422
Opinion of the Court
See German Foundation Agreement, 39 Int'l Legal Materials, at 1299, 1303 (declaring the German Foundation to be the "exclusive forum" for demands against German companies and agreeing to have insurance claims resolved under procedures developed through negotiation with the ICHEIC); Agreement Relating to the Agreement of October 24, 2000, Concerning the Austrian Fund "Reconciliation, Peace and Cooperation," Jan. 23, 2001, 2001 WL 935261, Annex A, § 2(n) (same for Austria). This position, of which the agreements are exemplars, has also been consistently supported in the high levels of the Executive Branch, as mentioned already, supra, at 411. See also, e. g., Hearing before the Committee on House Banking and Financial Services, 106th Cong., 2d Sess., 173 (2000) (Deputy Secretary Eizenstat statement that "[t]he U. S. Government has supported [the ICHEIC] since it began, and we believe it should be considered the exclusive remedy for resolving insurance claims from the World War II era"); Hearings on H. R. 2693, at 24 (statement by Ambassador Bell to the same effect); Hearing on the Legacies of the Holocaust before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, 106th Cong., 2d Sess., 23 (2000) (Eizenstat testimony that a company's participation in the ICHEIC should give it " 'safe haven' from sanctions, subpoenas, and hearings relative to the Holocaust period").12
The approach taken serves to resolve the several competing matters of national concern apparent in the German Foundation Agreement: the national interest in maintaining amica-12 In Barclays Bank PLC v. Franchise Tax Bd. of Cal., 512 U. S. 298, 328-330 (1994), we declined to give policy statements by Executive Branch officials conclusive weight as against an opposing congressional policy in determining whether California's "worldwide combined reporting" tax method violated the Foreign Commerce Clause. The reason, we said, is that "[t]he Constitution expressly grants Congress, not the President, the power to 'regulate Commerce with foreign Nations.' " Id., at 329 (quoting Art. I, § 8, cl. 3). As we have discussed, however, in the field of foreign policy the President has the "lead role." First Nat. City Bank v. Banco Nacional de Cuba, 406 U. S. 759, 767 (1972).
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