Massachusetts State House Boston November 2016

The Massachusetts Burma Law was a law enacted in 1996 by the

Massachusetts General Court The Massachusetts General Court (formally styled the General Court of Massachusetts) is the state legislature of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The name "General Court" is a hold-over from the earliest days of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, ...

limiting state entities from purchasing services from companies doing business with

Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John C. Wells, Joh ...

(Burma). This law was enacted three months before the introduction of federal sanctions on trade with Burma.Harrison Institute for Public Law, ''Defending the Massachusetts Law'', Georgetown University Law Center A "restricted trade" list was compiled by the

Commonwealth A commonwealth is a traditional English term for a political community founded for the common good. Historically, it has been synonymous with "republic". The noun "commonwealth", meaning "public welfare, general good or advantage", dates from the ...

, which included 34 members of the

National Foreign Trade Council Founded in 1914, the National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC) is an American trade association advocating an open, rules-based international trade system. It serves its hundreds of member companies in activities encompassing international trade policy ...

(NFTC). The NFTC filed suit against Massachusetts' then Secretary of Administration and Finance, Stephen Crosby, in '' Crosby v. National Foreign Trade Council'', , arguing that the Massachusetts law infringed upon the federal government's foreign affairs and foreign commerce powers, and that it was already pre-empted by federal law. Massachusetts was also charged with violating the

Supremacy Clause The Supremacy Clause of the Constitution of the United States ( Article VI, Clause 2) establishes that the Constitution, federal laws made pursuant to it, and treaties made under its authority, constitute the "supreme Law of the Land", and thu ...

of the

U.S. Constitution The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It superseded the Articles of Confederation, the nation's first constitution, in 1789. Originally comprising seven articles, it delineates the natio ...

. The NFTC won the case with

U.S. Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

Justice

David H. Souter David Hackett Souter ( ; born September 17, 1939) is an American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1990 until his retirement in 2009. Appointed by President George H. W. Bush to fill the seat ...

ruling that "the state Act is preempted, and its application unconstitutional, under the Supremacy Clause." The law was thus nullified.

References

External links

Crosby v. National Foreign Trade Council
Federalism in the United States Massachusetts statutes 1996 in American law 1996 in Massachusetts Myanmar–United States relations

Burma Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...

{{US-law-stub

See also

References

External links