Taking \u3ci\u3eSteel Seizure\u3c/i\u3e Seriously: The Iran Nuclear Agreement and the Separation of Powers

This Article examines the constitutional validity of President Obama’s decision, as part of his 2015 agreement with Iran, effectively to repeal seventeen different sanctions provisions for the fifteen-year life of the agreement. Although Congress had legislated extensively in this area, the President effected this change by entering into a “nonbinding political agreement” with Iran and by aggregating individual waiver provisions in the sanctions laws into an across-the-board waiver of sanctions. We argue that the commitments made by the President in the Iran agreement violate a fundamental separation-of-powers limit on executive power—what we term the Steel Seizure principle,” after Youngstown—the Steel Seizure case. As the U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed in Steel Seizure, the President does not have lawmaking power even where national security and foreign relations concerns are at stake. A vast literature has grown around Steel Seizure, especially its influential concurring opinion by Justice Robert Jackson. Yet relatively little attention has been paid to the majority view of the Justices that President Truman’s seizure order was unlawful not because it contravened any express statutory prohibition but because it flouted the congressional “plan” for addressing the particular policy issue. This aspect of Steel Seizure highlights what is particularly problematic about President Obama’s decision to aggregate authorities in the sanctions laws and to commit the United States to an across-the-board waiver of nuclear-related sanctions pursuant to his agreement with Iran. President Obama treated the waiver provisions as an invitation to end the congressionally prescribed sanctions regime for addressing Iran’s nuclear weapons program and to replace it with his own nonsanctions regime for addressing the same issue. Yet the President lacks the unilateral power to overturn Congress’s prescribed policy and to replace it with his own.The President can be viewed both as an agent and, particularly in the foreign relations area, as a co-principal with Congress. The Steel Seizure principle highlights the limits of the co-principal conception of the President’s role in foreign affairs. Once Congress has developed a legislative framework for a subject matter, that framework occupies the field; the President’s role becomes one of a responsible agent. In the Iran sanctions laws, Congress provided bounded waiver authority, acting responsibly to allow limited executive discretion rather than requiring the President to seek new legislation each time flexibility was needed. It did not, however, invite the President to override the sanctions framework altogether. An emergent literature in administrative law and U.S. foreign relations law has praised Congress’s willingness to delegate waiver authority to the President for providing needed flexibility and other policy benefits. Yet that literature recognizes that the President’s exercise of waiver authority must be carefully circumscribed to avoid enabling the President effectively to revise a statutory regime out of disagreement with Congress’s policy choices. Such limiting principles are no less necessary in the foreign affairs context, where President Obama used purported waiver authority in the Iran sanctions statutes to pursue his own policy in defiance of Congress

Observable NMR signal from circulating current order in YBCO

Assuming, as suggested by recent neutron scattering experiments, that a broken symmetry state with orbital current order occurs in the pseudo-gap phase of the cuprate superconductors, we show that there must be associated equilibrium magnetic fields at various atomic sites in the unit cell, which should be detectable by NMR experiments

Environmental Change and Hedonic Cost Functions for Automobiles

This paper focuses on how changes in the economic and regulatory environment have affected production costs and product characteristics in the automobile industry. We estimate cost functions characteristics. Then we examine how this cost surface has changed over time and how these changes relate to changes in gas prices and in emission standard regulations. We also briefly consider the related questions of how changes in automobile characteristics, and in the rate of patenting, are related to regulations and gas prices.

PERJANJIAN PERKAWINAN DAN ASAS KESEIMBANGAN

Masyarakat terdiri dari individu atau kelompok-kelompok yang berhimpun untuk berbagai keperluan dan tujuan. Salah satu bentuk hubungan antara individu dalam masyarakat ialah melakukan perkawinan. Perkawinan menimbulkan akibat hukum bagi pihak suami dan istri dalam perkawinan yaitu terbentuknya harta benda dalam perkawinan. Oleh karena itu, Pasal 29 Undang-Undang Nomor 1 Tahun 1974 tentang Perkawinan memberikan kesempatan bagi para pihak untuk dapat membuat perjanjian perkawinan. Ketentuan ini juga memberikan kesempatan bagi para calon mempelai untuk mengesampingkan ketentuan yang mengatur seluk beluk harta perkawinan yang di atur dalam Pasal 35 Undang-Undang Nomor 1 Tahun 1974 sehingga para calon mempelai dapat menggunakan karakteristik dalam BW. Meskipun perjanjian perkawinan dapat dilakukan penyimpangan, tetapi Asas Keseimbangan juga melekat dalam perjanjian tersebut. Tujuan utama dari Asas Keseimbangan adalah kepatutan sosial atau menjamin tercapainya keseimbangan antara 1 individu dengan individu lainnya atau individu dengan masyarakat. Dengan dapat melakukan penyimpangan terhadap Pasal 29 Undang-Undang Nomor 1 Tahun 1974, isi perjanjian perkawinan tersebut tidak boleh bertentangan dengan kepatutan sosial salah satunya yaitu norma kesusilaan. Berkenaan dengan adanya AsasKeseimbangan, diharapkan AsasKeseimbangan mendukung para pihak untuk mencapai tujuan yang diseimbangkan dan yang memberikan dasar bagi penyesuaian atau penghapusan sebagian dari suatu perjanjian

Superconductivity and non-Fermi liquid behavior near a nematic quantum critical point

Using determinantal quantum Monte Carlo, we compute the properties of a lattice model with spin $\frac 1 2$ itinerant electrons tuned through a quantum phase transition to an Ising nematic phase. The nematic fluctuations induce superconductivity with a broad dome in the superconducting $T_c$ enclosing the nematic quantum critical point. For temperatures above $T_c$, we see strikingly non-Fermi liquid behavior, including a "nodal - anti nodal dichotomy" reminiscent of that seen in several transition metal oxides. In addition, the critical fluctuations have a strong effect on the low frequency optical conductivity, resulting in behavior consistent with "bad metal" phenomenology

Marxist Philosophy and the Quest for Freedom in Africa

This essay discusses Marxist philosophy. Marxism, as it is usually refers to, is a socio-political theory that aims to resolve the contradiction that has led to the exploitation of the masses by those who own private property. For Marx, economic exploitation arises more fundamentally in a capitalist system because of the property relation attached to it. Hence, those who do not have property become slaves to those who have. The domination or alienation of the workers, to Marx, has created property-less majorities. Marx argues that the need to put an end to capitalism requires a revolution. Eventually, he posits that capitalism will be replaced by socialism, and later by communism. The essay seeks to show under what ground is revolution justifiable. We also intend to show the merits or demerits of Marxist philosophy to contemporary struggle for freedom in Africa. The essay concludes that when Marxist philosophy has been critically digested and adopted (though, reformulated), it would serve as an ideological orientation needed to realizing genuine freedom. Keywords: Marxism, Capitalism, Communism, Revolution, Freedom, Exploitation, Africa