American Insurance Association v. Garamendi, 539 U.S. 396, 28 (2003)

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Cite as: 539 U. S. 396 (2003)

Opinion of the Court

ble relationships with current European allies; survivors' interests in a "fair and prompt" but nonadversarial resolution of their claims so as to "bring some measure of justice . . . in their lifetimes"; and the companies' interest in securing "legal peace" when they settle claims in this fashion. 39 Int'l Legal Materials, at 1304. As a way for dealing with insurance claims, moreover, the voluntary scheme protects the companies' ability to abide by their own countries' domestic privacy laws limiting disclosure of policy information. See Brief for Federal Republic of Germany as Amicus Curiae 12-13.13

California has taken a different tack of providing regulatory sanctions to compel disclosure and payment, supplemented by a new cause of action for Holocaust survivors if the other sanctions should fail. The situation created by the California legislation calls to mind the impact of the Massachusetts Burma law on the effective exercise of the President's power, as recounted in the statutory preemption case, Crosby v. National Foreign Trade Council, 530 U. S. 363 (2000). HVIRA's economic compulsion to make public disclosure, of far more information about far more policies than ICHEIC rules require, employs "a different, state system of economic pressure," and in doing so undercuts the Presi-13 The dissent would discount the executive agreements as evidence of the Government's foreign policy governing disclosure, saying they "do not refer to state disclosure laws specifically, or even to information disclosure generally." Post, at 441 (opinion of Ginsburg, J.). But this assertion gives short shrift to the agreements' express endorsement of the ICHEIC's voluntary mechanism, which encompasses production of policy information, not just actual payment of unpaid claims. See supra, at 406- 407. The dissent would also dismiss the other Executive Branch expressions of the Government's policy, see supra, at 411, 422, insisting on nothing short of a formal statement by the President himself, see post, at 441-443. But there is no suggestion that these high-level executive officials were not faithfully representing the President's chosen policy, and there is no apparent reason for adopting the dissent's "nondelegation" rule to apply within the Executive Branch.

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