Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/13pdf/12-158_6579.pdf
Page Number: 39

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

15 

SCALIA, J., concurring in judgment 

countries  to  be  tried  for  murder  by  court-martial.    The 
plurality  opinion  said  that  “no  agreement  with  a  foreign
nation can confer power on the Congress, or on any other 
branch of Government, which is free from the restraints of 
the Constitution.”  Id., at 16. 

To  be  sure,  the  Reid  plurality  purported  to  distinguish
the  ipse  dixit  of  Holland  with  its  own  unsupported  ipse 
dixit.  “[T]he people and the States,” it said, “have delegated 
[the  treaty]  power  to  the  National  Government  [so]  the 
Tenth  Amendment  is  no  barrier.”  354  U. S.,  at  18.    The 
opinion does not say why (and there is no reason why) only 
the  Tenth  Amendment,  and  not  the  other  nine,  has  been 
“delegated”  away  by  the  treaty  power.  The  distinction 
between  provisions  protecting  individual  liberty,  on  the
one hand, and “structural” provisions, on the other, cannot 
be  the  explanation,  since  structure  in  general—and  espe-
cially the structure of limited federal powers—is designed 
to  protect  individual  liberty.    “The  federal  structure  . . . 
secures the freedom of the individual. . . . By denying any 
one government complete jurisdiction over all the concerns 
of public life, federalism protects the liberty of the individ-
ual  from  arbitrary  power.”    Bond  v.  United  States,  564 
U. S. ___, ___ (2011) (slip op., at 9–10). 

The  Government  raises  a  functionalist  objection:  If  the 
Constitution  does  not  limit  a  self-executing  treaty  to  the 
subject matter delineated in Article I, §8, then it makes no
sense to impose that limitation upon a statute implement-
ing a non-self-executing treaty.  See Tr. of Oral Arg. 32–33.
The premise of the objection (that the power to make self-
executing  treaties  is  limitless)  is,  to  say  the  least,  argua-
ble.  But even if it is correct, refusing to extend that prop-
osition to non-self-executing treaties makes a great deal of 
sense.  Suppose,  for  example,  that  the  self-aggrandizing 
Federal Government wishes to take over the law of intes-
tacy.  If the President and the Senate find in some foreign
state  a  ready  accomplice,  they  have  two  options.    First,