Reading Room Document

Limitation on the authority of the federal courts to interpret the Covenant to Establish a Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands

This memo asserted that federal courts had authority under the Covenant to Establish a Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands to adjudicate issues arising under the covenant, and that federal courts exercising that authority were not impermissibly establishing "political policy." The OLC added that it would "question the constitutionality" of a new amendment designed to limit federal court authority under the covenant.

May 29, 1990