One common method for policy laundering is the use of international treaties which are formulated in secrecy. Afterwards it is not possible to find out who advocated for which part of the treaty. Each person can claim that it was not them who demanded a certain paragraph but that they had to agree to the overall "compromise". Examples that could be considered as "policy laundering" are WIPO or the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement.
Hiding the real objective of a policy
One manifestation of policy laundering is claiming a different underlying objective for a policy than is actually the case. The usual reason for politicians following this approach is that the real objective is unpopular with the public. The usual process is to conflate the issue being addressed with an unrelated matter of great public concern. The intervention pursued is presented as addressing an issue of great public concern rather than the underlying objective.
Circumventing the regular approval process
Yet another manifestation of policy laundering is to implement legal policy which a subset of legislators desire but would normally not be able to obtain approval through regular means. An example of policy laundering where law was enacted and enforced despite both state and federal courts declaring the law unconstitutional is the Missouri v. Holland case. At that time, Congress attempted to protect migratory birds by statutory law. However, both state and federal courts declared that law unconstitutional. Not to be denied, authorized parties subsequently negotiated and ratified a treaty with Canada to achieve the same purpose. Once the treaty was in place, Congress then passed the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 to enforce the treaty. In Missouri v. Holland, the United States Supreme Court upheld that the new law was constitutional in order to support the treaty. It has been suggested that policy laundering has become common political practice in areas related to terrorism and the erosion of civil liberties. In the air-travel industry, an example of policy laundering might be the requirement for passengers to show photographic identification. This was presented as addressing securityconcerns, but from the airline's perspective the measure had the important effect of ending unauthorised resale by passengers of unused tickets.
