1048 774 FEDERAL REPORTER, 3d SERIES This second observation is key to the Kims’ case. Congress enacted the terrorism exception expressly to bring state sponsors of terrorism—including, at the time, the DPRK—to account for their repressive practices. See H.R.Rep. No. 104– 383, at 62. Concerned with victims’ inability to obtain redress in terrorism cases, Congress later amended the statute to make it easier to attach a foreign State’s property during litigation and to seize those assets to satisfy a judgment. See 28 U.S.C. §§ 1605A(g), 1610. And the statute has always authorized the courts to enter default judgments against defendants who refuse to appear. Id. § 1608(e). With these provisions, Congress aimed to prevent state sponsors of terrorism—entities particularly unlikely to submit to this country’s laws—from escaping liability for their sins. Here, North Korea seeks to do exactly that. The regime has made Reverend Kim unavailable to testify on his own behalf, refused to appear in court and subject itself to discovery, and is known to intimidate defectors and potential witnesses. Indeed, the district court concluded, the regime is so feared that ‘‘those individuals who may know details about Reverend Kim’s whereabouts and treatment TTT convey such information sparingly and anonymously,’’ if at all. Kim, 950 F.Supp.2d at 42; see also Decl. of Do Hee–Youn ¶ 2 (explaining that the identities of ‘‘individuals that have supplied TTT information concerning North Korean matters TTT are kept confidential to ensure their safety from potential retribution against them by the North Korean government’’). In these circumstances, requiring that the Kims prove exactly what happened to the Reverend and when would defeat the Act’s very purpose: to ‘‘give American citizens an important economic and financial weapon,’’ H.R.Rep. No. 104–383, at 62, to ‘‘compensat[e] the victims of terrorism, and in so doing to punish foreign states who have committed or sponsored such acts and deter them from doing so in the future.’’ Price, 294 F.3d at 88–89. This is especially true in cases of forced disappearance, like this one, where direct evidence of subsequent torture and execution will, by definition, almost always be unavailable, even though indirect evidence may be overwhelming. Were we to demand more of plaintiffs like the Kims, few suits like this could ever proceed, and state sponsors of terrorism could effectively immunize themselves by killing their victims, intimidating witnesses, and refusing to appear in court. Fortunately for the Kims and for Congress’s objective, the Supreme Court has ‘‘recognize[d] very realistically’’ that courts have the authority—indeed, we think, the obligation—to ‘‘adjust [evidentiary requirements] to TTT differing situations.’’ Bundy v. Jackson, 641 F.2d 934, 951 (D.C.Cir. 1981) (citing McDonnell Douglas Corporation v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 93 S.Ct. 1817, 36 L.Ed.2d 668 (1973)). Consider, for instance, the long-established, common-law rule of res ipsa loquitur, or, literally, ‘‘the thing speaks for itself.’’ Under that doctrine, the courts have, without direct proof, inferred negligence from the very nature of events—say, from the fact that a surgery patient awoke from anesthesia to discover that a sponge had been left in her gut. That sort of inference is justified in part on the ground that ‘‘the court does not know, and cannot find out, what actually happened in the individual case,’’ often because the facts are known only to the defendant. RESTATEMENT (THIRD) TORTS: PHYSICAL AND EMOTIONAL HARM § 17 cmt. A, at 184 (2005). This approach allows the court to ‘‘encourag[e] the defendant to disclose relevant evidence,’’ id. at 193, and, if the defendant is unable to do so, to reach the common-sense conclusion ‘‘that it was