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1 1 (December 20, 2024)

handle is hein.crs/govertr0001 and id is 1 raw text is: The Captures Clause (Part 2): Jurisprudence and U.S. Practice December 20, 2024 This Legal Sidebar is the second installment in a two-part series discussing Congress's power to make rules concerning Captures on Land and Water derived from Article I, Section 8, clause 11 of the Constitution. This provision, sometimes called the Captures Clause, provides Congress with authority to regulate the capture, condemnation, and distribution of enemy property. In addition, the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) in a 2009 memorandum argued that the Framers of the Constitution understood Congress's power to regulate captures to include the capture of enemy prisoners. Because the Captures Clause gives Congress control over the treatment of enemy property and, arguably, the treatment of enemy prisoners, Congress may find the Captures Clause to be of interest. This Sidebar examines the Supreme Court's jurisprudence interpreting the Captures Clause and the role of captures in U.S. practice. Part 1 provides an overview of the Captures Clause, examines its historical context, and discusses its drafting and ratification history. Jurisprudence and U.S. Practice Related to Captures After the Constitution's ratification, Congress continued to enact legislation regulating captures and dictating how the prize system would operate-as the national government had during the Articles of Confederation and Second Continental Congress periods discussed in Part 1. The Supreme Court eventually developed a large body of prize law jurisprudence addressing the legality of specific captures, but the Court decided comparatively few cases that interpret the scope of the Captures Clause itself. The following sections examine the Supreme Court's jurisprudence interpreting the Captures Clause and highlights changing U.S. practices related to captures. Congressional Control over Captures and the Role of International Law The Supreme Court has stated that Congress's power over captures and prize law is plenary, and [n]o one can have any right or interest in any prize unless sanction[ed] by an act of Congress. At the same time, international law informs domestic prize law, and the Supreme Court has applied international nomis in adjudicating prize cases, provided those normis were not modified by a treaty or by legislative or executive action. For example, when the U.S. Navy blockaded Cuban ports during the Spanish-American War, the Supreme Court held that a rule ofinternational law exempting unarmed, coastal fishing vessels Congressional Research Service https://crsreports.congress.gov LSB11254 CRS Legal Sidebar Prepared for Members and Committees of Congress