AFP-US state will ask Supreme Court

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Subject: AFP-US state will ask Supreme Court to review 'Burma law'

US state will ask Supreme Court to review 'Burma law'
WASHINGTON, July 13 (AFP) - Massachusetts will ask the US Supreme Court to
review an appeals court finding that a state law aimed at penalizing
military-run Myanmar is unconstitutional, a senior state official said.
Assistant Attorney-General Thomas Barnico said his office would file papers
with the US Supreme Court in September asking it to review a June 22
appellate court decision which found the sanctions law unconstitutional.

"These are matters of national interest that have never been decided by the
Supreme Court," Barnico said by telephone from his office in Boston, the
state capital.

The Supreme Court will decided by year's end whether to hear arguments in
the case, with lawyers making their arguments by spring and a decision
likely by June, Barnico said.

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 by imposing so-called selective purchasing sanctions on
firms that do business with Myanmar.

"Although the law does not discriminate against foreign companies, it does
discriminate against foreign commerce ... (and) impedes the federal
government's ability to speak with one voice in foreign affairs," the
appellate court said in a 78-page decision.

"The conduct of this nation's foreign affairs cannot be effectively managed
on behalf of all of the nation's citizens if each of the many state and
local governments pursues its own foreign policy," it said.

Plaintiffs in the case, led by the National Foreign Trade Council Inc.,
welcomed the decision on behalf of its 580 member companies, calling it "a
complete rejection of the Massachusetts position."

President Bill Clinton imposed a ban on all new US investment in Myanmar in
1997, citing that country's record of serious human rights abuses.

The three-year-old Burma Law, which barred Massachusetts from doing business
with companies that invest in Myanmar (formerly Burma), sparked outrage from
key US trading partners Japan and Europe.

They complained that it violated World Trade Organization (WTO) rules.

The law evolved out of a fast-growing civic movement in the United States
modeled after the grassroots divestment campaigns targeting apartheid-era
South Africa in the 1980s.

Using e-mail to organize supporters, Myanmar dissidents and supporters in
this country have lobbied successfully in US cities and towns -- including
Los Angeles and New York City -- for passage of similar selective purchasing
laws.