Can American citizens legally patronize Pyongyang (restaurant chain)? Can American citizens legally patronize Pyongyang (restaurant chain)? I am aware that, according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourism_in_North_Korea#Restrictions_and_warnings: In July 2017, the U.S. government announced that American citizens would no longer be permitted to visit North Korea as tourists. The travel ban took effect on September 1, 2017. but I don't know whether the U.S. government prohibit American citizens from frequenting businesses owned by North Korean entities.
The prohibition is against using a regular US passport to enter North Korea (you can apply for a special passport): or you can use a non-US passport. There is no prohibition against patronizing a North Korean business, be it in North Korea or elsewhere.
The ICERD would not apply to the natural born citizens clause by its own definitions. Part 1, Article 1, secs 2 and 3 read: This Convention shall not apply to distinctions, exclusions, restrictions or preferences made by a State Party to this Convention between citizens and non-citizens. Nothing in this Convention may be interpreted as affecting in any way the legal provisions of States Parties concerning nationality, citizenship or naturalization, provided that such provisions do not discriminate against any particular nationality.
The law is here (too long to quote, or understand). There is a proposed modification of the law which may be enacted. In the section Justification, it is noted that under the existing law a global corporation may technically &quot;own&quot; five subsidiary corporations. Company A may own a winery in France while Company D may own a hotel containing a restaurant in New York. Under New York Law, the liquor license for the restaurant would be prohibited - and it could be subject to financial penalties. So the restrictions are broader that you mention (ownership of stock is an &quot;interest&quot;), but certainly what you mention is prohibited. The proposed law limits the effect to an interest in a restaurant or brewery &quot;licensed under this chapter&quot;, i.e. in the state of New York (currently, a NY manufacturer cannot have an interest in an alcohol-selling restaurant anywhere).
The only train service between the U.S. and Canada is via Amtrak and its Canadian partner Viarail. Amtrak's website states (as of today): In addition to the standard entry documentation requirements, the Canadian and United States Governments have several additional requirements for travel into Canada and the United States. Travel into United States: Non-U.S. citizen passengers must be fully vaccinated with a U.S.FDA or a WHO approved COVID-19 vaccine. See details on the United States Department of Homeland Security website. Travel into Canada: All passengers must use the ArriveCAN app before travel and wear a mask in Canadian stations and on board trains while traveling through Canada. Non-Canadian citizens must be fully vaccinated and carry the vaccination record that was uploaded into ArriveCAN. See details on the Government of Canada and Viarail websites, and additional Cantrail thruway bus service to Vancouver travel requirements. The requirements are essentially the same for travel by car between the U.S. and Canada.
united-states An ex post facto law criminalizes conduct after the fact that was legal at the time, something that is prohibited under U.S. constitutional law. But, as the question states: my question is about actions that were illegal and then had changes made to them. If something is a crime in 2015 and this criminal law is violated, and the conduct is then legalized in 2016, the conduct committed while it was a crime does not cease to be punishable as a crime and may be punished criminally. Often a judge would consider the fact that the conduct was later legalized when evaluating the seriousness of the crime at a post-legalization sentencing, but a judge is not required to do so. A significant number of pardons and commutations of criminal sentences by Presidents and Governors in the U.S. involve people convicted of crimes for conduct that is now legal or is now punished less severely. But pardons and commutations are purely discretionary. As an aside, France has constitutional protections that give newly lenient treatment of crimes retroactive effect, but the United States does not.
In the case of United States vs Wong Kim Ark 169 U.S. 649 (1898) (a 6-2 decision), the Supreme Court wrote: [T]he real object of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution, in qualifying the words, &quot;All persons born in the United States&quot; by the addition &quot;and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,&quot; would appear to have been to exclude, by the fewest and fittest words (besides children of members of the Indian tribes, standing in a peculiar relation to the National Government, unknown to the common law), the two classes of cases -- children born of alien enemies in hostile occupation and children of diplomatic representatives of a foreign State -- both of which, as has already been shown, by the law of England and by our own law from the time of the first settlement of the English colonies in America, had been recognized exceptions to the fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the country. ... [T]he Fourteenth Amendment affirms the ancient and fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the territory, in the allegiance and under the protection of the country, including all children here born of resident aliens, with the exceptions or qualifications (as old as the rule itself) of children of foreign sovereigns or their ministers, or born on foreign public ships, or of enemies within and during a hostile occupation of part of our territory, and with the single additional exception of children of members of the Indian tribes owing direct allegiance to their several tribes. The Amendment, in clear words and in manifest intent, includes the children born, within the territory of the United States, of all other persons, of whatever race or color, domiciled within the United States. ... To hold that the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution excludes from citizenship the children, born in the United States, of citizens or subjects of other countries would be to deny citizenship to thousands of persons of English, Scotch, Irish, German, or other European parentage who have always been considered and treated as citizens of the United States. In short the phrase “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” excludes three and only three groups of people: Children born to foreign diplomats here on diplomatic business, who have diplomatic immunity to US Law; Children of members of an invading army that has occupied and controlled some part of US territory, born on that occupied area, who are obviously not subject to US Law (which has rarely happened in the US, although Guam was occupied during WWII, and parts of Alaska, and small parts of Maine during the War of 1812); and Members of Native American tribes, subject to the jurisdiction of their tribal governments, who do not pay US taxes. (This was true when the 14th amendment was passed, but it no longer is. See section below on the act that changed it in 1924.) Any other person born in the proper US or in incorporated US territory is a citizen, no matter who his or her parents are or were. (The case is less clear for unincorporated US territory.) See also the Wikipedia article on the case This view was confirmed in 1995 in an opinion from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel written by then-Assistant Attorney General Walter Dellinger, taking the position that this rule could not be changed by legislation, only by Constitutional Amendment, writing: My office grapples with many difficult and close issues of constitutional law. The lawfulness of this bill is not among them. This legislation is unquestionably unconstitutional. The Fourteenth Amendment declares that “[a]ll persons bom or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” U.S. Const, amend. XIV, § 1. The unmistakable purpose of this provision was to constitutionalize the existing Anglo-American common law rule of jus soli or citizenship by place of birth and especially to extend it to persons of African descent and their descendants. In Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202 (1982) the Supreme Court of the United States struck down both a state statute denying funding for education to children in the United States illegally and a municipal school district's attempt to charge an annual $1,000 tuition fee for each student. The case upheld the same principle that the constitutional phrase &quot;within the jurisdiction&quot; applies to the children of people who had entered the US illegally. According to the Wikipedia article on the case: Texas officials had argued that illegal aliens were not &quot;within the jurisdiction&quot; of the state and thus could not claim protections under the Fourteenth Amendment. The court majority rejected this claim, finding instead that &quot;no plausible distinction with respect to Fourteenth Amendment 'jurisdiction' can be drawn between resident immigrants whose entry into the United States was lawful, and resident immigrants whose entry was unlawful.&quot; The dissenting opinion also rejected this claim, agreeing with the Court that &quot;the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment applies to immigrants who, after their illegal entry into this country, are indeed physically 'within the jurisdiction' of a state.&quot; Thus the question of whether such aliens were &quot;within the jurisdiction&quot; of the US was very much at issue in Plyler v. Doe EDIT: Since the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 was passed, all Native Americans born within the US have been citizens by birth, and the third class of exceptions noted in the earlier cases non longer exists. Prior to this act Native Americans were in many ways treated as foreigners by the US. They were not citizens by birth, and their tribes had some but not all of the attributes of independent nations. The text of the law is: Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That all non citizen Indians born within the territorial limits of the United States be, and they are hereby, declared to be citizens of the United States: Provided That the granting of such citizenship shall not in any manner impair or otherwise affect the right of any Indian to tribal or other property. (End edit on Indian Citizenship Act of 1924) Edit: On reading through the decision of the case of Wong Kim Ark I find one more small exclusion: persons born on board a foreign naval ship, even though present in US waters in time of peace, are not citizens of the US because of their birth location. This is apparently not a usual case, but is premised on the ground that a military vessel remains the territory of the nation it belongs to. Such persons might of course be citizens by inheritance if one or both parents are US citizens, and the statutory conditions are complied with. (The term &quot;public ship&quot; in the 1800s was used to mean a national ship, that is a military ship.) (End edit on naval ships) I just learned that some parts of the State of Maine were occupied by the British during the war of 1812. I do not know if anyone was born during that occupation whose citizenship might have been affected.
To pick up on your comment 'Does this mean if I wish to build a chair for personal use, then since trade of chairs exists between states, Congress has the authority to outlaw possession or manufacturing of chairs?': Yes. For example, the US Congress can legislate to prohibit a farmer from growing wheat for use on his own farm, on the basis that there is interstate trade in wheat and therefore the Commerce Clause permits Congress to regulate the growing of wheat: Wickard v Filburn (1942) 317 US 111. If you grow marijuana, or build a chair, or whatever, you conceivably affect the number of marijuanas, chairs, etc that are traded between states. Therefore you affect interstate commerce. Therefore the US Congress can regulate you. The fact that your marijuana or your chair or your what is trivial in the scheme of the national economy is irrelevant if the aggregation of all regulated marijuana, chairs or wheat is significant: 317 US 111, 127-128. If the law didn't prohibit possession of marijuana absolutely but instead prohibited, say, the carrying of marijuana in schools, then the US Congress might have trouble relying on the Commerce Clause: see United States v Lopez (1995) 514 US 549 and replace 'marijuana' with 'handguns' (OK the marijuana/handgun analogy is bad but hopefully this illustrates that there are at least some limits on Congress' power -- it's not just 'any physical object that relates whatsoever to interstate trade therefore unfettered federal legislative power').
The &quot;letter&quot; you quote says more than what Ionos says publicly, the latter not mentioning any date. The most obvious possibility is Treasury Department sanctions against Russia: while the sanctions don't necessarily prohibit servicing and any all Russian nationals or residents, Russia is subject to sanctions and that's what the TOS says. A problem is that the TOS refers to a &quot;country subject to U.S. Treasury Department embargo restrictions&quot;, which is not legally defined. Here is the Treasury Department's explanation of that point (which is that there are very many types of restrictions: there is no legal category of &quot;embargo restrictions&quot;). One could then argue, in one's breach of contract arbitration hearing, that the clause cannot reasonably be interpreted the way the company (possibly) intends it to be. The force majeure clause does not seem relevant unless they see some way in which the invasion of Ukraine makes it impossible for the company to fulfill the contract with Russians.