Japan and the European Union will ask the World Trade Organization to indefinitely suspend procedures to settle their row with the United States over a sanctions law against Myanmar, government sources said Monday.
The decision follows a U.S. federal district court ruling in November that the controversial "Burma Law" in Massachusetts is unconstitutional because it "impermissibly" infringes on the federal government's power to regulate foreign affairs. The law denies state contracts to American and foreign companies doing business in Myanmar.
Massachusetts has since suspended the law's enforcement and appealed the ruling. "Because the law in question has been suspended, it no longer inflicts actual damage on Japanese companies," a government source said. "That's why we have decided to ask the WTO to suspend dispute-settlement procedures over the matter."