Thomas, J., dissenting
I
To serve a foreign state by certified mail under the FSIA, the service packet must be “addressed and dispatched by the clerk of the court to the head of the ministry of foreign affairs of the foreign state concerned.” Ibid. In many respects, I approach this statutory text in the same way as the Court. I have no quarrel with the majority’s definitions of the relevant statutory terms, ante, at 6–7, and I agree that the FSIA does not deem a foreign state properly served solely because the service method is reasonably calculated to provide actual notice, ante, at 9–10, 15–16. Nor does the FSIA authorize service on a foreign state by utilizing an agent designated to receive process for the state. Ante, at 10–11. At the same time, the FSIA stops short of requiring that the foreign minister personally receive or sign for the service packet: As long as the service packet is “addressed and dispatched… to” the foreign minister, §1608(a)(3), the minister’s subordinates may accept the packet and act appropriately on his behalf. Ante, at 8.
In short, I agree with the majority that §1608(a)(3) requires that the service packet be dispatched to an address for the foreign minister. The relevant question, in my view, is whether a foreign state’s embassy in the United States can serve as a place where the minister of foreign affairs may be reached by mail. Unlike the majority, I conclude that it can.
II
A foreign state’s embassy in Washington, D. C., is generally a place where a U. S. court can communicate by mail with the state’s foreign minister. Unless an embassy decides to decline packages containing judicial summonses—as it is free to do, both in individual cases or as a broader policy—a service packet addressed and dispatched to a foreign minister at the address of its embassy in the
