Opinion ID: 3039142
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: validity of the travel ban

Text: Sacks does not challenge OFAC’s basic authority to restrict travel to Iraq at the President’s direction under the United 17338 SACKS v. OFFICE OF FOREIGN ASSETS CONTROL Nations Participation Act (UNPA). See 22 U.S.C. § 287c(a) (allowing the President to prohibit rail, sea, and air “communication” with another country in order to comply with United Nations directives); Karpova v. Snow, 402 F. Supp. 2d 459, 469 (S.D.N.Y. 2005) (holding that the Iraq Travel Ban is duly authorized by the UNPA). Instead, he alleges that the Travel Ban regulation, 31 C.F.R. § 575.207, exceeded the President’s statutory authority because it indirectly regulated the donation of humanitarian medical supplies, something Sacks contends the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) forbids the President from doing. Because the IEEPA imposes no such burden on the President’s powers when he acts under the UNPA, we reject this argument. [9] The IEEPA grants the President authority to unilaterally impose regulations on economic transactions between the United States or its nationals, and foreign countries or their nationals. 50 U.S.C. § 1702(a)(1). To trigger this authority, the President must declare a “national emergency” necessitated by an “unusual and extraordinary threat.” Id. § 1701. However, the President’s power under the IEEPA is constrained: It “does not include the authority to regulate or prohibit, directly or indirectly . . . donations, by persons subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, of articles, such as food, clothing and medicine, intended to be used to relieve human suffering,” unless the President determines that such donations would seriously impair his ability to address the emergency or would endanger the safety of American combat forces engaged in hostilities. Id. § 1702(b)(2). The President, acting under the IEEPA, is also precluded from regulating the export of postal, telegraphic, telephonic and personal communications; information or informational materials, including magazines, photographs, and artwork; and travel to or from a country. Id. § 1702(b). As the district court recognized, however, the IEEPA is not the lone source of the President’s power to enact economic sanctions. Executive Order 12,724, which instructed the TreaSACKS v. OFFICE OF FOREIGN ASSETS CONTROL 17339 sury Secretary or his designate (OFAC) to promulgate regulations enforcing the economic sanctions against Iraq, derived its power from both the IEEPA and the UNPA. 55 Fed. Reg. 33,089 (Aug. 9, 1990). OFAC contends that Congress did not intend the IEEPA’s limits to interfere with the President’s authority under the UNPA. Our review of the structure and plain language of the two statutes convinces us that OFAC is correct. [10] The economic restrictions authorized by the IEEPA (and the related limits on that authority) are confined to a particular circumstance: the declared national emergency. See 50 U.S.C. § 1701(b) (“The authorities granted to the President by section 1702 of this title may only be exercised to deal with an unusual and extraordinary threat with respect to which a national emergency has been declared . . . .”); id. § 1702(b) (“The authority granted to the President by this section does not include the authority to regulate [humanitarian aid, travel, etc.].” (emphasis added)). The IEEPA also requires the president to consult with Congress before acting, and to regularly consult and report to Congress after exercising his authority. Id. § 1703. By contrast, the UNPA allows the President to impose sanctions that are more wide-ranging, without any built-in congressional review and “[n]otwithstanding the provisions of any other law.” 22 U.S.C. § 287c. When called upon to enforce a Security Council directive, the UNPA authorizes the President: to the extent necessary to apply such measures . . . [to] investigate, regulate or prohibit, in whole or in part, economic relations or rail, sea, air, postal, telegraphic, radio and other means of communication between any foreign country or national thereof . . . and the United States or any person subject to the jurisdiction thereof. Id. The UNPA thus authorizes the President to take measures when enforcing a Security Council resolution, such as limit17340 SACKS v. OFFICE OF FOREIGN ASSETS CONTROL ing postal communication and air travel, that he could not take independently by declaring a national emergency. Sacks’s proposed interpretation would treat Congress’s passage of the IEEPA in 1977 as a partial sub silentio repeal of the UNPA. We are reluctant to conclude that a statute has been repealed without a clear statement from Congress: “[E]ven when two statutes are in some conflict, repeal is to be regarded as implied only if necessary to make the latterenacted law work, and even then, only to the minimum extent necessary.” Lujan Armendariz v. INS, 222 F.3d 728, 744 (9th Cir. 2000) (internal quotation marks and brackets omitted). [11] We refuse to read Congress’s passage of the IEEPA as repealing key provisions of the UNPA. Proper functioning of the IEEPA does not depend on a repealing of the UNPA, since the two statutes authorize presidential actions in unique, albeit sometimes overlapping, situations. Reading the statutes to avoid a conflict maintains the complete viability of both statutes and is most faithful to Congress’s plain language. The legislative history of the IEEPA and the UNPA supports our view. The IEEPA was passed by Congress to counter the perceived abuse of emergency controls by presidents to unilaterally sanction foreign governments or interfere with international trade in non-emergency, peacetime situations. The Senate Committee Report explains: The bill is a response to two developments: first, extensive use by Presidents of emergency authority under section 5(b) of the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917 to regulate both domestic and interna- tional economic transactions unrelated to a declared state of emergency, and second, passage of the National Emergencies Act of 1977 which provides safeguards for the role of Congress in declaring and terminating national emergencies . . . . S. Rep. No. 95-466, at 2 (1977), as reprinted in 1977 U.S.C.C.A.N. 4540, 4541. The Senate Report then describes SACKS v. OFFICE OF FOREIGN ASSETS CONTROL 17341 the four national emergencies that were in effect in 1976, two of which had been in place for more than twenty-five years. Id. at 4541-42. [12] By contrast, the Senate Report accompanying passage of the UNPA acknowledged that the statute granted extraordinary powers to the President to enforce United Nations sanctions as quickly as possible, but stated the Committee’s belief that such powers were necessary to fulfill the United States’s obligations under the United Nations Charter and make international sanctions effective. As the House Report states, The committee realizes that the powers proposed to be granted to the President under this section are very great. However, the basic decision in this regard was made when the Charter was ratified and this provision is simply a necessary corollary to our membership in this Organization [the U.N.]. The committee also believes that the Security Council must be placed in the most effective position possible to act under article 41 since the prompt and effective application of economic and diplomatic sanctions by all the United Nations (or even the threat or possibility thereof) may avoid the necessity for the use of the armed forces available to the Security Council. The better prepared this country is to participate promptly in action of this kind, the more effective will be the Security Council and the more hope there will be that the United Nations may serve its major purpose, namely, the prevention of armed conflict. U.S. Code Cong. Serv., 79th Cong., p. 932 (1945). This legislative history confirms what the plain text of the statute indicates: that the IEEPA significantly restricted the President’s emergency authority but did not intend to alter the President’s 17342 SACKS v. OFFICE OF FOREIGN ASSETS CONTROL “very great” powers to impose economic sanctions enforcing a United Nations resolution. Nor does the IEEPA’s legislative history indicate, as Sacks contends, that the statute was intended to codify and make binding international law principles on humanitarian relief that had emerged since the passage of the UNPA thirty years earlier. Neither the IEEPA nor its legislative history mentions international law or a universal right to medical supplies. Congress’s only indication of its intent in exempting medical supplies from the President’s emergency powers is a statement in the Senate Report that the exemption would “enable U.S. persons to make humanitarian contributions in accordance with their conscience.” S. Rep. No. 95-466, 1977 U.S.C.C.A.N. at 4544. Sacks’s claim of congressional intent is further belied by the IEEPA provision allowing the President to unilaterally regulate, or even prohibit, humanitarian medical supplies simply by declaring that doing so is necessary to address the declared national emergency, as President George W. Bush did when he prohibited the export of humanitarian supplies to al-Qaeda and other terrorist entities following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. See Exec. Order No. 13,224, 66 Fed. Reg. 49,079, 49,080-81 (Sept. 23, 2001). [13] Therefore, the district court correctly held that the medical supplies exception to presidential power embodied in the IEEPA did not limit the President’s ability to ban travel to and within Iraq pursuant to the UNPA.4