Page:Zivotofsky v. Kerry.pdf/72

72

does from bilateral treaties or exchanges of ambassadors. Recognition would preclude the United States (as a matter of international law) from later contesting Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem. But making a notation in a passport or birth report does not encumber the Republic with any international obligations. It leaves the Nation free (so far as international law is concerned) to change its mind in the future. That would be true even if the statute required all passports to list “Israel.” But in fact it requires only those passports to list “Israel” for which the citizen (or his guardian) requests “Israel”; all the rest, under the Secretary's policy, list “Jerusalem.” It is utterly impossible for this deference to private requests to constitute an act that unequivocally manifests an intention to grant recognition.

Section 214(d) performs a more prosaic function than extending recognition. Just as foreign countries care about what our Government has to say about their borders, so too American citizens often care about what our Government has to say about their identities. Cf. Bowen v. Roy, 476 U. S. 693 (1986). The State Department does not grant or deny recognition in order to accommodate these individuals, but it does make exceptions to its rules about how it records birthplaces. Although normal protocol requires specifying the bearer's country of birth in his passport, Dept. of State, 7 Foreign Affairs Manual (FAM) § 1300, App. D, § 1330(a) (2014), the State Department will, if the bearer protests, specify the city of birth instead so that an Irish nationalist may have his birthplace recorded as “Belfast” rather than “United Kingdom,” id., § 1380(a). And although normal protocol requires specifying the country with present sovereignty over the bearer's place of birth, id., § 1330(b), a special exception allows a bearer born before 1948 in what was then Palestine to have his birthplace listed as “Palestine,” id., § 1360(g). Section 214(d) requires the State Department to make a further accommodation. Even though the Department normally refuses to specify a country that lacks recog-