Source: http://volokh.com/category/treaties/
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 10:02:08+00:00

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Earlier this week, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in Bond v. United States, an important case on the issue of whether the Constitution allows the federal government to use international treaties to give Congress authority over issues that otherwise would be beyond the scope of federal power. Bond – which has already been to the Supreme Court once before – arose from a seemingly ridiculous case where federal prosecutors decided to charge a woman who had tried to injure a romantic rival by smearing a dangerous chemical on a doorknob the latter was likely to touch, with violating the Chemical Weapons Convention. The incredibly broad federal statute implementing the CWC bans the use or possession of “any chemical which through its chemical action on life processes can cause death, temporary incapacitation or permanent harm to humans or animals” (though there is an exemption for the use of such chemicals for a “peaceful purpose,” which was narrowly construed by the court of appeals).
What Questions Will Be Resolved By Bond v. United States?
Tomorrow the Supreme Court will hear argument in Bond v. United States, a case about a conviction under a statute that purports to implement a chemical weapons treaty. The arguments at the Court raise basic questions about the scope of the treaty power and the scope of Congress’s ability to implement that treaty power. While I have been following the case, I continue to find the issues rather difficult and not to be wholly satisfied with either side’s resolution of them.
1, the Senate and the President can make a self-executing treaty, which will be the “supreme law of the land” under the Supremacy Clause.
2, the Senate and the President can make a non-self-executing treaty, which requires domestic implementation; Congress can then pass a statute implementing that treaty.
3, the Senate and the President can make a non-self-executing treaty, which requires domestic implementation; the states can then pass statutes implementing that treaty.
Can a Treaty Increase The Power of Congress?
As regular readers know, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in Bond v. United States in January. The case raises the question of whether a treaty can increase the legislative power of Congress. In 1920, in Missouri v. Holland, the Supreme Court seemed to say yes. In 2005, in the Harvard Law Review, I said no. Several of us, including guest blogger Rick Pildes, debated the question at length earlier this year (my final post includes links to all the others). Now, the Court is poised to decide the question.
[T]he government is left to argue that, in our constitutional system, a valid non-self-executing treaty grants Congress a plenary power to regulate all conduct that bears a rational relationship to the treaty …. [T]hat contention is fundamentally incompatible with the Constitution and this Court’s precedents. Missouri v. Holland does not establish that proposition, but if it did, it could not be reconciled with more recent decisions that respect our basic constitutional structure. Neither any clause of the Constitution alone nor all of them in combination grants Congress that kind of police power. And the last place such plenary power lies inchoate, waiting to be unleashed by a ratified treaty, is the Necessary and Proper Clause. An unchecked power to implement treaties would amount to exactly the sort of “great substantive and independent power” that the Necessary and Proper Clause cannot supply. McCulloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. 316, 411 (1819); see also NFIB, 132 S. Ct. at 2591–92 (Roberts, C.J.).
I have put up a new working paper on SSRN, entitled Jurisdiction Over Israeli Settlement Activity in the International Criminal Court. It is not about the legality of settlements. Rather, it is about whether repeated and growing threats by Palestine and its supporters to make an international case out of it are consistent with the admissibility requirements of the ICC. I welcome substantive comments (as well as inquiries from law review editors).
First, the ICC can only consider situations “on the territory” of Palestine. Yet the scope of that territory is undefined. An “occupation” can arise even in an area that is not the territory of any state – but ICC jurisdiction does not extend there. Thus even if Israel is an occupying power throughout the West Bank for the purposes of substantive humanitarian law, this does not establish that settlement activity occurs “on the territory” of Palestine. Moreover, the ICC lacks the power to determine the boundaries of states, and certainly of non-member states. Moreover, the Oslo Accords give Israel exclusive criminal jurisdiction over Israelis in the West Bank. Palestine cannot delegate to the ICC territorial jurisdiction that it does not possess.
Before leaving off the subject of federalism and the treaty power, I would like to clarify one aspect of my position. In arguing, as I have from the beginning, that the treaty power cannot expand the scope of federal authority beyond that which is granted by other parts of the Constitution, I do not mean to suggest that treaties may only cover issues that fall within the scope of Congress’ authority under Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution.
I agree with Nick Rosenkranz’s comment that treaties “need not necessarily be on the same subjects enumerated in Article I, section 8 — a section that, by its terms, enumerates the lawmaking powers of Congress.” But that does not mean that the treaty power is not limited by the doctrine of enumerated powers at all. The Constitution gives the federal government lots of other powers beyond those listed in Article I Section 8, most notably the powers of the president listed in Article II, and those of the federal courts outlined in Article III. The treaty power may make commitments requiring the use of those other powers, as well as the congressional powers listed in Article I. For example, a military alliance like that created by the NATO treaty makes commitments regarding the exercise of the president’s powers as commander-in-chief of the armed forces. As I have previously emphasized, Article VI of the Constitution makes treaties the law of the land so long as they “are made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States.” The “authority of the United States” includes all powers of every branch of the federal government.

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