The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Monday on whether troves of Iranian artifacts at American art museums can be used to satisfy a $71.5 million judgment connected to a 1997 Hamas suicide bombing.

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David Strauss, house counsel for the University of Chicago, said FSIA’s language was “explicit.”

“That distinction between commercial and noncommercial property is stated explicitly in FSIA itself in Section 1602,” he argued. “It’s central to the U.N. Convention on the Immunities of States.”

The attorney noted that the International Court of Justice reached a similar conclusion, barring seizure of a cultural center because it was considered noncommercial.

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