Opinion of the Court
the foreign minister’s name and customary address and that it be sent to the minister in a direct and expeditious way. And the minister’s customary office is the place where he or she generally works, not a farflung outpost that the minister may at most occasionally visit.
B
Several related provisions in §1608 support this reading. See Davis v. Michigan Dept. of Treasury, 489 U. S. 803, 809 (1989) (“It is a fundamental canon of statutory construction that the words of a statute must be read in their context and with a view to their place in the overall statutory scheme”).
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One such provision is §1608(b)(3)(B). Section 1608(b) governs service on “an agency or instrumentality of a foreign state.” And like §1608(a)(3), §1608(b)(3)(B) requires delivery of a service packet to the intended recipient “by any form of mail requiring a signed receipt, to be addressed and dispatched by the clerk of the court.” But §1608(b)(3)(B), unlike §1608(a)(3), contains prefatory language saying that service by this method is permissible “if reasonably calculated to give actual notice.”
Respondents read §1608(a)(3) as embodying a similar requirement. See Brief for Respondents 34. At oral argument, respondents’ counsel stressed this point, arguing that respondents’ interpretation of §1608(a)(3) “gives effect” to the “familiar” due process standard articulated in Mullane v. Central Hanover Bank & Trust Co., 339 U. S. 306 (1950), which is “the notion that [service] must be reasonably calculated to give notice.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 37–38.
This argument runs up against two well-settled principles of statutory interpretation. First, “Congress generally acts intentionally when it uses particular language in one
