Opinion of the Court
employee would not necessarily satisfy Rule 4 since such a receipt would not bear the signature of the foreign minister and might not constitute evidence that is sufficient to show that the service packet had actually been delivered to the minister. It would be an odd state of affairs for a foreign state’s inhabitants to enjoy more protections in federal courts than the foreign state itself, particularly given that the foreign state’s immunity from suit is at stake. The natural reading of §1608(a)(3) avoids that oddity.
2
Our interpretation of §1608(a)(3) avoids concerns regarding the United States’ obligations under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. We have previously noted that the State Department “helped to draft the FSIA’s language,” and we therefore pay “special attention” to the Department’s views on sovereign immunity. Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela v. Helmerich & Payne Int’l Drilling Co., 581 U. S. ___, ___ (2017) (slip op., at 9). It is also “well settled that the Executive Branch’s interpretation of a treaty ‘is entitled to great weight.’ ” Abbott v. Abbott, 560 U. S. 1, 15 (2010) (quoting Sumitomo Shoji America, Inc. v. Avagliano, 457 U. S. 176, 185 (1982)).
Article 22(1) of the Vienna Convention provides: “The premises of the mission shall be inviolable. The agents of the receiving State may not enter them, except with the consent of the head of the mission.” Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, Apr. 18, 1961, 23 U. S. T. 3237, T. I. A. S. No. 7502. Since at least 1974, the State Department has taken the position that Article 22(1)’s principle of inviolability precludes serving a foreign state by mailing process to the foreign state’s embassy in the United States. See Service of Legal Process by Mail on Foreign Governments in the United States, 71 Dept. State Bull. 458–459 (1974). In this case, the State Department has
