Tag: Treaty-Making Power
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Termination of Treaties by Notice
Termination of Treaties by NoticeTypically, a treaty provides for its termination by notice of one of the parties, usually after a prescribed time from the date of notice. Of course, treaties may also be terminated by agreement of the parties, or by breach by one of the parties, or by some other mea…
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Treaties and Congress
Treaties and CongressIn the Convention, a proposal to require the adoption of treaties through enactment of a law before they should be binding was rejected.1 But the years since have seen numerous controversies with regard to the duties and obligati…
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Treaties and the States
Treaties and the StatesAs it so happened, the first case in which the Supreme Court dealt with the question of the effect of treaties on state laws involved the same issue that had prompted the drafting of Article VI, paragraph 2. During the Revolutionary War, the Virginia legislature provided that …
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Treaties Versus Prior Acts of Congress
Treaties Versus Prior Acts of CongressThe Court has enforced numerous statutory provisions that it recognized as superseding prior treaty engagements. Chief Justice Marshall asserted that the converse would be true as well 1 -that a treaty that is sel…
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Treaty as a Political Question
Status of a Treaty as a Political QuestionIt is clear that many questions which arise concerning a treaty are of a political nature and will not be decided by the courts. In the words of Justice Curtis in Taylor v. Morton: 1 It is not "a judicia…
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Treaty Negotiation
Negotiation, a Presidential MonopolyActually, the negotiation of treaties had long since been taken over by the President; the Senate's role in relation to treaties is today essentially legislative in character.1 "He alone negotiates. Into t…
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Self-Executing Treaty
When Is a Treaty Self-ExecutingSeveral references have been made above to a distinction between treaties as self-executing and as merely executory, in which case they are enforceable only after the enactment of "legislation to carry them into effect." <a name=t1 href=#f1 target="_self…
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Law of the Land Origin
Origin of the ConceptionHow did this distinctive feature of the Constitution come about, by virtue of which the treatymaking authority is enabled to stamp upon its promises the quality of municipal law, thereby rendering them enforceable by the courts without further action? The short answer is that…
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President Treaty-Making Power
President Treaty-Making Power and the SenateThe plan that the Committee of Detail reported to the Federal Convention on August 6, 1787 provided that "the Senate of the United States shall have power to make treaties, and to appoint Ambassadors, and Judges of the Supreme Court." <a name=t1 …
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Necessary and Proper Clause
Necessary and Proper Clause DefinitionAll grants of power to Congress in § 8, as elsewhere, must be read in conjunction with the Necessary and Proper Clause, § 8, cl. 18, which authorizes Congress "[t]o make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the …
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Law of the Land
Treaties as Law of the LandTreaty commitments of the United States are of two kinds. As Chief Justice Marshall wrote in 1829: "A treaty is, in its nature, a contract between two nations, not a legislative act. It does not generally effect, of itself, the object to be accomplished; especially, s…
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Indian Treaties
Indian TreatiesIn the early cases of Cherokee Nation v. Georgia,1 and Worcester v. Georgia,2 the Court, speaking by Chief Justice Marshall, held, first, that the Cherokee Nation was not a sovereign st…
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Indian Treaties Today
Present Status of Indian TreatiesToday, the subject of Indian treaties is a closed account in the constitutional law ledger. By a rider inserted in the Indian Appropriation Act of March 3, 1871, it was provided "That hereafter no Indian nation or tribe within the territory of the United States …
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International Compacts
Interpretation and Termination of Treaties as International CompactsThe repeal by Congress of the "self-executing" clauses of a treaty as "law of the land" does not of itself terminate the treaty as an international contract, although it may very well provoke the other party to t…
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Congressional Repeal of Treaties
Congressional Repeal of TreatiesMadison contended that, when Congress is asked to carry a treaty into effect, it has the constitutional right, and indeed the duty, to determine the matter according to its own ideas of what is expedient.1 Developments…