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NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the
preliminary print of the United States Reports.  Readers are requested to
notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Wash-
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SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
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No. 91-522
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SAUDI ARABIA, KING FAISAL SPECIALIST HOSPI-
TAL and ROYSPEC, PETITIONERS v.
SCOTT NELSON et ux.
on writ of certiorari to the united states court
of appeals for the eleventh circuit
[March 23, 1993]

  Justice Souter delivered the opinion of the Court.
  The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 entitles
foreign states to immunity from the jurisdiction of courts
in the United States, 28 U. S. C. 1604, subject to certain
enumerated exceptions.  1605.  One is that a foreign
state shall not be immune in any case -in which the
action is based upon a commercial activity carried on in
the United States by the foreign state.-  1605(a)(2).  We
hold that respondents' action alleging personal injury
resulting from unlawful detention and torture by the
Saudi Government is not -based upon a commercial
activity- within the meaning of the Act, which consequent-
ly confers no jurisdiction over respondents' suit.

                            I
  Because this case comes to us on a motion to dismiss
the complaint, we assume that we have truthful factual
allegations before us, see United States v. Gaubert, 499
U. S. ___, ___ (1991), though many of those allegations
are subject to dispute.  See Brief for Petitioners 3, n. 3;
see also n. 1, infra.  Petitioner Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
owns and operates petitioner King Faisal Specialist
Hospital in Riyadh, as well as petitioner Royspec Purchas-
ing Services, the Hospital's corporate purchasing agent in
the United States.  App. 91.  The Hospital Corporation of
America, Ltd. (HCA), an independent corporation existing
under the laws of the Cayman Islands, recruits Americans
for employment at the Hospital under an agreement
signed with Saudi Arabia in 1973.  Id., at 73.
  In its recruitment effort, HCA placed an advertisement
in a trade periodical seeking applications for a position as
a monitoring systems engineer at the Hospital.  The
advertisement drew the attention of respondent Scott
Nelson in September 1983, while Nelson was in the
United States.  After interviewing for the position in
Saudi Arabia, Nelson returned to the United States, where
he signed an employment contract with the Hospital, id.,
at 4, satisfied personnel processing requirements, and
attended an orientation session that HCA conducted for
Hospital employees.  In the course of that program, HCA
identified Royspec as the point of contact in the United
States for family members who might wish to reach
Nelson in an emergency.  Id., at 33.
  In December 1983, Nelson went to Saudi Arabia and
began work at the Hospital, monitoring all -facilities,
equipment, utilities and maintenance systems to insure
the safety of patients, hospital staff, and others.-  Id., at
4.  He did his job without significant incident until March
1984, when he discovered safety defects in the Hospital's
oxygen and nitrous oxide lines that posed fire hazards and
otherwise endangered patients' lives.  Id., at 57-58.  Over
a period of several months, Nelson repeatedly advised
Hospital officials of the safety defects and reported the
defects to a Saudi Government commission as well.  Id.,
at 4-5.  Hospital officials instructed Nelson to ignore the
problems.  Id., at 58.
  The Hospital's response to Nelson's reports changed,
however, on September 27, 1984, when certain Hospital
employees summoned him to the Hospital's security office
where agents of the Saudi Government arrested him.
The agents transported Nelson to a jail cell, in which they
-shackled, tortured and bea[t]- him, id., at 5, and kept
him four days without food.  Id., at 59.  Although Nelson
did not understand Arabic, Government agents forced him
to sign a statement written in that language, the content
of which he did not know; a Hospital employee who was
supposed to act as Nelson's interpreter advised him to
sign -anything- the agents gave him to avoid further
beatings.  Ibid.  Two days later, Government agents
transferred Nelson to the Al Sijan Prison -to await trial
on unknown charges.-  Ibid.
  At the Prison, Nelson was confined in an overcrowded
cell area infested with rats, where he had to fight other
prisoners for food and from which he was taken only once
a week for fresh air and exercise.  Ibid.  Although police
interrogators repeatedly questioned him in Arabic, id., at
5, Nelson did not learn the nature of the charges, if any,
against him.  Ibid.  For several days, the Saudi Govern-
ment failed to advise Nelson's family of his whereabouts,
though a Saudi official eventually told Nelson's wife,
respondent Vivian Nelson, that he could arrange for her
husband's release if she provided sexual favors.  Ibid.
  Although officials from the United States Embassy
visited Nelson twice during his detention, they concluded
that his allegations of Saudi mistreatment were -not
credible- and made no protest to Saudi authorities.  Id.,
at 64.  It was only at the personal request of a United
States Senator that the Saudi Government released
Nelson, 39 days after his arrest, on November 5, 1984.
Id., at 60.  Seven days later, after failing to convince him
to return to work at the Hospital, the Saudi Government
allowed Nelson to leave the country.  Id., at 60-61.
  In 1988, Nelson and his wife filed this action against
petitioners in the United States District Court for the
Southern District of Florida seeking damages for personal
injury.  The Nelsons' complaint sets out 16 causes of
action, which fall into three categories.  Counts II through
VII and counts X, XI, XIV, and XV allege that petitioners
committed various intentional torts, including battery,
unlawful detainment, wrongful arrest and imprisonment,
false imprisonment, inhuman torture, disruption of normal
family life, and infliction of mental anguish.  Id., at 6-11,
15, 19-20.  Counts I, IX, and XIII charge petitioners with
negligently failing to warn Nelson of otherwise undisclosed
dangers of his employment, namely, that if he attempted
to report safety hazards the Hospital would likely retaliate
against him and the Saudi Government might detain and
physically abuse him without legal cause.  Id., at 5-6, 14,
18-19.  Finally, counts VIII, XII, and XVI allege that
Vivian Nelson sustained derivative injury resulting from
petitioners' actions.  Id., at 11-12, 16, 20.  Presumably
because the employment contract provided that Saudi
courts would have exclusive jurisdiction over claims for
breach of contract, id., at 47, the Nelsons raised no such
matters.
  The District Court dismissed for lack of subject-matter
jurisdiction under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act
of 1976, 28 U. S. C. 1330, 1602 et seq.  It rejected the
Nelsons' argument that jurisdiction existed, under the first
clause of 1605(a)(2), because the action was one -based
upon a commercial activity- that petitioners had -carried
on in the United States.-  Although HCA's recruitment of
Nelson in the United States might properly be attributed
to Saudi Arabia and the Hospital, the District Court
reasoned, it did not amount to commercial activity -carried
on the United States- for purposes of the Act.  Id., at
94-95.  The court explained that there was no sufficient
-nexus- between Nelson's recruitment and the injuries
alleged.  -Although [the Nelsons] argu[e] that but for
[Scott Nelson's] recruitment in the United States, he
would not have taken the job, been arrested, and suffered
the personal injuries,- the court said, -this `connection' [is]
far too tenuous to support jurisdiction- under the Act.
Id., at 97.  Likewise, the court concluded that Royspec's
commercial activity in the United States, purchasing
supplies and equipment for the Hospital, id., at 93-94,
had no nexus with the personal injuries alleged in the
complaint; Royspec had simply provided a way for Nelson's
family to reach him in an emergency.  Id., at 96.
  The Court of Appeals reversed.  923 F. 2d 1528 (CA11
1991).  It concluded that Nelson's recruitment and hiring
were commercial activities of Saudi Arabia and the
Hospital, carried on in the United States for purposes of
the Act, id., at 1533, and that the Nelsons' action was
-based upon- these activities within the meaning of the
statute.  Id., at 1533-1536.  There was, the court rea-
soned, a sufficient nexus between those commercial
activities and the wrongful acts that had allegedly injured
the Nelsons: -the detention and torture of Nelson are so
intertwined with his employment at the Hospital,- the
court explained, -that they are `based upon' his recruit-
ment and hiring- in the United States.  Id., at 1535.  The
court also found jurisdiction to hear the claims against
Royspec.  Id., at 1536.  After the Court of Appeals
denied petitioners' suggestion for rehearing en banc, App.
133, we granted certiorari, 504 U. S. ___ (1992).  We now
reverse.


                           II
  The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act -provides the sole
basis for obtaining jurisdiction over a foreign state in the
courts of this country.-  Argentine Republic v. Amerada
Hess Shipping Corp., 488 U. S. 428, 443 (1989).  Under
the Act, a foreign state is presumptively immune from the
jurisdiction of United States courts; unless a specified
exception applies, a federal court lacks subject-matter
jurisdiction over a claim against a foreign state.
Verlinden B. V. v. Central Bank of Nigeria, 461 U. S. 480,
488-489 (1983); see 28 U. S. C. 1604; J. Dellapenna,
Suing Foreign Governments and Their Corporations 11,
and n. 64 (1988).
  Only one such exception is said to apply here.  The first
clause of 1605(a)(2) of the Act provides that a foreign
state shall not be immune from the jurisdiction of United
States courts in any case -in which the action is based
upon a commercial activity carried on in the United States
by the foreign state.-  The Act defines such activity as
-commercial activity carried on by such state and having
substantial contact with the United States,- 1603(e), and
provides that a commercial activity may be -either a
regular course of commercial conduct or a particular
commercial transaction or act,- the -commercial character
of [which] shall be determined by reference to- its -na-
ture,- rather than its -purpose.-  1603(d).
  There is no dispute here that Saudi Arabia, the Hospi-
tal, and Royspec all qualify as -foreign state[s]- within the
meaning of the Act.  Brief for Respondents 3; see 28
U. S. C. 1603(a), (b) (term -foreign state- includes -an
agency or instrumentality of a foreign state-).  For there
to be jurisdiction in this case, therefore, the Nelsons'
action must be -based upon- some -commercial activity-
by petitioners that had -substantial contact- with the
United States within the meaning of the Act.  Because we
conclude that the suit is not based upon any commercial
activity by petitioners, we need not reach the issue of
substantial contact with the United States.
  We begin our analysis by identifying the particular
conduct on which the Nelsons' action is -based- for
purposes of the Act.  See Texas Trading & Milling Corp.
v. Federal Republic of Nigeria, 647 F. 2d 300, 308 (CA2
1981), cert. denied, 454 U. S. 1148 (1982); Donoghue,
Taking the -Sovereign- Out of the Foreign Sovereign
Immunities Act: A Functional Approach to the Commercial
Activity Exception, 17 Yale J. Int'l L. 489, 500 (1992).
Although the Act contains no definition of the phrase
-based upon,- and the relatively sparse legislative history
offers no assistance, guidance is hardly necessary.  In
denoting conduct that forms the -basis,- or -foundation,-
for a claim, see Black's Law Dictionary 151 (6th ed. 1990)
(defining -base-); Random House Dictionary 172 (2d ed.
1987) (same); Webster's Third New International Dictio-
nary 180, 181 (1976) (defining -base- and -based-), the
phrase is read most naturally to mean those elements of
a claim that, if proven, would entitle a plaintiff to relief
under his theory of the case.  See Callejo v. Bancomer,
S. A., 764 F. 2d 1101, 1109 (CA5 1985) (focus should be
on the -gravamen of the complaint-); accord, Santos v.
Compagnie Nationale Air France, 934 F. 2d 890, 893 (CA7
1991) (-An action is based upon the elements that prove
the claim, no more and no less-); Millen Industries, Inc.
v. Coordination Council for North American Affairs, 272
U. S. App. D. C. 240, 246, 855 F. 2d 879, 885 (1988).
  What the natural meaning of the phrase -based upon-
suggests, the context confirms.  Earlier, see n. 3, supra,
we noted that 1605(a)(2) contains two clauses following
the one at issue here.  The second allows for jurisdiction
where a suit -is based . . . upon an act performed in the
United States in connection with a commercial activity of
the foreign state elsewhere,- and the third speaks in like
terms, allowing for jurisdiction where an action -is based
. . . upon an act outside the territory of the United States
in connection with a commercial activity of the foreign
state elsewhere and that act causes a direct effect in the
United States.-  Distinctions among descriptions juxta-
posed against each other are naturally understood to be
significant, see Melkonyan v. Sullivan, 501 U. S. ___, ___
(1991), and Congress manifestly understood there to be a
difference between a suit -based upon- commercial activity
and one -based upon- acts performed -in connection with-
such activity.  The only reasonable reading of the former
term calls for something more than a mere connection
with, or relation to, commercial activity.
  In this case, the Nelsons have alleged that petitioners
recruited Scott Nelson for work at the Hospital, signed an
employment contract with him, and subsequently employed
him.  While these activities led to the conduct that
eventually injured the Nelsons, they are not the basis for
the Nelsons' suit.  Even taking each of the Nelsons'
allegations about Scott Nelson's recruitment and employ-
ment as true, those facts alone entitle the Nelsons to
nothing under their theory of the case.  The Nelsons have
not, after all, alleged breach of contract, see supra, at 4,
but personal injuries caused by petitioners' intentional
wrongs and by petitioners' negligent failure to warn Scott
Nelson that they might commit those wrongs.  Those
torts, and not the arguably commercial activities that
preceded their commission, form the basis for the Nelsons'
suit.
  Petitioners' tortious conduct itself fails to qualify as
-commercial activity- within the meaning of the Act,
although the Act is too -`obtuse'- to be of much help in
reaching that conclusion.  Callejo, supra, at 1107 (citation
omitted).  We have seen already that the Act defines
-commercial activity- as -either a regular course of com-
mercial conduct or a particular commercial transaction or
act,- and provides that -[t]he commercial character of an
activity shall be determined by reference to the nature of
the course of conduct or particular transaction or act,
rather than by reference to its purpose.-  28 U. S. C.
1603(d).  If this is a definition, it is one distinguished
only by its diffidence; as we observed in our most recent
case on the subject, it -leaves the critical term
`commercial' largely undefined.-  Republic of Argentina v.
Weltover, Inc., 504 U. S. ___, ___ (1992); see Donoghue,
supra, at 499; Lowenfeld, Litigating a Sovereign Immunity
Claim-The Haiti Case, 49 N. Y. U. L. Rev. 377, 435,
n. 244 (1974) (commenting on then-draft Act) (-Start with
`activity,' proceed via `conduct' or `transaction' to `charac-
ter,' then refer to `nature,' and then go back to `commer-
cial,' the term you started out to define in the first
place-); G. Born & D. Westin, International Civil Litiga-
tion in United States Courts 479-480 (2d ed. 1992).  We
do not, however, have the option to throw up our hands.
The term has to be given some interpretation, and con-
gressional diffidence necessarily results in judicial respon-
sibility to determine what a -commercial activity- is for
purposes of the Act.
  We took up the task just last Term in Weltover, supra,
which involved Argentina's unilateral refinancing of bonds
it had issued under a plan to stabilize its currency.
Bondholders sued Argentina in federal court, asserting
jurisdiction under the third clause of 1605(a)(2).  In the
course of holding the refinancing to be a commercial
activity for purposes of the Act, we observed that the
statute -largely codifies the so-called `restrictive' theory of
foreign sovereign immunity first endorsed by the State
Department in 1952.-  504 U. S., at ___.  We accordingly
held that the meaning of -commercial- for purposes of the
Act must be the meaning Congress understood the restric-
tive theory to require at the time it passed the statute.
See Weltover, supra, at ___.
  Under the restrictive, as opposed to the -absolute,-
theory of foreign sovereign immunity, a state is immune
from the jurisdiction of foreign courts as to its sovereign
or public acts (jure imperii), but not as to those that are
private or commercial in character (jure gestionis).
Verlinden B. V. v. Central Bank of Nigeria, 461 U. S., at
487; Alfred Dunhill of London, Inc. v. Republic of Cuba,
425 U. S. 682, 698 (1976) (plurality opinion); see 28
U. S. C. 1602; see also Dunhill, supra, at 711 (Appendix
2 to the Opinion of the Court) (Letter to the Attorney
General from Jack B. Tate, Acting Legal Adviser, Dept.
of State, May 19, 1952); Hill, A Policy Analysis of the
American Law of Foreign State Immunity, 50 Ford. L.
Rev. 155, 168 (1981).  We explained in Weltover, supra,
at ___ (quoting Dunhill, supra, at 704), that a state
engages in commercial activity under the restrictive theory
where it exercises -`only those powers that can also be
exercised by private citizens,'- as distinct from those
-`powers peculiar to sovereigns.'-  Put differently, a
foreign state engages in commercial activity for purposes
of the restrictive theory only where it acts -in the manner
of a private player within- the market.  504 U. S., at ___;
see Restatement (Third) of the Foreign Relations Law of
the United States 451 (1987) (-Under international law,
a state or state instrumentality is immune from the
jurisdiction of the courts of another state, except with
respect to claims arising out of activities of the kind that
may be carried on by private persons-).
  We emphasized in Weltover that whether a state acts
-in the manner of- a private party is a question of behav-
ior, not motivation:
  -[B]ecause the Act provides that the commercial char-
  acter of an act is to be determined by reference to its
  `nature' rather than its `purpose,' the question is not
  whether the foreign government is acting with a profit
  motive or instead with the aim of fulfilling uniquely
  sovereign objectives.  Rather, the issue is whether the
  particular actions that the foreign state performs (what-
  ever the motive behind them) are the type of actions by
  which a private party engages in `trade and traffic or
  commerce.'-  Weltover, supra, at ___ (citations omitted)
  (emphasis in original).
We did not ignore the difficulty of distinguishing
-`purpose' (i.e., the reason why the foreign state engages
in the activity) from `nature' (i.e., the outward form of the
conduct that the foreign state performs or agrees to
perform),- but recognized that the Act -unmistakably com-
mands- us to observe the distinction.  504 U. S., at ___
(emphasis in original).  Because Argentina had merely
dealt in the bond market in the manner of a private
player, we held, its refinancing of the bonds qualified as
a commercial activity for purposes of the Act despite the
apparent governmental motivation. Id., at ___.
  Unlike Argentina's activities that we considered in
Weltover, the intentional conduct alleged here (the Saudi
Government's wrongful arrest, imprisonment, and torture
of Nelson) could not qualify as commercial under the
restrictive theory.  The conduct boils down to abuse of the
power of its police by the Saudi Government, and however
monstrous such abuse undoubtedly may be, a foreign
state's exercise of the power of its police has long been
understood for purposes of the restrictive theory as
peculiarly sovereign in nature.  See Arango v. Guzman
Travel Advisors Corp., 621 F. 2d 1371, 1379 (CA5 1980);
Victory Transport Inc. v. Comisaria General de Abasteci-
mientos y Transportes, 336 F. 2d 354, 360 (CA2 1964)
(restrictive theory does not extend immunity to a foreign
state's -internal administrative acts-), cert. denied, 381
U. S. 934 (1965); Herbage v. Meese, 747 F. Supp. 60, 67
(DC 1990), affirmance order, 292 U. S. App. D. C. 84, 946
F. 2d 1564, cert. denied, 502 U. S. ___ (1991); K. Randall,
Federal Courts and the International Human Rights
Paradigm 93 (1990) (the Act's commercial-activity excep-
tion is irrelevant to cases alleging that a foreign state has
violated human rights).  Exercise of the powers of police
and penal officers is not the sort of action by which
private parties can engage in commerce.  -[S]uch acts as
legislation, or the expulsion of an alien, or a denial of
justice, cannot be performed by an individual acting in his
own name.  They can be performed only by the state
acting as such.-  Lauterpacht, The Problem of Jurisdiction-
al Immunities of Foreign States, 28 Brit. Y. B. Int'l L.
220, 225 (1952); see also id., at 237.
  The Nelsons and their amici urge us to give significance
to their assertion that the Saudi Government subjected
Nelson to the abuse alleged as retaliation for his persis-
tence in reporting Hospital safety violations, and argue
that the character of the mistreatment was consequently
commercial.  One amicus, indeed, goes so far as to suggest
that the Saudi Government -often uses detention and
torture to resolve commercial disputes.-  Brief for Human
Rights Watch as Amicus Curiae 6.  But this argument
does not alter the fact that the powers allegedly abused
were those of police and penal officers.  In any event, the
argument is off the point, for it goes to purpose, the very
fact the Act renders irrelevant to the question of an
activity's commercial character.  Whatever may have been
the Saudi Government's motivation for its allegedly
abusive treatment of Nelson, it remains the case that the
Nelsons' action is based upon a sovereign activity immune
from the subject-matter jurisdiction of United States
courts under the Act.
  In addition to the intentionally tortious conduct, the
Nelsons claim a separate basis for recovery in petitioners'
failure to warn Scott Nelson of the hidden dangers
associated with his employment.  The Nelsons allege that,
at the time petitioners recruited Scott Nelson and thereaf-
ter, they failed to warn him of the possibility of severe
retaliatory action if he attempted to disclose any safety
hazards he might discover on the job.  See supra, at 4.
In other words, petitioners bore a duty to warn of their
own propensity for tortious conduct.  But this is merely
a semantic ploy.  For aught we can see, a plaintiff could
recast virtually any claim of intentional tort committed by
sovereign act as a claim of failure to warn, simply by
charging the defendant with an obligation to announce its
own tortious propensity before indulging it.  To give juris-
dictional significance to this feint of language would
effectively thwart the Act's manifest purpose to codify the
restrictive theory of foreign sovereign immunity.  Cf.
United States v. Shearer, 473 U. S. 52, 54-55 (1985)
(opinion of Burger, C. J.).

                           III
  The Nelsons' action is not -based upon a commercial
activity- within the meaning of the first clause of
1605(a)(2) of the Act, and the judgment of the Court of
Appeals is accordingly reversed.
                                      It is so ordered.