Would it be legal for a US State to ban exports of a natural resource? I am interested in whether a US state constitution could be legally amended to ban exports of specific natural resources (such as coal, lithium or copper) outside it's own state borders. If such a ban were successful, there would presumably be a fusillade of federal lawsuits from entities that had already invested in the mining of export-restricted resources in the state. What damages if succesful, could the state be liable for? Would the state have a defense against such lawsuits such as force majure? I am particularly interested in contract termination damages if a miner had force majure clauses in their contracts with customers.
No A state may not do that. The US Constitution Art. I section 8 says: The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States. ... To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes; Art I section 10: No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing it's inspection Laws: and the net Produce of all Duties and Imposts, laid by any State on Imports or Exports, shall be for the Use of the Treasury of the United States; and all such Laws shall be subject to the Revision and Controul of the Congress. The power to regulate interstate commerce and foreign commerce is exclusive to Congress, no state may exercise it. The power to tax imports and exports is only given in vary limited degree to states, and only by specific permission of Congress. The Interstate Commerce Clause has been interpreted to mean that a state may not favor its own citizens over citizens of other states in taxation or in commercial privileges, although it may restrict state services to state residents, or charge non-residents higher fees, as for tuition at public colleges. Even with the consent of Congress, or if passed by Congress, such a law might well be precluded by the Equal Protection clause. Congress may prohibit specific items from being moved in interstate commerce, or it may limit, license, or tax them. But all such regulations must be uniform across the United states, and may not apply only to a specific state. Regulation of interstate commerce can include regulation of purely intra-state transactions, if they are held to "affect" interstate commerce. This power is very wide-ranging.
Eventually. This was a state matter prior to the enactment of the Constitution. Without the Copyright Clause, it would have been up to each state to enact such a law (apparently Delaware did not bother). This would have quickly led to inter-state disputes (a New York author being infringed by a New Jersey party), therefore the matter would have been heard by the federal courts. The current understanding of the Commerce Clause easily allows Congress to enact a copyright law, because copyright is quite commercial and potentially crosses state lines. It took a while for that clause to be interpreted by the courts the way it is now. This is a brief summary of historically shifting views on the Commerce Clause.
There are certain requirements of Statehood according to the Montevideo Convention on Statehood of 1933, which is just a codification of international customary law: a permanent population; a defined territory; government; and capacity to enter into relations with the other states. Is it "legal" to buy a piece of land and claim it to be another country than before(either inventing a new one or migrating it to an already existing one)? According to international law, it is. Sure. But just because you say something is the case, doesn't mean it is. Always. Sometimes it is. But for present purposes, let's say that if you found an uninhabited island and said that you were a country, that wouldn't be the case - nor if you bought it from a man living on it. If you found some land that belonged to another country and decided to claim it as that of an existing country, then it would depend on the specific circumstances. That's exactly what happened to the Krim island in the Ukraine(now Russia maybe?), right? I don't think so. As far as I know, the annexation of territory isn't considered sale. In any case, the ownership of this land is still under dispute. So, if it's possible without the influence of these international institutions, trying this in an area with their influence would be easier, right? If trying this means declaring some land you have purchased to be a new sovereign state Nope. You probably still don't meet the requirements for statehood. If trying this means the acquisition of some land by an existing sovereign state Maybe. Probably not. The Montevideo Convention requires that statehood not be gained through force; while member states' interests may be greater where they are more invested, the requirements for acquisition of territory are the same no matter where you are. What would prevent me from creating my own nation? Money, defensibility, recognition, the fact that you probably don't own any land that you "buy" (depending on the jurisdiction and real estate system), the fact that you generally can't unilaterally declare yourself a sovereign state.
If a nation's constitution does not allow a legal means of secession, then the only possibility would be to appeal to a multi-national judicial body, but such bodies have negligible power to enforce. While numerous organizations recognise a generalized right to self-determination (for example the UN has declared that "all peoples have the right to self-determination"), this does not automatically translate into an internationally-recognized right to illegal secession. The International Court of Justice deftly avoided any finding on whether Kosovo had a right to secede, and there is no generally recognised (or denied) "right to secede". There are certain conditions under which one would have support for a claim to legal secession, for example peoples subject to decolonization, the territory was invaded / annexed after 1945, or the state flagrantly violates the rights of those peoples concerned. The "decolonization" angle has been applied to Somaliland (the premise being that the merger of British and Italian colonies into the nation of Somalia was invalid). The use of "peoples" reflect the importance of some sort of ethic division, which becomes a matter of controversy. There is reading on the topic, for example: Secession: State Practice and International Law after the Dissolution of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia Secession (Bibliography by Theodore Christakis) The Remedial Right of Secession in International Law
I take that to mean that section 14 alone should not be construed to give a department the power to sue under sub section (1), nor the ability to be sued under sub section (2). Rather, if some other law, or some other section of that law confers such a power or ability, section 14 indicates how the power should be used, that is, gives the proper procedure. But if no such other law is in effect, section 14 alone won't do. If the law has simply said: civil proceedings under this Act by the Crown may be instituted by (a) the appropriate government department in its own That might have been construed to grant such powers to every "appropriate " department, which apparently was not desired.
Can a state make a law that deputizes individuals to sue individuals in other states? This question (apart from the question below that implicates federalism concerns about a sister state court process in the secondary question below) would be resolved by the constitutional limitations on personal jurisdiction and choice of law. A state can have a law that authorizes a lawsuit for non-judicial system conduct against a non-resident of the state if it meets the requirements of &quot;long arm jurisdiction.&quot; The most succinct description of this requirement is that the person being sued &quot;personally availed themselves&quot; of the laws of the state whose law authorizes the lawsuit, in a manner that would reasonably be understood to subject that person to the state's legal authority. This could involve a lawsuit against someone outside the state arising from an incident that took place in the state. It could also involve a lawsuit against someone who took tortious action directed at a state or people in a state that caused harm, or a lawsuit arising from a business transaction that could reasonably be considered doing business in the state imposing that law. Constitutional law requirements on &quot;choice of law&quot; require that the state or foreign jurisdiction whose law is applied to a question in a dispute must have some meaningful connection to the disputed issue (subject to the backdrop rule that the law of a jurisdiction other than the forum where a case is litigated is presumed to be identical to that of the law of the state where the case is being litigated if no party provides any evidence or legal authorities to the contrary). Case law on state level qui tam litigation (which involve statutes that empower private individuals to sue someone who has wronged the government on its behalf for a share of the amount recovered for the government), the case law regarding private criminal prosecutions that are available in a handful of U.S. states, and some California consumer protection laws (which authorize suits without personal showing of actual damages in some cases when there are fraudulent advertisements) might also be relevant. So would the authority granted to bail bondsmen that is similar to law enforcement authority but limited to people authorized a person posting a bail bond for a criminal defendant who is subject to that authority. Concretely, if the constitutionality of the Texas law was upheld&lt;1&gt;, Texas probably can authorize a lawsuit against a California resident who would be involved in an abortion that took place in Texas that was illegal under Texas law. And, a judgment from a Texas court in a case like that would probably be entitled to full faith and credit in California. But, Texas probably couldn't constitutionally authorize a lawsuit against a California resident in connection with an abortion that took place in California. There would be, of course, many edge cases with no close past precedents, where the application of constitutional jurisdiction and choice of law limitations would be far less clear. &lt;1&gt; The majority opinion by five conservative justices other than the Chief Justice deciding not to stay enforcement of the law specifically limits itself to whether the proper parties were joined to the request to enjoin the statute and states &quot;this order is not based on any conclusion about the constitutionality of Texas’s law, and in no way limits other procedurally proper challenges to the Texas law, including in Texas state courts.&quot; A decision that has not been resolved on the merits. The Courts have merely declined to stay enforcement of the law pending the current litigation over the law's validity. Upholding the law on the merits would require courts to overturn existing precedents related to abortion restrictions and other legal issues. Is there any extra legal barrier that would prevent states with pro-choice legislatures from passing laws designed to counter the anti-abortion deputies? For example, California could pass a law that deputizes private California individuals to sue people who sue abortion providers, and could reimburse their court costs up to $10,000. This seems to be a separate question from the question in the title. A law of this character would probably not be upheld. Basically, it would make a state authorized legal process in one state's courts, actionable as illegal in another state. Generally speaking, interference in another state's legal process would either violate the &quot;dormant commerce clause&quot;, or the &quot;full faith and credit clause&quot;, or constitutional limits on jurisdiction and choice of law, or constitutional standing limitations (even though they don't apply in the same way in state courts as in federal courts, or the &quot;due process clause&quot; of the 5th or 14th Amendments, or the &quot;privileges and immunities clause.&quot; The exact legal theory isn't clear because there is really not history of litigation over this kind of legislation and you'd need to resort to vaguely analogous cases. The effort of Texas to litigate Pennsylvania election law administration following the 2020 election was recently dismissed by the U.S. Supreme Court for lack of standing and that is suggestive of how this case might be resolved, even though it isn't strictly analogous. It is also informed by the long standing common law rule, that could conceivably have constitutional dimensions, that litigants participating in a court process in good faith are immune from collateral litigation in another lawsuit over their conduct in the original lawsuit. There isn't a lot of precedent one way or the other with laws having this kind of purpose, and none on a law exactly in this form. Indeed, a dissenting opinion from the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday by the Chief Justice and two of the liberal justices (with which the third liberal justice states he agrees without formally joining that opinion) stated that: The statutory scheme before the Court is not only unusual, but unprecedented. The legislature has imposed a prohibition on abortions after roughly six weeks, and then essentially delegated enforcement of that prohibition to the populace at large. The last time there was significant litigation of laws with a similar purpose that were adjudicated was in the pre-U.S. Civil War period in abolition of slavery oriented legislation. But, the post-Civil War amendments to the U.S. Constitution and subsequent development of constitutional case law would render most precedents from that time period infirm.
It is possible: McCleary v. Washington is an example. Ground zero was the 2012 ruling McCleary v. State, 173 Wn.2d 477, which then took 6 years of further scuffling to resolve. That opinion is full of useful legal tidbits, but the argument boils down to a constitutional obligation (art. IX) for the state to provide an education. If your state has no constitutional provision mandating that the state provide an education, you may be out of luck. I should point out, though, that the issue reduced to funding and not content / method: that the state used to use a &quot;local pots of gold&quot; model rather that a &quot;big pot of gold&quot; model, and even then came up short of the funds required to do what they were supposed to do. The &quot;argument&quot; was, simply, &quot;We can't can't agree on an affordable means of implementing this system&quot;, and subject matter or instructional methods were not debated. A lawsuit will be completely ineffective over a dispute about best methods. Since at least in Washington, school policy is set by an elected set of school officials, the only solution is to pick better individuals next time. Recall is not an option, except in the case of misfeasance or malfeasance – improper acts, not errors of judgment. But I would not totally discount the skills of a clever attorney to make the case that so-and-so is a violation of a constitutional duty, depending on what your constitution demands w.r.t. education. The constitutional provisions of Washington vs. California are significant. In Washington, It is the paramount duty of the state to make ample provision for the education of all children residing within its borders, without distinction or preference on account of race, color, caste, or sex. and the Supreme court found that The State has not complied with its article IX, section 1 duty to make ample provision for the education of all children in Washington. Most of the education article is about the funding obligation, which is the legal point on which the Legislature was held in contempt. The California Constitution imposes a weaker duty on the legislature: A general diffusion of knowledge and intelligence being essential to the preservation of the rights and liberties of the people, the Legislature shall encourage by all suitable means the promotion of intellectual, scientific, moral, and agricultural improvement. The vast majority of the constitutional provisions in California are about electing and paying administrators, so there is little basis for arguing that a California school district has not encouraged such improvements. There is no &quot;quality&quot; requirement, just a desideratum to encourage improvement.
In the specific example you have given, Florida law could not be applied. A state has jurisdiction over a crime under constitutional due process limits on the scope of a state's criminal jurisdiction if the crime is either committed within the state (regardless of where the harm occurs) or is directed at or impacts the state (the classic example is a gunshot fired from the Ohio side of the state line killing someone located in Indiana, which could be prosecuted in either state, or in both states as it doesn't violate double jeopardy to be prosecuted for the same offense by more than one sovereign). Sometimes these issues are framed not as "jurisdictional" per se, but as "conflict of law" questions limited by the constitution. The proof that a crime was committed in the territory where it is applicable is called proof of locus delecti and depends upon the nature of the crime alleged and the location of the act or acts constituting it. To determine where a crime is committed depends on what acts constitute the crime, something that leaves considerable room for flexible interpretation and a careful reading of the exact wording of the relevant criminal statute. The most important limitation on the territorial jurisdiction of a U.S. state is the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution. This applies directly in the case of federal criminal prosecutions in the federal courts, and applies in state courts because it is incorporated to apply in state court cases through the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States under 20th century case law applying the "Selective Incorporation doctrine." The Sixth Amendment mandates that criminal trials be conducted “by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed.” If a suspect is not present in a state to be criminally prosecuted, then the options available to a state are (1) to toll the running of the statute of limitations while the suspect is outside the state to the extent permitted by the relevant state statute and the U.S. Constitution, (2) to bring a civil lawsuit against the suspect instead of a criminal prosecution, or (3) to seek extradition of the suspect, which must be granted under certain circumstances under the United State Constitution and reads as follows in the pertinent part: Article IV, Section 2, Clause 2: A person charged in any state with treason, felony, or other crime, who shall flee from justice, and be found in another state, shall on demand of the executive authority of the state from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the state having jurisdiction of the crime. (Note that the Sixth Amendment does not apply to civil lawsuits. Civil lawsuit trials can be conducted in a state other than the state where the breach of contract or tort giving rise to the lawsuit took place for jurisdictional purposes and not infrequently is brought in another state, although constitutional choice of law rules limit the circumstances under which a particular state's laws can be applied to a particular set of circumstances in a lawsuit.) The Sixth Amendment, on its face, prohibits Florida from prosecuting a case in the example given in the question involving a crime that was committed solely in Washington State. Of course, the exact definition of the crime might determine where it was committed. In traditional "common law" "blue collar" crimes there is usually no ambiguity over where it is committed except in the most extraordinary circumstances, but in prosecutions of conspiracies and crimes involving economic activity (such as owning or mailing something), the question of where a crime is committed can grow much fuzzier. For example, one could imagine a differently defined crime prohibiting providing funds to finance a purchase of marijuana in excess of 20 grams being committed both in Washington State and Florida at the same time (e.g. perhaps a purchase of marijuana in Washington State was financed by a Florida bank by delivering cash to a courier in Florida who is bound for Washington State knowing that the cash would be used to finance a marijuana purchase). Similar ideas apply in international circumstances where the Sixth Amendment and Extradition Clause do not apply. But, in those cases, the more flexible and less well defined "law of nations" as interpreted by Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court and the President still does impose some territorial boundaries on prosecutions for actions which are not crimes in the country where they are committed under that country's domestic laws. But, those boundaries are not so hard and fast and the idea that a crime is committed in places where it has an impact allow for considerable flexibility in prosecuting crimes committed outside the United States. It has also been well settled since the earliest days of the United States that "The courts of no country execute the penal laws of another." The Antelope, 23 U.S. (10 Wheat.) 66, 123 (U.S. Supreme Court 1825) and that this applies to states applying each other's penal laws as well. So, Florida cannot enforce a violation of the criminal laws of Washington State in its courts either. If you get in a bar fight in Seattle, you can't be prosecute for assault in a court in Orlando, even if both of the parties to the bar fight were Orlando residents and U.S. citizens. Some notable cases resolving the question of whether locus delecti is present in a particular case include the following: In Hyde v. United States, 225 U.S. 347 (1912) although none of the defendants had entered the District of Columbia as part of their conspiracy to defraud the United States, they were convicted because one co-conspirator had committed overt acts in Columbia (225 U.S., at 363). So conspiracy is a continuing offense committed in all the districts where a co-conspirator acts on the agreement. Similarly, In re Palliser, 136 U.S. 257 (1890) the sending of letters from New York to postmasters in Connecticut in an attempt to gain postage on credit, made Connecticut, where the mail he addressed and dispatched was received, an appropriate venue (136 U.S., at 266—268). A typical state statute on the subject from Colorado's Revised Statutes (2016) is as follows: § 18-1-201. State jurisdiction (1) A person is subject to prosecution in this state for an offense which he commits, by his own conduct or that of another for which he is legally accountable, if: (a) The conduct constitutes an offense and is committed either wholly or partly within the state; or (b) The conduct outside the state constitutes an attempt, as defined by this code, to commit an offense within the state; or (c) The conduct outside the state constitutes a conspiracy to commit an offense within the state, and an act in furtherance of the conspiracy occurs in the state; or (d) The conduct within the state constitutes an attempt, solicitation, or conspiracy to commit in another jurisdiction an offense prohibited under the laws of this state and such other jurisdiction. (2) An offense is committed partly within this state if conduct occurs in this state which is an element of an offense or if the result of conduct in this state is such an element. In homicide, the "result" is either the physical contact which causes death or the death itself; and if the body of a criminal homicide victim is found within the state, the death is presumed to have occurred within the state. (3) Whether an offender is in or outside of the state is immaterial to the commission of an offense based on an omission to perform a duty imposed by the law of this state. Case law under this statute sometimes describes the issue presented under this statute a question of "sovereign jurisdiction." See, e.g., People v. Cullen, 695 P.2d 750 (Colo. App. 1984).