Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2020
Abstract
For seventy years, Puerto Ricans have been bitterly divided over how to decolonize the island, a U.S. territory. Many favor Puerto Rico’s admission into statehood. But many others support a different kind of relationship with the United States: they believe that in 1952, Puerto Rico entered into a “compact” with the United States that transformed it from a territory into a “commonwealth,” and they insist that “commonwealth” status made Puerto Rico a separate sovereign in permanent union with the United States. Statehood supporters argue that there is no compact, nor should there be: it is neither constitutionally possible, nor desirable as a goal of self-determination. Without even acknowledging the existence of this debate, Justice Sotomayor recently declared the existence of the “compact” in a concurrence in a case in which no one raised it. By doing so, Justice Sotomayor took sides in the divisive political debate over Puerto Rico’s future.
Disciplines
Criminal Law | Criminal Procedure | Fourteenth Amendment | International Relations | Law | Law and Politics | Legislation | Political Science
Recommended Citation
Christina D. Ponsa-Kraus,
Political Wine in a Judicial Bottle: Justice Sotomayor's Surprising Concurrence in Aurelius,
130
Yale L. J. F.
101
(2020).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/faculty_scholarship/2672
Included in
Criminal Law Commons, Criminal Procedure Commons, Fourteenth Amendment Commons, International Relations Commons, Law and Politics Commons, Legislation Commons