wfn.org | Church leader disappointed by Supreme Court's Myanmar ruling

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

June 21, 2000  News media contact: Joretta Purdue ·(202) 546-8722·Washington
10-21-33-71B{288}

WASHINGTON (UMNS) - The president of the Women's Division of the United
Methodist Board of Global Ministries says she is disappointed about the U.S.
Supreme Court's recent decision in a case involving human rights.

The court's June 19 decision upholds lower court rulings that bar the state
of Massachusetts from virtually withholding contracts from companies doing
business with Burma, renamed Myanmar by its military government. 

The Supreme Court's unanimous decision overturns a Massachusetts law and
similar ones adopted by local governments in other parts of the United
States. The others dealt with Myanmar, Nigeria, Indonesia and Northern
Ireland.

"The ruling limits the partners with whom the Women's Division can work,"
observed Sara S. Shingler, Spartanburg, S.C., president of the Women's
Division. "When we're engaging in action in the international arena, we have
been able to work with anyone." She cited the earlier efforts to do away
with apartheid in South Africa that brought together states, cities,
countries and a myriad of organizations. Now, state and local governments
are prohibited from such selective purchasing. 

Massachusetts had passed its law in 1996 because of Myanmar's alleged human
rights abuses. The state gave a 10 percent cost preference to bids from
companies not doing business in Myanmar. A group of more than 600
businesses, joined together as the National Foreign Trade Council, filed a
lawsuit to get the law struck down.

In its decision, the Supreme Court agreed with the trade council. The court
ruled that implementing the state act would violate congressional action on
this issue. Three months after the Massachusetts law was passed, Congress
had passed a law that specifically gave the president the power to use
economic sanctions and to work with other nations to bring about change in
the country. The federal act also defined a range of economic sanctions
within which the president had total discretion to bring about desired
improvements.

For Shingler the ruling raises other questions. "Are all the states called
to speak in one voice as it relates to other nations?" she asked. If so,
what does that do to the common practice of states and cities competing for
foreign businesses? A foreign automotive factory was built in Spartanburg
because of local and state inducements, she noted.

She also wondered how the ruling will affect free trade agreements. "I think
the free trade agreements that have been made are going to need a lot of
study as to how they really affect business in the United States and around
the world," she said. She also wondered what effect, if any, the ruling
might have on existing and pending trade policy.

Last November, the Women's Division signed an amicus, or friend of the
court, brief on the side of Massachusetts because the division felt this is
a social justice issue. On March 22 -- the day the Supreme Court heard the
case, Crosby vs. National Foreign Trade Council -- several members of the
Women's Division were in Washington to participate in a prayer rally in
front of the court.

As to the Women's Division's policy, Shingler thinks the decision will not
affect religious and nongovernmental organizations' own purchasing choices. 

"The Women's Division will continue to influence for change in the human
rights of women, children and youth in Burma by whatever means available to
us," Shingler said.

Currently, the organization also uses shareholder resolutions and
withholding investments of division pension funds, she said. But the loss of
sanctions could mean less collective influence being exerted, she said.
Businesses must be held accountable, she stated.

"The government of Burma has pressed over 5.5 million people into slavery in
the past decade," said Bob Stumberg, professor of law at Georgetown
University and author of the amicus brief. "Those are their numbers. That's
11 percent of their population. Eleven percent of the population in the
United States were slaves in 1860."

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*Kelly Martini with the Women's Division contributed to this report.

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United Methodist News Service
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