Legal Dictionary of Pakistan

act-of-state doctrine.

The common-law principle that prevents U.S. courts from questioning the validity of a foreign country's sovereign acts within its own territory. * As originally formulated by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1897, the doctrine provides that "the courts of one country will not sit in judgment on the acts of the government of another done within its own territory." Underhill u. Hernandez, 168 U.S. 250, 252, 18 S.Ct. 83, 84 (1897).