The case of the day is Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society of Pa. v. Russian Federation (D.D.C. 2025). In 2017, the Russian government seized the headquarters of the Jehovah’s Witnesses in St. Petersburg. The property is now used as a state-owned medical research facility. The Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society, a Jehovah’s Witnesses institution that had owned the property, sued Russia, its Ministry of Health, and the research facility, called Almazov, asserting that the defendants had expropriated its property in violation of international law. The defendants moved to dismiss on service grounds.

Watch Tower served process on Russia and the Ministry of Health by asking the clerk to send the papers to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs by mail under 28 U.S.C.  § 1608(a)(3). Because US couriers had suspended service to Russia after the invasion of Ukraine, DHL refused to ship the papers to Russia,¹The US Postal Service has also suspended service to Russia. so instead, Watch Tower arranged for the clerk to send the papers by DHL to Turkey, where a courier service would take delivery and then deliver the papers to the Ministry. But the Ministry refused to accept the papers. The courier then gave the papers to the Russian postal service, which did deliver the papers but did not provide a signed receipt (instead providing a QR code to confirm delivery).

Russia is a party to the Service Convention and has objected to service by post under Article 10. Probably the best thing to do in the situation of this case is to skip service by mail and serve via the diplomatic channel under § 1608(a)(4). The State Department’s guidance instructs plaintiffs to attempt service by mail before attempting service via the diplomatic channel “unless a foreign state has specifically objected to service by mail,” as Russia has. But Watch Tower tried service by mail first, and there’s certainly nothing wrong with that if time is no object.

The court held that because Russia had objected to service by mail, service by mail is never allowed in Russia under the rule of Water Splash, Inc. v. Menon. That’s not exactly right. The Article 10 objection, it seems to me, only applies when the Convention itself applies, and the Service Convention itself only applies in civil or commercial cases, and only when the address of the person to be served is known. But it’s basically right.

There’s a special twist because the state in question is Russia. Russia has unilaterally decided not to honor requests for judicial assistance emanating from the United States, including requests to serve process. But as the court correctly noted, Russian refusal to honor its obligations under the Convention does not mean that the Convention simply goes away. As I explained in a 2022 post at the Transnational Litigation Blog, the United States could suspend the operation of the Convention with respect to Russia, but it hasn’t done so. Thus the court correctly granted the state defendants’ motion to dismiss.

Almazov is not the state itself, but a state instrumentality. But the outcome of Watch Tower’s attempt at service by mail under 28 U.S.C.  § 1608(b)(3)(B) was the same, for the same reasons. It’s interesting to consider whether it’s actually easier to serve process on a foreign state in cases like this than to serve process on a foreign state’s instrumentality, because there is not much wiggle room for states that have diplomatic relations with the United States to avoid service through the diplomatic channel, especially since under 28 U.S.C.  § 1608(c)(1), the date of service is the date of transmittal of the diplomatic note, while the date of service for all other methods of service is the date of receipt.

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  The US Postal Service has also suspended service to Russia.