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Page Number: 4

Cite as:  572 U. S. ____ (2014) 

1 

Opinion of the Court 

NOTICE:  This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the
preliminary  print  of  the  United  States  Reports.  Readers  are  requested  to
notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Wash-
ington,  D. C.  20543,  of  any  typographical  or  other  formal  errors,  in  order
that corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press. 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

_________________ 

No. 12–158 
_________________ 

CAROL ANNE BOND, PETITIONER v. UNITED
 
STATES 

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF 

APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
 

[June 2, 2014]

 CHIEF  JUSTICE  ROBERTS  delivered  the  opinion  of  the

Court. 

The  horrors  of  chemical  warfare  were  vividly  captured
by John Singer Sargent in his 1919 painting Gassed.  The 
nearly life-sized work depicts two lines of soldiers, blinded
by  mustard  gas,  clinging  single  file  to  orderlies  guiding 
them  to  an  improvised  aid  station.    There  they  would 
receive  little  treatment  and  no  relief;  many  suffered  for 
weeks only to have the gas claim their lives.  The soldiers 
were  shown  staggering  through  piles  of  comrades  too 
seriously burned to even join the procession.

The  painting  reflects  the  devastation  that  Sargent
witnessed  in  the  aftermath  of  the  Second  Battle  of  Arras 
during World War I.  That battle and others like it led to 
an  overwhelming  consensus  in  the  international  commu-
nity  that  toxic  chemicals  should  never  again  be  used  as 
weapons  against  human  beings.  Today  that  objective  is
reflected  in  the  international  Convention  on  Chemical 
Weapons,  which  has  been  ratified  or  acceded  to  by  190 
countries.  The  United  States,  pursuant  to  the  Federal
Government’s constitutionally enumerated power to make