Opinion ID: 6971731
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: international law issues

Text: The defendants also assert that, even if the plaintiffs may otherwise invoke this court’s jurisdiction, the Compact of Free Association, through which the services of FEMA are made available to the FSM, precludes judicial review of the plaintiffs’ claims. In doing so, they make a somewhat different argument than they made below. In the district court, the defendants maintained that this case presented a non-justiciable “political question” because relief from a federal court “would constitute impermissible judicial interference with the executive function of foreign policy.” Because the district court dismissed the suit on other grounds, it declined to reach this argument. On appeal, the defendants have changed course somewhat, and now contend that specific provisions in the Compact and its corollary agreement, the Federal Programs and Service Agreement Concluded Pursuant to Sections 221, 224, 225 and 232 of the Compact of Free Association, deprive the federal courts of jurisdiction to adjudicate the plaintiffs’ claims. In light of the complexity of this issue, the fact that the district court did not address it, and the defendants’ shifting position, we do not decide it here. Instead, we prefer that the district court consider it in the first instance, after fuller briefing. Accordingly, on remand the district court shall decide, inter alia, the question whether the remaining plaintiffs’ attempt to obtain federal judicial relief under the APA is inconsistent with the terms of the Compact, including §§ 172(b), 221, 423, and 463(a), and the Federal Programs and Service Agreement.