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Nature of Suit Code: 895
Nature of Suit: Freedom of Information Act of 1974
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued February 21, 2013 Decided June 7, 2013

No. 12-5136

CENTER FOR INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL LAW,

APPELLEE

v.

OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES TRADE REPRESENTATIVE AND

RON KIRK, IN HIS OFFICIAL CAPACITY AS THE UNITED STATES

TRADE REPRESENTATIVE,

APPELLANTS

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:01-cv-00498)

H. Thomas Byron III, Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice,

argued the cause for appellants. With him on the briefs were

Stuart F. Delery, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General,

Ronald C. Machen, U.S. Attorney, and Matthew M. Collette,

Attorney. R. Craig Lawrence, Assistant U.S. Attorney, entered

an appearance.

J. Martin Wagner argued the cause and filed the brief for

appellee. Sarah H. Burt entered an appearance. 

Bruce D. Brown was on the brief for amici curiae The

Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, et al. in support

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of appellee. Laurie A. Babinski, Jonathan D. Hart, Kathleen A.

Kirby, Eric N. Lieberman, David E. McCraw, Bruce W. Sanford,

Peter E. Scheer, and Kurt A. Wimmer entered appearances.

Before: BROWN and KAVANAUGH, Circuit Judges, and

RANDOLPH, Senior Circuit Judge.

Opinion for the Court filed by Senior Circuit Judge

RANDOLPH.

RANDOLPH, Senior Circuit Judge: 

The nature of foreign negotiations requires caution, and

their success must often depend on secrecy; and even

when brought to a conclusion, a full disclosure of all

the measures, demands, or eventual concessions, which

may have been proposed or contemplated, would be

extremely impolitic: for this might have a pernicious

influence on future negotiations, or produce immediate

inconveniences; perhaps danger and mischief, in

relation to other Powers.

So wrote President George Washington in response to a request

of the House of Representatives that he “lay before [the] House

a copy of the instructions to the minister of the United States

who negotiated the treaty with the King of Great Britain”—the

Jay Treaty—“together with the correspondence and other

documents relative to that treaty.” George Washington, Message

to the House of Representatives (Mar. 30, 1796), in 1 AMERICAN

STATE PAPERS: FOREIGN RELATIONS 550, 550–51 (Walter

Lowrie & Matthew St. Clair Clarke eds., 1833).1

 President

1

 President Washington added that “all the papers affecting the

negotiation with Great Britain were laid before the Senate, when the

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Washington’s objections have a direct bearing on this appeal

from the district court’s order requiring the Office of the United

States Trade Representative to disclose a classified document

describing the government’s position during international trade

negotiations.

During the 1990s and early 2000s, the United States and

thirty-three other countries participated in negotiations seeking

to establish the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas, a

proposed agreement that would have governed international

trade and investment throughout the Western Hemisphere. In

July 2000, the Center for International Environmental Law, a

not-for-profit public-interest organization, submitted a Freedom

of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552, request to the Office of the

United States Trade Representative. The Center sought, among

other things, documents circulated or tabled by the United States

during sessions of the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas

Negotiating Group on Investment held in February and May

2000. The Trade Representative identified forty-six documents

responsive to the Center’s request but withheld the documents

as exempt from disclosure. The Center sued to compel

production. 

After years of litigation, only one document remains in

dispute—a white paper referred to in the district court

proceedings as “document 1.”2

 The white paper consists of the

treaty itself was communicated for their consideration and advice.” Id.

at 551. 

2

 A complete history of the litigation may be found in the district

court’s three opinions. See Ctr. for Int’l Envtl. Law v. Office of the

U.S. Trade Representative, 845 F. Supp. 2d 252 (D.D.C. 2012); Ctr.

for Int’l Envtl. Law v. Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, 777 F.

Supp. 2d 77 (D.D.C. 2011); Ctr. for Int’l Envtl. Law v. Office of the

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Trade Representative’s commentary on the interpretation of the

phrase “in like circumstances.” The government shared the

paper with the Negotiating Group on Investment.

The United States and the thirty-three other countries

participating in the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas

negotiations agreed that all negotiating documents produced or

received during the course of negotiations would be restricted

and would not be released to the public if any participating

government objected to disclosure. Citing this confidentiality

agreement as well as the harm to “relations with foreign

governments and foreign activities” that it believed would result

from disclosure, the Trade Representative classified the white

paper as “confidential” and invoked FOIA exemption 1, which

applies to classified materials, as the basis for withholding it.3

Exemption 1 protects from disclosure information that has

been “properly classified” in the interest of “national defense or

foreign policy.” 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(1).4

 The governing Executive

Order provides that information is properly classified as

U.S. Trade Representative, 505 F. Supp. 2d 150 (D.D.C. 2007).

3

 In 2008, faced with the likely end of negotiations, the thirty-four

participating governments agreed that all negotiating documents

would be “derestricted” and available for public release on December

31, 2013, unless the government that produced a particular document

objected to its disclosure. In its brief, the Trade Representative asserts

that it intends to notify the other negotiating governments that the

white paper should remain restricted after December 31, 2013.

4

 Under exemption 1, the disclosure requirements of FOIA do not

apply to matters that are “(A) specifically authorized under criteria

established by an Executive order to be kept secret in the interest of

national defense or foreign policy and (B) are in fact properly

classified pursuant to such Executive order.” 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(1).

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“confidential” if its disclosure “reasonably could be expected to

cause damage to the national security,” Exec. Order No. 12,958,

as amended by Exec. Order 13,292, § 1.2(a)(3), 68 Fed. Reg.

15,315, 15,316 (Mar. 28, 2003), which includes “harm to the

. . . foreign relations of the United States,” id. § 6.1(j), 68 Fed.

Reg. at 15,331.5

The Trade Representative tells us that the phrase “in like

circumstances,” the meaning of which the white paper discusses,

is a key element of two nondiscrimination provisions integral to

trade and investment agreements entered into by the United

States—the “most-favored-nation treatment” and the “national

treatment” provisions.6

 The phrase defines the conditions under

5

 The Center and the Trade Representative agree that Executive

Order 12,958, which was in effect when the Trade Representative’s

classification decision was made, governs. We cite the amended

version of that Executive Order (found in Executive Order 13,292)

because, although the Trade Representative originally classified the

document on May 10, 2001, before this amendment was made, on

September 18, 2008, after the amendment took effect, the Trade

Representative extended the duration of the classification. Executive

Order 12,958 was later superseded by Executive Order 13,526, which

took effect during the course of the district court proceedings. See

Exec. Order No. 13,526, §§ 6.2(g), 6.3, 75 Fed. Reg. 707, 731 (Jan. 5,

2010). We need not concern ourselves with the question of which

Executive Order governs, see Campbell v. U.S. Dep’t of Justice, 164

F.3d 20, 29–30 (D.C. Cir. 1998), since the relevant classification

criteria are the same in both orders.

6

 National treatment requires that each party to the agreement

“accord to investors of the other [p]arty treatment no less favorable

than that it accords, in like circumstances, to its own investors with

respect to the establishment, acquisition, expansion, management,

conduct, operation, and sale or other disposition of investments in its

territory.” Trade Promotion Agreement, U.S.-Panama, art. 10.3, June

28, 2007 (entered into force Oct. 31, 2012), available at

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which those provisions apply but is not itself defined in such

agreements. The Trade Representative submitted declarations in

the district court asserting that the “United States has routinely

avoided making public U.S. interpretations of this type

concerning ‘in like circumstances’” because of the “wide

variety of factual circumstances that could characterize

investment relationships.” The white paper, the Trade

Representative declared, was not offered as a “definitive or

exhaustive statement of U.S. views on how the concept [of ‘in

like circumstances’] should be applied outside of the [Free

Trade Agreement of the Americas] or to every situation,” and its

disclosure would limit the United States’ flexibility to “assert a

broader or narrower view of the meaning and applicability” of

the phrase in interpreting existing agreements and in negotiating

future agreements.

As an example, the Trade Representative pointed to “a

substantial risk” that foreign investors or foreign governments

http://www.ustr.gov/trade-agreements/free-trade-agreements/

panama-tpa/final-text. Most-favored-nation treatment requires that

each party “accord to investors of the other [p]arty treatment no less

favorable than that it accords, in like circumstances, to investors of

any non-[p]arty with respect to the establishment, acquisition,

expansion, management, conduct, operation, and sale or other

disposition of investments in its territory.” Id. art. 10.4. These two

nondiscrimination provisions, including the phrase “in like

circumstances,” are present in the investment chapters of many other

free-trade agreements, see, e.g., North American Free Trade

Agreement, art. 1102, 1103, Dec. 17, 1992, 32 I.L.M. 605 (entered

into force Jan. 1, 1994), as well as in bilateral investment treaties, see,

e.g., Treaty Concerning the Encouragement and Reciprocal Protection

of Investment, U.S.-Uruguay, art. 3, 4, Nov. 4, 2005, S.TREATY DOC.

NO. 109-9 (entered into force Nov. 1, 2006). The Trade Representative

advises us that the United States will seek to include these provisions

(using the same language) in future agreements as well.

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could use the interpretation set forth in the white paper to

support a claim that the United States had breached its

obligations under an existing investment agreement.

“Specifically, foreign investors could question any interpretation

of ‘in like circumstances’ that the United States offers that does

not fall within the strict confines of [the white paper].” Although

recognizing that the document is not binding on the United

States, the Trade Representative expressed concern that

“international arbitrators may nonetheless be willing to look at

[the document] for assistance in interpreting the phrase ‘in like

circumstances’ since the term is not specifically defined in trade

agreements.” That, the Trade Representative asserted, could

make it more difficult for the United States to defend its

interests.

The district court concluded that this risk of adverse

arbitration decisions was “insufficiently substantiated.” Ctr. for

Int’l Envtl. Law, 845 F. Supp. 2d at 259. Arbitrators, the court

reasoned, “are generally aware of the non-binding, preliminary

nature of the interpretive position articulated in [the disputed

document],” and “the risk that international arbitrators will

adopt the position, much less rely on it to the United States’

detriment in arbitration, is too speculative to justify a reasonable

expectation of harm to foreign relations.” Id. at 259–60.

We do not see why, in the absence of a definition in the

governing agreement, it is so implausible that an arbitrator

would look to the white paper as evidence of the United States’

interpretation of the phrase—even if that document is not

binding on the United States. 

With respect to negotiating future agreements, the Trade

Representative asserted that “[e]ven if the United States was

prepared to embrace in a future agreement an interpretation of

‘in like circumstances’ identical to that reflected in [the white

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paper], U.S. negotiators might not want that interpretation to be

included in the opening U.S. position.” Rather, the Trade

Representative explained, “[t]hey might want to start with a

different offer, and then ‘negotiate up’ to the positions taken in

[the white paper].” Alternatively, the Trade Representative

explained, a negotiating partner “might first propose an

interpretation of ‘in like circumstances’ that is substantially

similar to the one reflected in [the white paper],” and “U.S.

negotiators might wish to accept ‘their’ proposal rather than

having to expend our own negotiating capital to convince the

other government(s) to accept ‘ours.’” Publicly disclosing the

white paper, the Trade Representative declared, “would prevent

the U.S. negotiators from exercising either of these

techniques—both of which are very common, and very useful,

in conducting trade negotiations”—and would thereby “damage

[the] ability of the United States to conclude future trade

agreements on favorable terms.”

The district court rejected the Trade Representative’s

argument and concluded that “[n]either of these options . . .

would be foreclosed by the disclosure of [the white paper].” Ctr.

for Int’l Envtl. Law, 845 F. Supp. 2d at 259. The Trade

Representative had explained that the position taken in the white

paper is not binding, and further that the United States does not

risk eroding the trust of its negotiating partners by altering its

positions during negotiations. From this the district court

reasoned that “the United States’ ability not to open with [the

white paper’s] interpretation in the future, or to accept it from a

negotiating partner, is not realistically imperilled by disclosure.”

Id.

We see no basis for doubting that the effectiveness of these

negotiating strategies could very well be limited if a negotiating

partner were aware of the positions the United States has taken

in the past. It is important to keep in mind that the Trade

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Representative was expressing concerns about the United States’

flexibility in future negotiations not necessarily with the

governments that participated in the Free Trade Agreement of

the Americas negotiations, but with governments that did not

take part in those negotiations. Absent disclosure of the white

paper, these other governments would not know the position the

United States had taken in the earlier negotiations.

Apparently recognizing as much, the district court

mentioned that the negotiations here extended across multiple

administrations. The court’s point was that future negotiating

partners would not have any “firm” expectation that a new U.S.

administration would adhere to the interpretation of “in like

circumstances” an earlier administration had advanced. Id. This

may be true, or it may not be. We do not know the expectations

of foreign governments or the positions future U.S.

administrations will support. But we do know that disclosure of

the white paper would reveal a position taken by the United

States in the past. It seems perfectly reasonable to think that

could limit the flexibility of U.S. negotiators.

Whether—or to what extent—this reduced flexibility might

affect the ability of the United States to negotiate future trade

agreements is not for us to speculate. The government has

determined that it would “damage [the] ability of the United

States to conclude future trade agreements on favorable terms.”

That determination has the force of history behind it. It echoes

what George Washington wrote more than two centuries ago.

Courts are “in an extremely poor position to second-guess” the

Trade Representative’s predictive judgment in these matters,

Larson v. Dep’t of State, 565 F.3d 857, 865 (D.C. Cir. 2009)

(internal quotation marks omitted), but that is just what the

district court did in rejecting the agency’s justification for

withholding the white paper.

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The question is not whether the court agrees in full with the

Trade Representative’s evaluation of the expected harm to

foreign relations. See Gardels v. CIA, 689 F.2d 1100, 1105 (D.C.

Cir. 1982). Rather, the question is “whether on the whole record

the [a]gency’s judgment objectively survives the test of

reasonableness, good faith, specificity, and plausibility.” Id. We

conclude that it does.

The Center suggests that the Trade Representative has not

shown the “requisite degree of harm,” Appellee’s Br. 40

(quoting King v. U.S. Dep’t of Justice, 830 F.2d 210, 224 (D.C.

Cir. 1987)), asserting that the agency “has presented no evidence

that the harm from the disclosure of the content of [the white

paper] would interfere with [the Trade Representative’s]

responsibilities enough to outweigh FOIA’s policy of ‘full

agency disclosure,’” id. at 48 (quoting Dep’t of the Interior v.

Klamath Water Users Protective Ass’n, 532 U.S. 1, 16 (2001)).

But there is no such balancing test under exemption 1. The only

question is whether the disputed document is properly classified

under the applicable Executive Order. See 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(1).

Here, the question is whether the white paper is properly

classified as “confidential.” The governing Executive Order

does not require the identification of any specific degree of harm

to support classification at the “confidential” level. See Exec.

Order No. 12,958, as amended by Exec. Order 13,292,

§ 1.2(a)(3), 68 Fed. Reg. at 15,316. While classification at the

“top secret” or “secret” levels requires that disclosure

“reasonably could be expected to cause exceptionally grave

damage” or “serious damage,” as the case may be, to the

national security, classification at the “confidential” level

requires only that disclosure “reasonably could be expected to

cause damage to the national security.” Id. at § 1.2(a), 68 Fed.

Reg. at 15,315–16. As discussed above, the Trade

Representative has satisfied its burden to explain the damage

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that reasonably could be expected to result from disclosure of

the white paper. 

Because the white paper was properly classified as

confidential, the Trade Representative properly withheld the

document as exempt from disclosure under FOIA exemption 1.

Accordingly, the judgment of the district court is 

Reversed.

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