NFTC Files Lawsuit Seeking to Declare Illinois Sanctions Law Unconstitutional
The National Foreign Trade Council yesterday filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois seeking to declare unconstitutional an Illinois law requiring state pension funds to divest from companies with ties to Sudan.
The suit contends that the "Act to End Atrocities and Terrorism in the Sudan" is unconstitutional because the federal government already has enacted sanctions against Sudan, thereby preempting state and local sanctions. The case relies on the precedent set forth by the U.S. Supreme Court in Crosby v. NFTC, in which the Supreme Court in 2000 unanimously held that sanctions enacted by Massachusetts on Burma (Myanmar) violated the Constitution's Supremacy Clause (Article VI, clause 2).
California, Maine, New Jersey, Ohio and Oregon have also enacted similar Sudan sanctions laws .
|posted by Douglas N. Jacobson| Permalink 
