Opinion ID: 204341
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Judicially Manageable Standards

Text: We next consider whether there is a lack of judicially discoverable and manageable standards for resolving the claims presented. Baker, 369 U.S. at 217, 82 S.Ct. 691. This concept is not completely separate from the concept of a textual commitment to the coordinate branches. Nixon v. United States, 506 U.S. 224, 228, 113 S.Ct. 732, 122 L.Ed.2d 1 (1993). However, a court may examine the merits of a case that touches on foreign policy in some instances, such as where a statutory scheme exists to guide the court's determination of an issue. See, e.g., Japan Whaling, 478 U.S. at 230, 106 S.Ct. 2860 (finding that judicially manageable standards exist, and case is justiciable, where decision. . . calls for applying no more than the traditional rules of statutory construction, and then applying this analysis to the particular set of facts presented below). In contrast, where there is an utter absence of statutory, administrative or case law available to guide our decision, we disfavor resolution on the merits. Lane, 529 F.3d at 562. We are persuaded that deciding the merits of the instant case would require a court to recast what are foreign policy and national security questions of great import in antitrust law terms. We hardly need to pierce the pleadings before us to understand that Appellants seek nothing short of the dismantling of OPEC and the inception of a global market that operates in the absence of agreements between sovereigns as to the supply of a key natural resource. The Sherman and Clayton Acts are decidedly inadequate to provide judicially manageable standards for resolving such momentous foreign policy questions. Indeed, [i]t has never been supposed that there are any judicially manageable standards for reviewing the conduct of our nation's foreign relations by the other two branches of the federal government. Trujillo-Hernandez v. Farrell, 503 F.2d 954, 954 (5th Cir.1974) (per curiam) (citing Harisiades, 342 U.S. 580, 72 S.Ct. 512, 96 L.Ed. 586, Pink, 315 U.S. 203, 62 S.Ct. 552, 86 L.Ed. 796, and Oetjen v. Central Leather Co., 246 U.S. 297, 38 S.Ct. 309, 62 L.Ed. 726 (1918)). We agree with those courts that have held that merely recasting foreign policy and national security questions in tort terms does not provide standards for making or reviewing foreign policy judgments. Schneider, 412 F.3d at 197. See also Aktepe v. United States, 105 F.3d 1400, 1404 (11th Cir.1997) (The interjection of tort law into the realms of foreign policy and military affairs would effectively permit judicial reappraisal of judgments the Constitution has committed to the other branches.). The same reasoning holds true when parties couch the conduct of foreign relations and national security policy in antitrust terms while essentially asking us to make a pronouncement on the resource-exploitation decisions of foreign sovereigns that control the global supply of oil, a natural resource vital to the economic and national security of this country.