Boston Globe: US court overturns Bu

[sbillenness@xxxxxxxx]

Subject: Boston Globe: US court overturns Burma law 

Boston Globe: US court overturns Burma law
State purchasing law ruled unconstitutional
By Frank Philips, Globe Staff
June 23, 1999

A Massachusetts law barring the state from buying from firms doing business
in Burma was declared unconstitutional yesterday by a federal Appeals
Court, a legal ruling that could cripple a host of so-called selective
purchasing laws.

"This is a severe blow to the practice of state and local governments using
moral criteria to make financial decisions," said Simon Billenness, a
pro-Burmese democracy activist in Boston who helped guide the bill into law
in 1996. "The ruling will divorce morality from state spending."

The First Circuit Court of Appeals said that federal policy on Burma, which
includes some sanctions, preempts the 1996 Massachusetts selective purchase
law, as well as other similar statutes passed by more than over 20 others
state and local governments.

The three-member court also ruled that the US Constitution reserves the
right of regulating foreign commerce to the federal government.

The Burma law, which was the only state statute of its kind in the country
when it was passed, bars state contracts with firms that do business in
that Southeast Asian country, where a military junta has crushed a
democracy movement.

Antijunta activists said the decision is a serious setback to a host of
efforts to use the financial resources of local and state governments to
force changes overseas and in American foreign policy.

But the court's ruling is a major victory for the US State Department and
the Clinton administration's trade representatives, who were facing strong
opposition from foreign trading partners to the Burma selective purchase laws.

Soon after the Massachusetts law took went into effect, the European
Commission and Japan threatened to take the issue to the World Trade
Organization, arguing that the statute violates US obligations under trade
treaties.

In response, the State Department and the US trade representative's office
sent a delegation to the Massachusetts State House to persuade the Weld
administration and the legislators to scuttle the law.

Antijunta activists, however, say point out that the Massachusetts law has
been cited by several major American and international corporations in
deciding for their decision to close down operations in Burma. Among those

firms are Apple Computers, Levi Strauss, Eastman Kodak, Hewlett-Packard,
Philips Electronics, and a major Jampenese construction company, the
activists say.

Billenness is a senior analyst at Trillium Asset Management in Boston, a
social investment firm which has been active in supporting the
Massachusetts Burma law. He said the ruling will prohibit state governments
from using their resources to help bring about political and social changes
as they did in the antiapartheid campaign of the 1980s.

"Essentially this ruling will require state and local governments to do
business with companies that support dictators," Billenness said.

Other current Selective purchasing laws aimed at other international issues
are in serious jeopardy because of the ruling, Billenness said. He cited
the sanctions against buying rain forest wood andattempts to force American
companies in Northern Ireland to abide by a set of nondiscrimination
policies in their hiring. practices.

Representative Byron Rushing, a South End Democrat and the bill's sponsor
on Beacon Hill, said the court's ruling flies in the face of a longstanding
tradition that has allowed state and local governments to express their
opinions on US over American foreign policy.

"If we had rulings like this in the '70s and '80s, the United States would
not have been able to participate in the antiapartheid movement," Rushing
said. "I am glad these judges weren't around then or Mandela might still be
in jail."

He Rushing said he expects the state to appeal the case to the US Supreme
Court, where, he said, the law could be reinstated.

This story ran on page E01 of the Boston Globe on 06/23/99. 
© Copyright 1999 Globe Newspaper Company. 
Grammatical and spelling corrections were made to this article.