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Supreme Court review of "Burma law" will decide local sanction power "This is very significant," said Simon Billenness, a senior analyst at Trillium Management Corp., an asset management company who co-authored the Massachusetts Burma Law. Burma was the former name of Myanmar. "The Supreme Court only takes about two percent of the cases appealed to it, so it clearly views this as an opportunity to clarify the law or make a new law," agreed Bob Stumberg, a law professor at Georgetown University. The US Court of Appeals in Boston last month unanimously upheld a November 1998 lower-court decision that Massachusetts intruded upon the powers of the federal government when it passed the Burma Law, as Myanmar used to be known. The court agreed that the state could not impose selective purchasing sanctions on firms that do business with Myanmar. The Supreme Court agreed Monday to review the June 22 appellate court decision which found the sanctions law unconstitutional. "Certainly this decision should give heart to the Burmese democracy movement inside the country," Billenness added. Myanmar's leading democracy spokeswoman, Aung San Suu Kyi has called for international sanctions on her country as a means of pressuring the ruling military to ease its political grip on its people. Whatever the court rules, its decision will be binding across the country. A ruling is expected before the court adjourns next June. The Burma Law, undertaken by several US states and cities, adds a ten percent penalty on companies who do business in Burma when they bid on government procurement contracts -- effectively barring them from winning those contracts. "The existence of selected purchasing laws in the United States have proved to be a powerful deterrent to companies seeking to do business in Burma," Billenness stated. The National Foreign Trade Council, the successful plaintiff that challenged the Burma Law, announced on its website USA Engage that it supported the Supreme Court review. "This case has always been about what is permissible under the US Constitution, not about Burma," NFTC president Frank Kitredge said on the site. "With American businesses currently facing a patchwork of state and local sanctions that inhibit the ability to conduct business abroad, a prompt nationwide resolution is essential -- and this is the right case in which to review the case," he said. A related case at the World Trade Organization is riding on the Supreme Court decision. The European Union and Japan took the United States to the WTO saying the Massachusetts Burma Law violated WTO government procurement agreements barring the use of non-economic criteria in granting the contracts. The dispute went as far as a WTO dispute panel. The process was suspended in November 1998 when the US federal court struck the law down as unconstitutional. But Billenness argues the National Foreign Trade Council is trying to repeal a key legacy of the anti-apartheid fight when dozens of US cities and states, as part of a wide international movement, effectively barred companies that did business in South Africa from winning municipal and state contracts . "The
Massachusetts Burma Law uses the exact same mechanisms as these former anti-apartheid
laws," Billenness pointed out. [
photo | sonam zoksang ]
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