---
kind: "section"
citation: "22 U.S.C. § 288a"
title: "22"
title_heading: "Foreign Relations and Intercourse"
number: "288a"
heading: "Privileges, exemptions, and immunities of international organizations"
release: "119-102"
url: "https://uscodex.org/usc/22/288a"
units:
  - "Chapter 7 — International Bureaus, Congresses, Etc."
  - "Subchapter XVIII — Privileges and Immunities of International Organizations"
---

# §288a. Privileges, exemptions, and immunities of international organizations


[International organizations](/usc/22/4316.md?p=e-2) shall enjoy the status, immunities, exemptions, and privileges set forth in this section, as follows:

- (a) [International organizations](/usc/22/4316.md?p=e-2) shall, to the extent consistent with the instrument creating them, possess the capacity—
  - (i) to contract;
  - (ii) to acquire and dispose of real and [personal property](/usc/22/4341.md?p=6);
  - (iii) to institute legal proceedings.
- (b) [International organizations](/usc/22/4316.md?p=e-2), their property and their assets, wherever located, and by whomsoever held, shall enjoy the same immunity from suit and every form of judicial process as is enjoyed by [foreign](/usc/22/3146.md?p=1) governments, except to the extent that such organizations may expressly waive their immunity for the purpose of any proceedings or by the terms of any contract.
- (c) Property and assets of [international organizations](/usc/22/4316.md?p=e-2), wherever located and by whomsoever held, shall be immune from search, unless such immunity be expressly waived, and from confiscation. The archives of [international organizations](/usc/22/4316.md?p=e-2) shall be inviolable.
- (d) Insofar as concerns customs duties and internal-revenue taxes imposed upon or by reason of importation, and the procedures in connection therewith; the registration of [foreign](/usc/22/3146.md?p=1) agents; and the treatment of official communications, the privileges, exemptions, and immunities to which [international organizations](/usc/22/4316.md?p=e-2) shall be entitled shall be those accorded under similar circumstances to [foreign](/usc/22/3146.md?p=1) governments.

## Source credit

(Dec. 29, 1945, ch. 652, title I, § 2, 59 Stat. 669.)