Buy essay on Does the Supreme Court of the United States influence America’s foreign policy

: This is a cross sectional research paper. Looking at previous cases that were brought against America dealing with international affairs and SCOTUS decisions (start as far back as the creation of America).The cases will be international trade, Native American treaties, international treaties, War time decisions).

Does the Supreme Court of the United States influence America’s foreign policy?
Contents
1. Introduction.
2. Supreme Court decisions: international trade.
3. Supreme Court decisions: native American treaties, international treaties.
4. Supreme Court: war time decisions
5. References.
6. Bibliography.

1. Introduction.
Foreign affairs are national affairs. The United States is a single nation-state and it is the United States (not the states of the Union, together or singly) that has relations with other nations; and the United States Government leads those relations and makes national foreign policy. As the proverbial schoolchild knows, the Constitution established a ‘more perfect Union’ on pillars of federalism and the separation of powers. It delegated authority and function to the federal government by vesting legislative powers in Congress, the executive power in the President, the judicial power in a federal judiciary. ‘The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution… are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.’(The Tenth Amendment) From the beginning, it was clear, this ‘more perfect Union’ was one sovereign nation, and from the beginning the federal government has maintained the relations of that nation with other sovereign nations. But the Constitution does not declare the United States a single sovereign nation, expressly or even by indisputable implication. Indeed, where foreign relations are concerned the Constitution seems a strange, laconic document: although it explicitly lodges important foreign affairs powers in one branch or another of the federal government, and explicitly denies important foreign affairs powers to the states, many powers of government are not mentioned. Constitutional lawyers have been troubled by these lacunae and have been struggled to explain and to fill them. No explanation has been universally accepted, and no proposed principle of constitutional construction has supplied what is missing to universal satisfaction. Different doctrines that have been suggested have different legal and political consequences. Under all of them, however, foreign affairs remain exclusively national. The Constitution does not delegate a ‘power to conduct foreign relations’ to the United States or to the federal government, or confer it upon any of its branches. Congress is given power to regulate commerce with foreign nations, to define offenses against the law of nations, to declare war, and the President is given the power to make treaties and is authorized to send and receive ambassadors, but these hardly add up to full power to conduct foreign relations. Where – for random examples – is the power to recognize other states or governments; to open consulates in other countries and permit foreign governments to establish consulates in the United States; to acquire or cede territory; to grant or withhold foreign aid, to proclaim a Monroe Doctrine, an Open-Door Policy, or a Regan Doctrine; indeed to determine all the attitudes and carry out all the details in the myriads of relationships with other nations that are ‘the foreign policy’ and ‘the foreign relations’ of the United States. The power to make treaties is granted, but where is the power to break, denounce, or terminate them? The power to declare war is there, but where is the power to make peace, to proclaim neutrality in the wars of others, or to recognize or deny rights to belligerents or insurgents, or to address the consequences of the United Nations Charter and other international agreements regulating war? Congress can enact laws to define and punish violations of international law, but where is the power to assert U.S. rights or to carry out its obligations under international law, to help make new international law, or to disregard or violate law that has been made? Congress can regulate commerce with foreign nations, but where is the power to make other laws relating to U.S. foreign relations – to regulate immigration or the status and rights of aliens, or activities of citizens abroad? These ‘missing’ powers and a host of others, were clearly intended for, and have always been exercised by, the federal government, but where does the Constitution say that it shall be so?
Traditional interpreters of the Constitution have attempted to find the missing powers by traditional modes of constitutional construction. Foreign affairs powers expressly granted to have been held to imply others: for example, the power to make treaties implies the power to terminate or break them. Foreign affairs powers, we shall see, have been spun also from general grants of power and from designations read as grants; for example, the power of Congress to do what is ‘necessary and proper’ to carry out other powers (Art. I, sec.8), or the provision vesting in the President ‘the executive power’ (Art. II, sec.1). Additional powers for the federal government might be inferred from their express denial to the states. Art. I, sec.10)
2. Supreme Court decisions: international trade.
Star-Kist Foods, a U.S. producer of canned tuna, instituted a lawsuit to protest the assessment of duties made by the collector of customs on imported canned tuna. Duty was assessed on the canned tuna at the rate of 12.5 percent pursuant to a trade agreement with Iceland. Prior to the agreement, the tariff rate had been set by Congress in the Tariff Act of 1930 at 25 percent ad valorem. The trade agreement with Iceland, which resulted in lowering the rate of duty, was executed pursuant to the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act of 1934. That act authorized the President to come into foreign commerce covenant for the goal of expanding markets of foreign countries for the products of the USA by giving corresponding markets possibilities for products of foreign countries in the United States. To implement an agreement, the president was authorized to raise or lower any duty previously set by Congress, but not by more than 50 percent. Star-Kist brought his action, contending the delegations of authority under the 1934 act and the agreement with Iceland was unconstitutional. A constitutional delegation of powers requires that Congress enunciate a policy or objective or give reasons for seeking the aid of the President. In addition the act must specify when the powers conferred may be utilized by establishing a standard or “intelligible principle” which is sufficient to make it clear when action is proper. And because Congress cannot abdicate its legislative function and confer carte blanche authority on the President, it must circumscribe that power in some manner. This means that Congress must tell the President what he can do by prescribing a standard which confines his discretion and which will guarantee that any authorized action he takes will tend to promote rather than flout the legislative purpose. It is not necessary that the guides be precise or mathematical formulae to be satisfactory in a constitutional sense. In the act before us the congressional policy is pronounced very clearly. The stated objectives are to expand foreign markets for the products of the United States “by regulating the admission of foreign goods into the United States in accordance with the characteristics and needs of various branches of American production so that foreign markets will be made available to those branches of American production so that foreign markets will be made available to those branches of American production which require and are capable of developing such outlets by foreign products in the United States” Pursuant to the 1934 act the presidential power can be invoked “whenever he [President] finds as a fact that any existing duties or other import restrictions of the United States or any foreign country are unduly burdening or restricting the foreign trade of the United States and that the [purpose of the act] will be promoted.” Under the provisions of the 1934 act the President by proclamation can modify existing duties and other import restrictions but not by more than 50 percent of specified duties nor can he place articles upon or take them off the free list. Furthermore, he must accomplish the purposes of the act through the medium of foreign trade agreements with other countries. However, he can suspend the operation of such agreements if he discovers discriminatory treatment of American commerce, and he can terminate, in whole or in part, any proclamation at any time….