## Facts

- The United States, Canada, and Mexico negotiated a trade agreement beginning in 1990 and signed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) on December 17, 1992.
- Congress approved and implemented NAFTA through the North American Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act on December 8, 1993, by simple majorities in both chambers rather than by a two-thirds Senate vote.
- A nonprofit organization favoring purchase of domestic products, labor organizations, and individual workers sued the United States, alleging economic and related harms from NAFTA.
- Plaintiffs claimed NAFTA was a “treaty” under Article II and therefore unconstitutional and void because it was not ratified by two-thirds of the Senate.
- The district court concluded most plaintiffs had Article III standing, found the case justiciable, and granted summary judgment for the United States on the merits.
- Plaintiffs appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether plaintiffs had Article III standing to challenge NAFTA’s domestic implementation.
2. Whether a challenge asserting NAFTA required Article II treaty ratification presents a nonjusticiable political question.
3. Whether courts may determine when an international agreement must be concluded as an Article II treaty rather than as a congressional-executive agreement.

## Decision

- The Eleventh Circuit agreed that most plaintiffs satisfied Article III standing requirements.
- The court held the challenge presented a nonjusticiable political question and therefore lay outside federal judicial power.
- The court declined to decide whether NAFTA was constitutionally required to be approved as an Article II treaty.
- The court vacated the district court’s judgment and remanded with instructions to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction.

## Legal Principles

- Federal courts lack jurisdiction over disputes that present political questions, including matters where there are no judicially manageable standards for decision and where the Constitution commits the issue to the political branches.
- The Constitution does not provide workable criteria for courts to distinguish agreements that must be adopted as Article II treaties from agreements that may be adopted through other political-branch mechanisms.
- In the foreign affairs and foreign commerce context, separation-of-powers concerns and the need for national uniformity may bar judicial review of challenges to the political branches’ chosen form of international agreement-making.

## Conclusion

The Eleventh Circuit treated the constitutional challenge to NAFTA’s adoption mechanism as a political question, vacated the merits judgment, and required dismissal because the judiciary lacked standards and authority to decide whether NAFTA had to be ratified as an Article II treaty.


Made in the U.S.A. Found. v. United States, 242 F.3d 1300 (11th Cir. 2001)