## Facts

- The U.N. Security Council adopted mandatory trade sanctions against Southern Rhodesia, and the United States voted in favor of those resolutions.
- The United States implemented the embargo through executive orders and criminal enforcement measures.
- Congress later enacted the Byrd Amendment, limiting presidential authority to prohibit imports of “strategic and critical” materials from certain non-communist areas when similar imports from communist areas were not barred, effectively allowing importation of Rhodesian chromite.
- Members of Congress and other plaintiffs opposed renewed trade and alleged the Byrd Amendment conflicted with U.S. obligations under the U.N. Charter to carry out Security Council decisions.
- Plaintiffs sought declaratory relief that the import program was unlawful and an injunction barring further Rhodesian chromite imports.
- The district court dismissed the complaint, relying primarily on lack of standing and also referencing nonjusticiability.

## Issues

1. Whether any plaintiffs had Article III standing to challenge the importation program and the Byrd Amendment.
2. Whether the claims were nonjusticiable because they required judicial intervention in foreign-affairs judgments committed to the political branches.
3. Whether a court may enforce treaty obligations under the U.N. Charter against a later-enacted federal statute that conflicts with those obligations.
4. Whether any declaratory or injunctive relief was available given separation-of-powers limits and the governing domestic law.

## Decision

- The court held that at least some plaintiffs had standing to bring the suit.
- The court nonetheless affirmed dismissal because the claim was not one for which judicial relief could be granted.
- Applying the last-in-time rule, the court treated the Byrd Amendment as controlling domestic law even if it placed the United States in breach of prior treaty commitments.
- The court also viewed the requested relief as improperly drawing the judiciary into foreign-policy determinations and disputes assigned to Congress and the Executive.

## Legal Principles

- When a federal statute and a treaty obligation conflict, the later-in-time enactment controls as a matter of domestic law.
- Courts generally will not order the political branches to disregard a duly enacted statute on the ground that it conflicts with international commitments.
- Requests for judicial orders that effectively direct foreign-relations policy or supervision of sanctions implementation may present nonjusticiable political questions.
- Standing to sue does not guarantee a judicial remedy where controlling domestic law and separation-of-powers limits foreclose relief.

## Conclusion

The D.C. Circuit concluded that even if the challenged imports conflicted with U.S. obligations to support U.N. sanctions, the later-enacted Byrd Amendment governed domestically and the requested intervention would intrude into foreign-affairs decisions reserved to the political branches; therefore, the action was dismissed despite standing for some plaintiffs.


Diggs v. Shultz, 470 F.2d 461 (D.C. Cir. 1972)