International records / OpenAlex research

The Constitutionality of State and Local "Sanctions" Against Foreign Countries: Affairs of State, States' Affairs, or a Sorry State of Affairs?

Since the mid-1990s, many state and local governments have enacted a host of laws barring local governments' procurement of goods and services from persons doing business with certain pariah governments, including Burma (Myanmar), the People's Republic of China, Cuba, Nigeria and even Switzerland. Though ostensibly patterned after earlier laws, most notably longstanding "Buy American" laws and anti-apartheid laws of the 1980s, the latest wave of subnational sanctions statutes and ordinances is much broader in scope and application, raising troubling questions as to the constitutionality of suc…