THE WRONG ROAD TO MANDALAY

[moe@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]

The wrong road to Mandalay
Boston Globe; Boston, Mass.; Nov 9, 1998; 

Sub Title: 
          [City Edition]
Start Page: 
          A22
ISSN: 
          07431791

Abstract:
US District Judge Joseph Tauro's ruling that the Commonwealth's "Burma Law"
was a
usurpation of the federal government's power to conduct foreign policy was
not an
endorsement of Burma's brutal regime.

The question was never whether Burma deserves punishment. It does. The
question was
simply whether US trade policy can be set at the local level by cities and
states.

Full Text:
Copyright Boston Globe Newspaper Nov 9, 1998


US District Judge Joseph Tauro's ruling that the Commonwealth's "Burma Law"
was a usurpation of the
federal government's power to conduct foreign policy was not an endorsement
of Burma's brutal regime.

The question was never whether Burma deserves punishment. It does. The
question was simply whether
US trade policy can be set at the local level by cities and states.

Tauro ruled that the state's 10 percent penalty on bids by companies doing
business in Burma is
unconstitutional.

In its ruling the court made a distinction between private political action
-- boycotting a reprehensible
regime -- and attempts to set foreign policy at the state or local level.

International agreements on trade are made by national governments and are
not subject to local veto. It
cannot be otherwise.

It was the European Union and the Japanese government that challenged the
Massachusetts measure on
the grounds that it violated this principle. American trade officials have
long struggled with local trade
inhibitions in other countries, particularly in Japan, and were undercut by
the Massachusetts restrictions on
state government purchases, no matter how appropriate the spirit of the
measure was in moral terms.

The Globe has supported steps against various repressive governments, most
prominently in opposing
South Africa's apartheid. Citizens are free to express moral outrage,
including boycotts of commercial
contracts with rogue regimes. State and local governments may press the
federal government to organize
national and international economic sanctions against these regimes. But
patchwork policy-making poses a
threat to international commerce, which is already difficult to keep flowing
freely, and inhibits the United
States from conducting a rational trade policy.