Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/13pdf/12-158_6579.pdf
Page Number: 33

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

9 

SCALIA, J., concurring in judgment 

her  amici  press  us  to  consider  whether  there  is  anything 
to  this  ipse  dixit.  The  Constitution’s  text  and  structure 
show that there is not.5 

A.  Text 
Under Article I, §8, cl. 18, Congress has the power “[t]o
make  all  Laws  which  shall  be  necessary  and  proper  for 
carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers and all other 
Powers  vested  by  this  Constitution  in  the  Government
of  the  United  States,  or  in  any  Department  or  Officer 
thereof.”  One  such  “other  Powe[r]”  appears  in  Article  II, 
§2,  cl. 2:  “[The  President]  shall  have  Power,  by  and  with
the  Advice  and  Consent  of  the  Senate,  to  make  Treaties, 
provided two thirds of the Senators present concur.”  Read 
together, the two Clauses empower Congress to pass laws 
“necessary and proper for carrying into Execution . . . [the] 
Power . . . to make Treaties.” 

It is obvious what the Clauses, read together, do not say.
They do not authorize Congress to enact laws for carrying 
into execution “Treaties,” even treaties that do not execute 
themselves,  such  as  the  Chemical  Weapons  Convention.6 

—————— 

to give efficacy to any stipulations which it is competent for the Presi-
dent  by  and  with  the  advice  and  consent  of  the  Senate  to  insert  in  a 
treaty with a foreign power”).  There is also dictum arguably favorable 
to  Holland  in  Prigg  v.  Pennsylvania,  16  Pet.  539,  619  (1842)  (“[T]he 
power  is  nowhere  in  positive  terms  conferred  upon  Congress  to  make 
laws  to  carry  the  stipulations  of  treaties  into  effect.    It  has  been  sup-
posed  to  result  from  the  duty  of  the  national  government  to  fulfill  all
the  obligations  of  treaties”).    But  see  Mayor  of  New  Orleans  v.  United 
States,  10  Pet.  662,  736  (1836)  (“The  government  of  the  United  States
. . . is one of limited powers.  It can exercise authority over no subjects, 
except  those  which  have  been  delegated  to  it.    Congress  cannot,  by
legislation,  enlarge  the  federal  jurisdiction,  nor  can  it  be  enlarged
under the treaty-making power”). 

5 I  agree  with  the  Court  that  the  Government  waived  its  defense  of

the Act as an exercise of the commerce power.  Ante, at 8–9. 

6 Non-self-executing  treaties  are  treaties  whose  commitments  do  not 
“automatically  have  effect  as  domestic  law,”  Medellín  v.  Texas,  552