Opinion ID: 6327683
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: WHO Constitution Immunity

Text: PAHO also claims immunity under the WHO Constitution. The WHO Constitution provides that it “shall enjoy in the territory of each Member such privileges and immunities as may be necessary for the fulfillment of its objective and for the exercise of its functions.” WHO CONST. art. 67(a). “Such . . . privileges and immunities shall be defined in a separate agreement to be prepared by the Organization in consultation with the Secretary-General of the United Nations the “provid[ing] or obtain[ing of] labor” through force. Under a § 1589(a) claim, the suffered injury is plainly involuntary servitude. By contrast, § 1589(b)—the TVPA subsection claim sub judice— criminalizes knowing benefit, financial or otherwise, from participation in a venture that has provided or obtained forced labor. Section 1589(b), like § 1589(a), protects against involuntary servitude. Cf. Rodriguez, 502 F. Supp. 3d at 217 (PAHO injured physicians because its financial activity played direct role in harming them). Section 1589(b) also protects commercial entities that decline to benefit from forced labor and may be harmed by competition from products or services garnering implicit subsidies from forced labor. 19 and concluded between the Members.” Id. art. 68. We assume arguendo that PAHO, the WHO’s Regional Office for the Americas, Agreement Between the World Health Organization and the Pan American Sanitary Organization, May 24, 1949, also enjoys the immunity granted to the WHO under the WHO Constitution. We nonetheless reject PAHO’s immunity claim because the relevant provision of the WHO Constitution is not self-executing.6 Although the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution guarantees that “all Treaties . . . shall be the supreme Law of the Land,” U.S. CONST. art. VI, cl. 2, the Supreme Court has long recognized the “distinction between treaties that automatically have effect as domestic law, and those that—while they constitute international law commitments—do not by themselves function as binding federal law.” Medellin v. Texas, 552 U.S. 491, 504 (2008). The court must determine whether a treaty has domestic legal effect—that is, whether the treaty is “self-executing.” “When [a treaty’s] stipulations are not self-executing, they can only be enforced pursuant to legislation to carry them into effect.” Whitney v. Robertson, 124 U.S. 190, 194 (1888). To determine whether a treaty is self-executing, the court must “decide whether a treaty’s terms reflect a determination by the President who negotiated it and the Senate that confirmed it that the treaty has domestic effect.” Medellin, 552 U.S. at 521. “The interpretation of a treaty [is] like the 6 The physicians make other arguments challenging PAHO’s asserted immunity under the WHO Constitution. They argue that the United States did not adopt the WHO Constitution through proper constitutional procedures and that WHO immunity does not extend to PAHO (WHO’s regional affiliate). Because we conclude that Article 67(a) of the WHO Constitution is not self-executing, we do not reach these arguments. 20 interpretation of a statute.” Id. at 506. We first look to the treaty’s text. Id. Because a treaty is “an agreement among sovereign powers, we have traditionally [also] considered as aids to its interpretation the negotiating and drafting history (travaux préparatoires) and the postratification understanding of the contracting parties.” Zicherman v. Korean Air Lines Co., 516 U.S. 217, 226 (1996); see also Choctaw Nation of Indians v. United States, 318 U.S. 423, 431 (1943) (courts “look beyond the written words” more often when interpreting treaty than when interpreting contract). Nonetheless, “[t]he clear import of treaty language controls unless application of the words of the treaty according to their obvious meaning effects a result inconsistent with the intent or expectations of its signatories.” United States v. Stuart, 489 U.S. 353, 365–66 (1989) (quoting Sumitomo Shoji America, Inc. v. Avagliano, 457 U.S. 176, 180 (1982)) (internal quotation marks omitted). As made plain by the language of Articles 67(a) and 68 of the WHO Constitution, Article 67(a) is not self-executing. First, Article 67(a) does not provide an enforceable rule-ofdecision. If a treaty provision does not contain a judicially manageable rule of decision, the provision is ordinarily not self-executing. See Diggs v. Richardson, 555 F.2d 848, 851 (D.C. Cir. 1976) (treaty is not self-executing if it does “not provide specific standards”); cf. Edye v. Robertson, 112 U.S. 580, 598–99 (1884) (“A treaty, then, is a law of the land as an act of congress is, whenever its provisions prescribe a rule by which the rights of the private citizen or subject may be determined.”). Article 67(a) provides that the WHO enjoys “privileges and immunities . . . necessary for the fulfillment of [the WHO’s] objective.” That standard is far too general to establish a rule of decision. 21 Moreover, Article 68 stipulates that the political branches will enforce Article 67(a). See WHO CONST. art. 68 (Article 67(a)’s “privileges and immunities shall be defined in a separate agreement to be prepared by the Organization in consultation with the Secretary-General of the United Nations and concluded between the Members”). If treaty language requires a political branch to take future action, courts almost always conclude that the treaty language committed discretion to the political branches and is therefore not self-executing. See Diggs, 555 F.2d at 851 (treaty not self-executing if it “call[s] upon governments to take certain action”); Republic of Marshall Islands v. United States, 865 F.3d 1187, 1194 (9th Cir. 2017) (treaty provision that “anticipates future action . . . to implement or honor the treaty obligation” is not selfexecuting); cf. Medellin, 552 U.S. at 509 (“The U.N. Charter’s provision of an express diplomatic—that is, nonjudicial— remedy is itself evidence that [International Court of Justice] judgments were not meant to be enforceable in domestic courts.”). Article 68 states that Article 67(a)’s “privileges and immunities shall be defined in a separate agreement to be prepared by the Organization in consultation with the Secretary-General of the United Nations and concluded between the Members.” The WHO Constitution thereby requires members to conclude an agreement defining the privileges and immunities. By adopting the WHO Constitution, the President and the Congress thereby agreed that another agreement is required to define the WHO’s privileges and immunities, relieving the courts of the task of defining them. In response, PAHO relies on Article 67(a)’s mandatory language. See WHO CONST. art. 67(a) (WHO “shall enjoy . . . such privileges and immunities as may be necessary for the fulfillment of its objective and for the exercise of its functions”) (emphasis added). Indeed, if a treaty provision does not include mandatory language like “shall” or “must,” that omission 22 usually indicates that the provision is not self-executing. Medellin, 552 U.S. at 508. But “even mandatory language may not be conclusive evidence that a provision is self-executing if the context and treaty objectives indicate otherwise.” Doe v. Holder, 763 F.3d 251, 255 (2d Cir. 2014). In other words, in determining whether a treaty provision is self-executing, mandatory language is required but not necessarily sufficient. PAHO also asserts that the U.S. has by implication bound itself to the separate treaty that defines the WHO’s “privileges and immunities.” In 1947, as provided by Article 68, the United Nations General Assembly approved the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the Specialized Agencies (CPISA). See Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the Specialized Agencies, 33 U.N.T.S. 261 (1947) (art. I, § 1(ii)(g) & art. III, § 4). The CPISA grants the WHO immunity from every form of legal process. Id. at 264, 266. The United States joined the WHO in 1948, see Constitution Adopted by the United States of America and Other Governments Respecting a World Health Organization, June 21, 1948, 62 Stat. 2679, T.I.A.S. No. 1808, one year after the U.N. General Assembly adopted the CPISA. But the United States has never ratified the CPISA. PAHO contends that the United States “by implication” ratified the CPISA, at least insofar as it defines the “privileges and immunities” of Article 67(a) of the WHO Constitution, when it ratified the WHO Constitution. But the United States did not ratify the CPISA by virtue of the WHO Constitution’s provision requiring a subsequent agreement defining “privileges and immunities.” Indeed, when the U.S. eventually entered into a corresponding treaty that granted immunity to the U.N.—the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations (CPIUN)—the Senate Report indicates that the political branches had not ratified treaties like the CPISA 23 because they thought that the IOIA itself provided sufficient immunity to international organizations. S. Exec. Rep. No. 9117, p. 1, 8, 11, 14 (1970). Moreover, the political branches thought it necessary to ratify the CPIUN—which expanded IOIA immunity in “minor ways,” id. at 1—even though Articles 105(1) and 105(3) of the U.N. Charter effectively mirror the WHO Constitution’s Article 67(a) and Article 68, respectively.7 Finally, we note that the United States has submitted an amicus brief affirming that, in its view, WHO Constitution Article 67(a) is not self-executing. “Respect is ordinarily due the reasonable views of the Executive Branch concerning the meaning of an international treaty.” El Al Israel Airlines, Ltd. v. Tsui Yuan Tseng, 525 U.S. 155, 168 (1999). The Executive Branch’s position reinforces our decision. For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the district court’s judgment denying PAHO’s motion to dismiss the 18 U.S.C. § 1589(b) claim and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. 7 Compare WHO CONST. art. 67(a) (WHO “shall enjoy in the territory of each Member such privileges and immunities as may be necessary for the fulfillment of its objective and for the exercise of its functions”) and WHO CONST. art. 68 (“Such . . . privileges and immunities shall be defined in a separate agreement to be prepared by the Organization in consultation with the Secretary-General of the United Nations and concluded between the Members.”) with U.N. CHARTER art. 105(1) (“The Organization shall enjoy in the territory of each of its Members such privileges and immunities as are necessary for the fulfillment of its purposes.”) and U.N. CHARTER art. 105(3) (“The General Assembly may make recommendations with a view to determining the details of the application of paragraphs 1 . . . of this Article or may propose conventions to the Members of the United Nations for this purpose.”). 24 So ordered.