## Facts

- George Zivkovich, a Serbian Orthodox survivor of World War II, alleged that his family’s property was looted in Yugoslavia by the Ustaša regime.
- He alleged that looted assets were aggregated into an “Ustaša treasury” and moved through post-war channels involving clergy and financial institutions.
- Zivkovich sued Istituto per le Opere di Religione (IOR, the Vatican Bank) and the Order of Friars Minor (OFM), asserting conversion, unjust enrichment, restitution, accounting, and international-law-based theories.
- The complaint alleged, based on reports, that large quantities of looted gold and currency were transferred to Vatican City and the IOR with OFM assistance and that additional gold was placed in a secret Swiss account controlled by Vatican-related actors.
- Zivkovich did not allege he could identify or trace particular items of his family’s property to specific assets presently held by IOR or OFM.

## Issues

1. Whether adjudicating claims seeking restitution for alleged WWII-era looting and post-war transfers involving entities closely connected to a foreign sovereign presented a nonjusticiable political question.
2. Whether the plaintiff alleged Article III standing, including injury in fact, causation fairly traceable to defendants, and redressability.
3. Whether IOR was immune from suit under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act and, if so, whether any exception applied.
4. Whether international comity (and related abstention-type considerations) warranted dismissal given the foreign-relations and reparations context.

## Decision

- The court granted defendants’ motions to dismiss and dismissed the action at the pleading stage.
- The court held the dispute was nonjusticiable under the political question doctrine because resolving it would require judicial involvement in matters bound up with wartime conduct, post-war diplomacy, and foreign-relations choices committed to the political branches.
- The court independently held the plaintiff lacked Article III standing because the alleged connection between his family’s losses and defendants’ conduct or current holdings was too speculative to establish traceability and redressability.
- The court addressed FSIA immunity and international comity as additional or alternative grounds supporting dismissal, concluding that immunity and foreign-relations concerns further counseled against adjudication.

## Legal Principles

- Federal courts must dismiss claims that require resolving issues constitutionally committed to the political branches or that lack judicially manageable standards, including certain claims tied to wartime restitution and post-war diplomatic arrangements.
- Article III standing requires a concrete, particularized injury that is fairly traceable to the defendant and likely to be redressed by the requested relief; generalized historical harm and attenuated causal chains are insufficient.
- Under the FSIA, entities qualifying as agencies or instrumentalities of a foreign state are presumptively immune absent a clearly applicable statutory exception.
- International comity may support dismissal where adjudication risks interference with foreign relations or conflicts with international mechanisms used to address war-related claims.

## Conclusion

The court dismissed the WWII-era asset-restitution suit because it raised nonjusticiable political questions and because the plaintiff failed to plead standing by plausibly tracing his specific losses to defendants and showing that the requested relief would redress his injury; FSIA immunity and comity considerations reinforced dismissal.


Zivkovich v. Vatican Bank, 242 F. Supp. 2d 659 (N.D. Cal. 2002)