Opinion ID: 799258
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Convention's Validity

Text: The Constitution does not have within it any explicit subject matter limitation on the power granted in Article II, § 2. That section states simply that the President has the Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur. U.S. Const. art. II, § 2, cl. 2. Throughout much of American history, however, including when Holland was handed down, it was understood that the Treaty Power was impliedly limited to certain subject matters. See Bradley, supra, at 429 (arguing that a subject matter limitation [on the Treaty Power] appears to have been assumed both during the Founding and at times during the nineteenth century, and suggesting it was likewise assumed by the Holland court); Golove, supra, at 1288 ([V]irtually every authority, including the Supreme Court, has on countless occasions from the earliest days recognized general subject matter limitations on treaties.). Contemporaneous records such as the Virginia Ratifying Convention show that the Founders generally accepted that the purpose of treaties was, as James Madison put it, to regulate intercourse with foreign nations, and that the exercise of the Treaty Power was expected to be consistent with those external ends. [11] 3 The Debates in The Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Constitution 514-15 (Jonathan Elliot ed., 2d ed. 1941) ( The Virginia Debates ); see The Federalist No. 45 (James Madison) (stating that the Treaty Power will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce). As Madison later explained, if there was no limitation on the Treaty-making power..., it might admit of a doubt whether the United States might not be enabled to do those things by Treaty which are forbidden to be done by Congress...; but no such consequence can follow, for it is a sound rule of construction, that what is forbidden to be done by all the branches of Government conjointly, cannot be done by one or more of them separately. 5 Annals of Congress 671 (1796) (emphasis added). Early cases followed that reasoning and indicated that the Treaty Power is confined to matters traditionally understood to be of international concern. See, e.g., Ross v. McIntyre, 140 U.S. 453, 463, 11 S.Ct. 897, 35 L.Ed. 581 (1891) (The treaty-making power vested in our government extends to all proper subjects of negotiation with foreign governments.); De Geofroy v. Riggs, 133 U.S. 258, 266, 10 S.Ct. 295, 33 L.Ed. 642 (1890) (That the treaty power of the United States extends to all proper subjects of negotiation between our government and the governments of other nations is clear.); Holden v. Joy, 84 U.S. (17 Wall.) 211, 243, 21 L.Ed. 523 (1872) ([I]nasmuch as the power is given, in general terms, without any description of the objects intended to be embraced within its scope, it must be assumed that the framers of the Constitution intended that it should extend to all those objects which in the intercourse of nations had usually been regarded as the proper subjects of negotiation and treaty....). That is not to say, however, that any treaty encroaching on matters ordinarily left to the states was considered to be beyond the Treaty Power's permissible ambit. On the contrary, so long as the subject matter limitation was satisfied which it undoubtedly was in cases involving subjects [such as] peace, alliance, commerce, neutrality, and others of a similar nature, William Rawle, A View of the Constitution of the United States 65 (2d ed. 1829), or, as Jay put it, war, peace, and commerce, The Federalist No. 64 (John Jay)it was accepted that treaties could affect domestic issues. Many early decisions of the Supreme Court upheld treaties of that nature, including treaties regarding the ownership and transfer of property. See, e.g., Carneal v. Banks, 23 U.S. (10 Wheat.) 181, 189, 6 L.Ed. 297 (1825) (treaty between the United States and France that allowed citizens of either country to hold lands in the other). Still, it was widely accepted that the Treaty Power was inherently limited in the subject matter it could properly be used to address, see Santovincenzo v. Egan, 284 U.S. 30, 40, 52 S.Ct. 81, 76 L.Ed. 151 (1931) (The treatymaking power is broad enough to cover all subjects that properly pertain to our foreign relations....); Asakura v. City of Seattle, 265 U.S. 332, 341, 44 S.Ct. 515, 68 L.Ed. 1041 (1924) (The treaty-making power of the United States ... does not extend `so far as to authorize what the Constitution forbids,'... [but] does extend to all proper subjects of negotiation between our government and other nations.), and that the purpose of limiting the Treaty Power to matters which in the ordinary intercourse of nations had usually been made subjects of negotiation and treaty was to ensure that treaties were consistent with ... the distribution of powers between the general and state governments, Holmes v. Jennison, 39 U.S. (14 Pet.) 540, 569, 10 L.Ed. 579 (1840). Despite the long history of that view of the Treaty Power, the tide of opinion, at least in some quarters, has shifted decisively in the last half-century. Many influential voices now urge that there is no limitation on the Treaty Power, at least not in the way understood from the founding through to the middle of the Twentieth Century. [12] See Bradley, supra, at 433 (describing the rejection of a subject matter limitation on the treaty power as the accepted view). That change is reflected in the Restatement (Third) of Foreign Relations Law of the United States (1987) (the Third Restatement), which declares flatly that, [c]ontrary to what was once suggested, the Constitution does not require that an international agreement deal only with `matters of international concern.' [13] Third Restatement § 302 cmt. c; see id. § 303(1) ([T]he President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, may make any international agreement of the United States in the form of a treaty.). Whatever the Treaty Power's proper bounds may be, however, we are confident that the Convention we are dealing with here falls comfortably within them. The Convention, after all, regulates the proliferation and use of chemical weapons. One need not be a student of modern warfare to have some appreciation for the devastation chemical weapons can cause and the corresponding impetus for international collaboration to take steps against their use. Given its quintessentially international character, we conclude that the Convention is valid under any reasonable conception of the Treaty Power's scope. In fact, as we discuss at greater length herein, because the Convention relates to war, peace, and perhaps commerce, [14] it fits at the core of the Treaty Power. See infra note 18.