by the United States
as a sovereign state”). Respondents rely on that theory
here, arguing that a constitutional “binary” applies to the
question whether an entity is a “person” under the Fifth
Amendment: An entity either is “a person for purposes of
the Due Process Clause,” or it is “a sovereign state”; there
is no “no-man’s-land” in which the entity is “neither a sov-
ereign state nor a person.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 91.
   While I agree with a “binary” framework insofar as the
Due Process Clause either applies to respondents or it does
not, I do not see how sovereignty supplies the dividing line.
It is uncontroversial that entities such as municipalities
and United States Territories are not sovereigns. See
County of Yankton, 

; Mutual Consent Pro-
visions in the Guam Commonwealth Legislation, 

, *5. Under respondents’ framework, this nonsov-
ereign character would seem to compel the conclusion that
8       FULD v. PALESTINE LIBERATION ORGANIZATION

                   THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment

municipalities and Territories thus must be “person[s]”
with constitutional rights. For reasons already discussed,
see supra, at 4–5, this result is dubious, see Williams, 

 (municipalities have “no privileges or immuni-
ties under the federal constitution which it may invoke in
opposition to the will of its creator”); accord, e.g., East
St. Louis v. Circuit Ct. for Twentieth Jud. Cir., St. Clair
Cty., 

, 1144 (CA7 1993) (“Municipalities . . .
are not ‘persons’ within the meaning of the Due Process
Clause”). Further, assuming the Court was correct to con-
clude that the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment
does not “encompass the States of the Union,” Katzenbach,

, it is rather odd to think that the Consti-
tution would provide greater constitutional rights to Terri-
tories or the political subdivisions of States than to the
States themselves.
   Neither the private petitioners nor the Government
pressed the argument that the Constitution does not pro-
tect respondents at all, so we should not resolve the cases
on that basis. See, e.g., H. Proctor, “Will the Meaning of the
Second Amendment Change . . . ?”: Party Presentation and
Stare Decisis in Text-and-History Cases, 98 N. Y. U.
L. Rev. 453, 463, n. 70 (2023) (cautioning against courts at-
tempting to “correc[t] for deficiencies in party presenta-
tion”). But, the question whether entities like respondents
receive any constitutional protection is antecedent to what-
ever constitutional arguments they might make, and I am
hopeful that in an appropriate case parties will brief and
the Court will address this issue.2
——————
  2 One amicus raises the argument that “certain governmental entities,

including ‘foreign states,’ ” are not “ ‘person[s]’ ” under the original mean-
ing of the Fifth Amendment. Brief for Chamber of Commerce of the
United States of America as Amicus Curiae 6; see also, e.g., A. Scalia &
B. Garner, Reading Law 273 (2012) (“[T]he word person traditionally ex-
cludes the sovereign”). This textual argument has generated scholarly
debate. See, e.g., Brief for Professor Ingrid (Wuerth) Brunk as Amicus
                      Cite as: 

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                   THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment

                               B
   Even assuming that the PLO and the PA are “person[s]”
protected by the Fifth Amendment, respondents still must
grapple with another threshold inquiry: whether the Due
Process Clause imposes any limits on the legislative power.
   “The four words—due process of law—have been the cen-
ter of substantial legal debate over the years.” In re Win-
ship, 

 (1970) (Black, J., dissenting). As I
have previously explained, the Due Process Clause may
have originally been understood to require only that our
Government “ ‘proceed according to the “law of the land”—
that is, according to written constitutional and statutory
provisions,’ ” before depriving someone of life, liberty, or
property. Johnson v. United States, 

(2015) (opinion concurring in judgment). Numerous schol-
ars have supported this view, “conclud[ing] that ‘considera-
ble historical evidence supports the position that “due pro-
cess of law” was a separation-of-powers concept designed as
a safeguard against unlicensed executive action, forbidding
only deprivations not authorized by legislation or common
law.’ ” 

 (quoting D. Currie, The Constitution in the Su-
preme Court: The First Hundred Years 1789–1888, p. 272
(1985)); see also, e.g., E. Corwin, The Doctrine of Due Pro-
cess of Law Before the Civil War, 

, 370–
373 (1911) (listing reasons to conclude that “the phrase ‘law
of the land’ ” did not “import any limitation upon legislative
power”); 4 Papers of Alexander Hamilton 35 (H. Syrett & J.
Cooke eds. 1962) (“The words ‘due process’ . . . can never be
referred to an act of legislature”).
   Others have disagreed. For example, some scholars have
argued that “as originally understood, ‘the principle of due
process’ required, among other things, that ‘statutes that
——————
Curiae in CC/Devas (Mauritius) Ltd. v. Antrix Corp., O. T. 2024, No. 23–
1201, pp. 3–4 (arguing that, at the time of ratification, “the word ‘person’
was routinely used to describe states”).
10     FULD v. PALESTINE LIBERATION ORGANIZATION

               THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment

purported to empower the other branches to deprive per-
sons of rights without adequate procedural guarantees [be]
subject to judicial review.’ ” Johnson, 

(opinion of THOMAS, J.) (quoting N. Chapman & M.
McConnell, Due Process as Separation of Powers, 121 Yale
L. J. 1672, 1679 (2012)).
   And, in Murray’s Lessee v. Hoboken Land & Improvement
Co., 

 (1856), the Court itself concluded that the
mere existence of a legislative enactment was insufficient
on its own to satisfy due process under the Fifth Amend-
ment. Despite acknowledging that “[t]he words, ‘due pro-
cess of law,’ were undoubtedly intended to convey the same
meaning as the words, ‘by the law of the land,’ in Magna
Charta,” the Court concluded that the Due Process Clause
“is a restraint on the legislative as well as on the executive
and judicial powers of the government.” 

. The
Court famously declared that due process must comport
with “those settled usages and modes of proceeding existing
in the common and statute law of England, before the emi-
gration of our ancestors, and which are shown not to have
been unsuited to their civil and political condition by having
been acted on by them after the settlement of this country.”

. These requirements generally include an inde-
pendent judge, “regular allegations, opportunity to answer,
and a trial according to some settled course of judicial pro-
ceedings.” 

. The Court’s decision in Murray’s
Lessee “opened the door to a dramatic reinvention of the
Due Process of Law Clause as a check on the statutory en-
actment of novel methods of procedure.” M. Crema & L.
Solum, The Original Meaning of “Due Process of Law” in
the Fifth Amendment, 

, 519 (2022).
   In these cases, “I need not choose between these two un-
derstandings of ‘due process of law.’ ” Johnson, 

 (opinion of THOMAS, J.). If the “law of the land” view
of due process is correct and requires only that Congress
have authorized the deprivation of life, liberty, or property
                 Cite as: 

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               THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment

that the Federal Government effects, see Sessions v. Di-
maya, 

, 207 (2018) (THOMAS, J., dissenting),
then the PSJVTA’s proper enactment resolves the question
presented. But, as explained next, even assuming that “set-
tled usages and modes of proceeding” govern the due pro-
cess inquiry, Murray’s Lessee, 

, respondents’
due process argument still fails.
                               II
   The Fifth Amendment was never understood to constrain
Congress’s ability to extend federal jurisdiction. The Fed-
eral Government has always possessed the power to extend
its jurisdiction beyond the Nation’s borders, and, as under-
stood in 1791, the Fifth Amendment did not limit this sov-
ereign prerogative. Rather, insofar as any limits on extra-
territorial jurisdiction existed, they stemmed from general
principles of international law. But, those principles were
defeasible, subconstitutional rules that the sovereign could
override through clear command. This understanding re-
spects the Constitution’s design by reserving matters of for-
eign affairs to the political branches.
                               A
   Congress’s and the Judiciary’s extraterritorial powers are
evident in the Constitution. The text is explicit: Congress
may “define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on
the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations,”
and it may “make Rules concerning Captures on Land and
Water.” Art. I, §8, cls. 10, 11.
   By design, the authority of “the Judicial” branch was to
be “commensurate to the legislative and executive Author-
ity.” 1 Records of the Federal Convention 237, n. 18 (M.
Farrand ed., 1911) (statement of James Wilson). “The judi-
cial Power” accordingly “extend[s] to all Cases, in Law and
Equity, arising under this Constitution, [and] the Laws of
the United States”; “to all Cases of admiralty and maritime
12     FULD v. PALESTINE LIBERATION ORGANIZATION

               THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment

Jurisdiction; and to “all Crimes,” including those “not com-
mitted within any State.” Art. III, §2, cls. 1, 3.
   The First Congress, “many of whose members had taken
part in framing” the Constitution, Wisconsin v. Pelican Ins.
Co., 

 (1888), exercised its authority to pre-
scribe extraterritorial jurisdiction in the Judiciary Act of
1789. See §9, 1 Stat. 76–77 (granting federal courts juris-
diction over “civil causes of admiralty and maritime juris-
diction” arising “upon the high seas”); see also, e.g., N.
Chapman, Due Process Abroad, 

, 409
(2017) (“[O]ne of the federal government’s top priorities”
postratification was “[t]he prosecution and punishment of
extraterritorial crimes, including crimes committed by al-
iens”). This “actio[n] of the First Congress” is “of course
persuasive evidence of what the Constitution means.” Har-
melin v. Michigan, 

 (1991) (opinion of
Scalia, J.); see, e.g., Marsh v. Chambers, 

, 788–
790 (1983). Early treatises further reinforce the conclusion
that the Federal Government possessed the power to exer-
cise its jurisdiction beyond its borders, noting for example
that “for the purpose of giving jurisdiction,” “on whom or
where a piratical offense has been committed” is irrelevant.
1 J. Kent, Commentaries on American Law 174 (1826).
   Constitutional text, postratification practice, and early
commentary thus demonstrate that Congress and the Judi-
ciary can exercise jurisdiction beyond the United States.
The question turns to what, if anything, limits this power.
                             B
   Preratification and postratification courts observed lim-
its on their own and each other’s extraterritorial authority.
Those limits were originally understood to derive from the
international law of nations, not the Constitution. But,
Congress always possessed the power to legislate beyond
the boundaries that these international-law principles im-
posed.
                  Cite as: 

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               THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment

                                1
  Early courts routinely applied law-of-nations principles
under which personal jurisdiction was “typically a problem
in recognition”; that is, “[t]he question for American courts
was whether [foreign] judgments would be recognized and
enforced.” S. Sachs, Pennoyer Was Right, 95 Texas L. Rev.
1249, 1270 (2017) (Sachs 2017). Because “[e]arly American
states stood in much the same position as foreign nations,”
they would review each other’s jurisdiction and refuse to
recognize or enforce foreign judgments that exceeded com-
monly understood jurisdictional limits. 

 at 1273–1274.
In Jenkins v. Putnam, 1 S. C. L. 8 (1784) (per curiam), for
example, a South Carolina court recognized that whether a
North Carolina admiralty court’s judgment was due “faith
and credit” pursuant to “[t]he act of confederation . . . and
the law of nations” turned on whether the foreign court had
“competent jurisdiction” to enter the judgment. 

 at 9–
10; see also, e.g., Kibbe v. Kibbe, 

 (Conn.
Super. Ct. 1786) (concluding that a Massachusetts court
lacked “legal jurisdiction of the cause” and thus rejecting
creditors’ attempt to have the court recognize out-of-state
judgment).
  Courts “continued to reason this way” after the Fifth
Amendment’s ratification in 1791. Sachs 2017, at 1275.
Riding circuit, Justice Story rejected the application of a
Massachusetts personal-jurisdiction statute to an absent
Louisiana citizen based on the “universal” “principle,” “con-
sonant with the general principles of justice, that the legis-
lature of a state can bind no more than the persons and
property within its territorial jurisdiction.” Flower v. Par-
ker, 

, 324–325 (No. 4,891) (CC Mass. 1823).
This Court reinforced those principles in D’Arcy v.
Ketchum, 

 (1851), in which it addressed
whether a creditor could enforce a New York judgment in a
Louisiana federal court against a “citizen of Louisiana not
14     FULD v. PALESTINE LIBERATION ORGANIZATION

               THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment

served with process.” Observing that neither an act of Con-
gress nor a provision of the Constitution had displaced the
“well-established rules of international law,” the Court con-
cluded that following such a procedure to enforce the New
York judgment would be “deemed an illegitimate assump-
tion of power.” 

 at 174–176. At bottom, this interna-
tional-law approach to personal jurisdiction meant that
when one government attempted to exercise “jurisdiction
which, according to the law of nations, its sovereign could
not confer,” that government’s “sentences [were] not re-
garded by foreign courts” irrespective of whether they were
valid “within the dominions of the prince from whom the
authority is derived.” Rose v. Himely, 

, 276–
277 (1808) (Marshall, C. J., for the Court).
   Absent from this approach to personal jurisdiction was
any consideration of due process. The Court’s omission of
such analysis in D’Arcy is illustrative: The Court could have
analyzed the legitimacy of enforcing the New York judg-
ment under the New York Constitution—which “contained
an exact replica of the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process
Clause”—but it conspicuously declined to do so. See Brief
for Professor Stephen E. Sachs as Amicus Curiae 10 (citing
N. Y. Const. of 1846, Art. I, §6). Due process was not the
issue; the “well-established rules of international law”
were. 

.
                               2
  These rules of international law, however, were always
understood to be defeasible. Even if Congress generally re-
spected such rules, it retained the power to override them
through clear statutory command.
  Founding-era courts may have sought to avoid “con-
stru[ing]” statutes “to violate the law of nations if any other
possible construction remain[ed],” but they understood that
the legislature could depart from this international base-
                   Cite as: 

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                THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment

line “by express words or a very plain and necessary impli-
cation.” Murray v. Schooner Charming Betsy, 

 (1804) (Marshall, C. J., for the Court); see also, e.g., Tal-
bot v. Seeman, 

 (1801) (“[T]he laws of the
United States ought not, if it be avoidable, so to be con-
strued as to infract the common principles and usages of
nations” (emphasis added)). A nation “might always ‘exer-
cise its territorial powers in a manner not consonant to the
usages and received obligations of the civilized world’ ”;
even if it were “ ‘considered as violating its faith,’ ” the rules
still would be “valid within that nation’s courts.” S. Sachs,
The Unlimited Jurisdiction of the Federal Courts, 

, 1722 (2020) (Sachs 2020) (quoting Schooner
Exchange v. McFaddon, 

 (1812)); accord,
e.g., United States v. Yousef, 

 (CA2 2003)
(the “claim that principles of customary international law
constrain Congress’s power to enact laws that proscribe ex-
traterritorial conduct is simply wrong”).
    This approach reflects the “longstanding principle of
American law” that congressional statutes are “meant to
apply only within the territorial jurisdiction of the United
States”—“unless a contrary intent appears.” EEOC v. Ara-
bian American Oil Co., 

 (1991) (emphasis
added; internal quotation marks omitted); cf. Blackmer v.
United States, 

 (1932) (whether “the leg-
islation of Congress” applies extraterritorially to “citizens
of the United States in foreign countries” is a “question of
. . . construction, not of legislative power”). Given that prin-
ciples of international law formed the basis for early under-
standings of personal jurisdiction, Congress’s general abil-
ity to override those principles strongly implies its power to
effect extraterritorial jurisdiction beyond what the law of
nations might permit.
    This conclusion becomes nearly inescapable when taking
into account the views of early jurists who considered the
question. For example, Justice Johnson, while dissenting
16     FULD v. PALESTINE LIBERATION ORGANIZATION

               THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment

on a separate point, acknowledged as an “eternal principl[e]
of justice” the precept “that jurisdiction cannot be justly ex-
ercised by a state over property not within the reach of its
process, or over persons not owing them allegiance or . . .
found within their limits.” Mills v. Duryee, 

 (1813). Nevertheless, he had no trouble concluding that
courts could “dispense with” that principle “when compelled
by positive statute.” Ibid.; see Sachs 2020, at 1722.
   Justice Story shared this view. In Picquet v. Swan, 

 (No. 11,134) (CC Mass. 1828), the plaintiff
sued a defendant residing abroad through jurisdictionally
dubious means, the implications of which might suggest
that “a subject of England, or France, or Russia . . . may be
summoned from the other end of the globe to obey our pro-
cess, and submit to the judgment of our courts.” Justice
Story concluded that Congress had not authorized the
plaintiff ’s expansive theory of federal jurisdiction, which
would interfere with “principles of . . . immutable justice.”

. But, he made clear that this absence of congres-
sional action was due to a lack of will, not power: “If con-
gress had prescribed such a rule, the court would certainly
be bound to follow it, and proceed upon the law.” 

.
In other words, “foreign-based defendants were owed no
more than service authorized by Congress before being
haled into our federal courts.” Antrix Corp., 

 (opinion of Bumatay, J.) (citing Picquet, 

, 615–616).
   This Court eventually endorsed Justice Story’s analysis.
In Toland v. Sprague, 

 (1838), as in Picquet,
the Court addressed whether a federal statute authorized a
plaintiff ’s attempt to have the federal court exercise per-
sonal jurisdiction over a defendant residing abroad. As-
signing “great force” to the reasoning of Picquet, the Toland
Court held that Congress had not contemplated federal ju-
risdiction over those “who were in a foreign jurisdiction,”
and thus had not extended “the reach of the process of the
                      Cite as: 

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                   THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment

courts” over those individuals. 12 Pet., at 328–330. Never-
theless, the Court followed Justice Story’s analysis and con-
cluded that federal courts would be bound to exercise such
jurisdiction if Congress required it through “positive legis-
lation,” no matter how “unjust.” 

 at 329–330; see also

, 218–219 (CA2 2024) (Menashi, J., dissent-
ing from denial of rehearing en banc) (detailing the Toland
Court’s “embrac[e]” of Justice Story’s reasoning).
  Subsequent historical and legal developments, including
the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, have not
changed the fundamental point that the Fifth Amend-
ment’s Due Process Clause does not territorially confine the
Federal Government’s jurisdiction.3 During the Lochner
era, for example, this Court began to determine that the
Fourteenth Amendment restricts States’ ability to adjudi-
cate cases involving conduct beyond their borders. See, e.g.,
Baker v. Baker, Eccles & Co., 

 (1917).
But, the Court during that period continued to recognize
that the Fifth Amendment provides “no ground for con-
structing an imaginary constitutional barrier around the
exterior confines of the United States for the purpose of
shutting [the federal] government off from the exertion of


——————
   3 Until today, this Court had continually left open the question

whether the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause constrains the Fed-
eral Government to the same extent that the Fourteenth Amendment’s
Due Process Clause limits the States. See, e.g., Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.
v. Superior Court of Cal., San Francisco Cty., 

, 268–269
(2017); Omni Capital Int’l, Ltd. v. Rudolf Wolff & Co., 

, 102–
103, n. 5 (1987). That reservation was appropriate. Because it makes
little sense to interpret the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause ac-
cording to this Court’s interpretation of the later ratified, identical lan-
guage in the Fourteenth Amendment, I agree with the majority that the
Fourteenth Amendment’s “minimum contacts” due process inquiry is in-
apposite here. Ante, at 12. But, it may well be that the Due Process
Clause of the Fifth Amendment should inform our understanding of par-
allel language in the Fourteenth Amendment.
18     FULD v. PALESTINE LIBERATION ORGANIZATION

               THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment

powers which inherently belong to it by virtue of its sover-
eignty.” United States v. Bennett, 

 (1914);
see also Brief for Petitioners in No. 24–20, pp. 27–28.
  Cases from the founding era onward have continually re-
affirmed that the Fifth Amendment was never understood
to impose limits on the exercise of personal jurisdiction.
Any such limits derived from international law, which Con-
gress could override.
                               C
   That Congress may override general principles of inter-
national law does not imply that it should, but instead that
the relevant considerations are not constitutional ones. Se-
rious nonconstitutional considerations include implications
for foreign policy. But, concerns over foreign affairs are no
reason to impose constitutional limits on federal courts’ ex-
traterritorial jurisdiction. Just the opposite—the implica-
tions of such limitations on the political branches’ power to
conduct foreign policy reinforce the conclusion that the Con-
stitution does not inhibit the Federal Government’s ability
to extend its jurisdiction extraterritorially.
   As the foregoing demonstrates, Congress has the power
to subject foreign nationals to what they might view as
overly broad jurisdiction. In response, countries may decide
to enact “ ‘retaliatory’ jurisdictional provisions” that “em-
power [their] national courts to exercise jurisdiction over
[American citizens] in circumstances where [American]
courts . . . would have asserted jurisdiction.” G. Born, Re-
flections on Judicial Jurisdiction in International Cases, 17
Ga. J. Int’l & Comp. L. 1, 15 (1987) (Born); see also ante, at
14. Constitutionally unchecked authority to extend federal
jurisdiction thus undeniably has the potential to generate
repercussions in foreign affairs. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 55–56
(counsel for the Federal Government acknowledging that
the Government could face “problems” with “retaliation”
were Congress to exercise jurisdiction “very far and wide”);
                  Cite as: 

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                THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment

Brief for United States 47–48.
   But, that possibility is no basis for erecting constitutional
barriers here. The “field of foreign affairs” requires “deli-
cate judgments, involving a balance that is the prerogative
of the political branches to make,” and these judgments are
“entitled to special respect.” Jesner v. Arab Bank, PLC, 

 (2018) (plurality opinion). “Congress has the
undisputed power to decide . . . whether and under what
circumstances foreign nations should be amenable to suit in
the United States.” Verlinden B. V. v. Central Bank of Ni-
geria, 

 (1983) (emphasis added). That
power is not diminished simply because the United States
does not recognize the sovereignty of the foreign govern-
mental entity at issue.
   Although it is possible that Congress might extend fed-
eral jurisdiction to such a degree that foreign actors retali-
ate, “the controlling role of the political branches” remains
“both necessary and proper.” Bank Markazi v. Peterson,

 (2016). After all, other countries can ex-
ercise their jurisdiction in offensive ways, too. And, if they
do, our political branches may decide to enact “ ‘retaliatory’
jurisdictional provisions” of their own. Born 15; accord, e.g.,
The Nereide, 

 (1815) (“If it be the will of
the government to apply to Spain any rule respecting cap-
tures which Spain is supposed to apply to us, the govern-
ment will manifest that will by passing an act for the pur-
pose”).
   Applying constitutional limits to Congress’s authority to
enact such provisions would risk impeding the political
branches’ efforts to conduct foreign affairs in federal litiga-
tion. That is no small matter. Civil litigation can be a bar-
gaining chip in foreign policy. As this Court has explained,
“[n]ot infrequently in affairs between nations, outstanding
claims by nationals of one country against the government
of another country are ‘sources of friction’ between the two
sovereigns.” Dames & Moore v. Regan, 

, 679
20     FULD v. PALESTINE LIBERATION ORGANIZATION

                THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment

(1981) (quoting United States v. Pink, 

(1942)). Following “ ‘established international practice re-
flecting traditional international theory,’ ” nations fre-
quently enter into agreements to settle the claims of their
respective nationals. Dames & Moore, 

; see
also, e.g., Chas. T. Main Int’l, Inc. v. Khuzestan Water and
Power Auth., 

 (CA1 1981) (collecting ex-
amples of the Federal Government “extinguish[ing] claims
of United States nationals against foreign governments” in
exchange for various concessions). Limiting the political
branches’ ability to extend extraterritorial jurisdiction
could stymie its use of this tool for international negotia-
tion, in turn sowing tension with the fundamental premise
that foreign policy is the domain of the political branches,
not the federal courts. See Bank Markazi, 

;
cf. Ex parte Peru, 

 (1943) (“[O]ur national
interest will be better served [if] cases . . . involving our re-
lations with a friendly foreign power, are righted through
diplomatic negotiations rather than by the compulsions of
judicial proceedings”).
   This potential intrusion on the political branches’ author-
ity supports what the historical evidence makes clear: The
Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause imposes no limits
on the Federal Government’s power to extend federal juris-
diction beyond the Nation’s borders. See supra, at 11–17.
                         *     *   *
  The Court’s opinion does not foreclose the “maximalist
theory of federal jurisdiction” compelled by the original un-
derstanding of the Fifth Amendment, but resolves the cases
without deciding whether that understanding is correct.
Ante, at 14. In my view, “historical evidence from the fram-
ing” provides the proper framework for deciding these
cases, McIntyre, 

 (opinion of THOMAS, J.),
and that evidence demonstrates that the Due Process
                     Cite as: 

 (2025)                    21

                  THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment

Clause of the Fifth Amendment places no territorial limita-
tion on Congress’s ability to call parties to answer.4 And,
for the reasons explained, this conclusion respects our def-
erential approach to the political branches’ “delicate judg-
ments” in foreign affairs. Jesner, 

 (plural-
ity opinion).
   Insofar as the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause re-
quires deprivations of life, liberty, or property to accord
with “those settled usages and modes of proceeding exist-
ing” at common law, Murray’s Lessee, 

, the
PSJVTA plainly meets that standard. Nothing on the stat-
ute’s face or in its application here deprives respondents of
an independent judge, “regular allegations, opportunity to
answer, [or] a trial according to some settled course of judi-
cial proceedings.” 

. And, even assuming that the
law of nations might otherwise supply a rule of decision and
that the PSJVTA’s jurisdictional provisions are in tension
with such a rule—questions on which I take no position
here—those principles of international law are defeasible
presumptions that Congress unmistakably overrode when
it enacted the PSJVTA. In my view, the Fifth Amendment
due process inquiry ends there.




——————
  4 The concepts of notice and an opportunity to be heard are distinct

from the Federal Government’s authority to extend personal jurisdiction.
Although the Fifth Amendment places no limit on the latter, it may still
require that defendants be given notice and an opportunity to be heard.
I do not decide that question today. Even assuming the Fifth Amend-
ment does impose such requirements, the PLO and the PA have received
due process. Both entities received notice of this suit through service of
process on a representative, and the entities have not claimed that it is
infeasible to defend themselves in American courts.