Julian Ku

Gubernatorial Foreign Policy

In a variety of circumstances, state governors exercise independent decision-making power over matters affecting the foreign policy of the United States. This Essay describes and defends this emerging system of gubernatorial foreign policy on both legal and functional grounds. Recent Supreme Court decisions retreating from federal exclusivity in foreign affairs and prohibiting the commandeering of state executive officials leave a small doctrinal space for governors to act independently on matters affecting foreign policy. This small space has been further expanded by the federal governments practice of imposing limitations on the preemptive effect of treaties and international agreements. A system of gubernatorial foreign policy also represents the most practical and feasible way to accommodate the internationalizing pressure of globalization with a continuing federal system of dual sovereignties. Under this system, the states will continue to improve their capacity to deal with matters affecting foreign affairs, and the federal government will retain the right to preempt, but not to commandeer, state governors in the service of federal foreign policy goals.

Globalization and Sovereignty

Globalization represents the reality that we live in a time when the walls of sovereignty are no protection against the movements of capital, labor, information and ideas—nor can they provide effective protection against harm and damage.1 This declaration by Judge Rosalyn Higgins, the former President of the International Court of Justice, represents the conventional wisdom about the future of global governance. Many view globalization as a reality that will erode or even eliminate the sovereignty of nation-states. The typical account points to at least three ways that globalization has affected sovereignty. First, the rise of international trade and capital markets has interfered with the ability of nation-states to control their domestic economies.2 Second, nation-states have responded by delegating authority to international organizations.3 Third, a “new” international law, generated in part by these organizations, has placed limitations on the independent conduct of domestic policies.4

Beyond Formalism in Foreign Affairs: A Functional Approach to the Alien Tort Statute

This paper discusses the functional ability of federal courts to incorporate customary international law (CIL) through the vehicle of the Alien Tort Statute. In last Terms Sosa v. Alvarez Machain, the Supreme Court concluded that the Alien Tort Statute (ATS) is merely a jurisdictional statute, but also refused to stop the lower courts from allowing aliens to seek damages in federal court for certain international law violations. We use the Courts under-theorized conclusion as an opportunity to move beyond largely inconclusive formalist debates about the ATSs text, structure, and history. Instead, we conduct a comparative institutional analysis of the role of the courts and the executive in foreign affairs. This functional approach suggests that the executive branch can more effectively achieve the purpose behind the ATS. Critics of this approach have argued that a jurisdictional approach to the ATS would disrupt American foreign relations by allowing the states, rather than a single federal judiciary, to make and enforce CIL. The Courts recent decisions, however, address this concern by permitting presidential declarations of international policy to preempt state law. Thus, CIL could continue as part of the common law of the states enforceable in state court or through diversity jurisdiction in federal court subject to federal preemption by the President.