Point of Law
Sept 13 2009
Setbacks for California foreign policy
Courts have dealt two more blows to the California legislature’s
longstanding effort to pursue its own foreign policy on reparations
issues. An appeals court agreed, as the L.A. Times summarizes matters,
that "California officials overstepped their authority when they
passed the state’s Holocaust art-restitution law, because they
intruded on what is strictly a federal government prerogative to shape
policies on war and foreign affairs." And a Ninth Circuit panel ruled
unconstitutional, as an interference with U.S. foreign policy, a
California law that had been used to leverage large settlements
against life insurers over the deaths of Armenians in the Ottoman
Empire between 1915 and 1923. The panel ruled 2-1 that the state
lacked the power to define the slaughters as "genocide", a word the
U.S. government has refrained from applying. [National Law Journal]
Earlier the state enacted a law at the behest of Sen. Tom Hayden that
unsuccessfully aimed at opening up lawsuits against Japan over
mistreatment of American POWs in World War II, a stance not approved
of by the U.S. State Department.
If these rebukes keep up, perhaps California will be so miffed that it
will recall its ambassadors from Washington, D.C. Or perhaps the trial
lawyers who often figure prominently in the Sacramento lobbying for
such bills will at length turn their ingenuity to less blatantly
unconstitutional schemes.
09/setbacks-for-ca.php
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
