Helms-Burton is still unconstitutional and has no future (Part 1)

The Helms-Burton Act, apart from having been «macaronically» drafted, may be challenged by citizens of the northern nation on the grounds of its unconstitutionality and manifest intent to harm foreign persons and states.

There is an American judicial precedent highlighted by the Pennoyer vs. Neff lawsuit, 95 US 714, which arose in 1878 and in which the Supreme Court of that time held that personal jurisdiction may be exercised over a party if the party is served with process while physically present within the state, something protected in light of the XIV Amendment to the Constitution.

In the early days of American federalism, the jurisdiction of the American states was based on territoriality, a principle drawn from the doctrine of the Dutch jurists. Neff, the Supreme Court enunciated two principles that must be respected: first, that each State has exclusive jurisdiction and sovereignty over persons and property located in its territory.

Indeed, by virtue of the XIV Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America, although the Supreme Court continued to embrace the principle of territorial sovereignty of the States to determine the jurisdiction corresponding to each one, even after the ratification of the XIV Amendment itself, the source of the territoriality principle changed and ceased to be found in International Law to be integrated to the mentioned constitutional Amendment.

Written by Dc, Osvaldo Manuel Álvarez Torres.