U.S. Supreme Court,
Constitutional Law
Jun. 6, 2014
The scope of the treaty power
Bond v. United States is an encouraging, though not definitive, sign that the high court will not allow treaties to serve as an end-run around constitutional limits on federal authority.
Ilya Somin
Professor of Law
George Mason University
Ilya is an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute, author of "The Grasping Hand: Kelo v. City of New London and the Limits of Eminent Domain," and "Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government is Smarter." He writes regularly for the Volokh Conspiracy blog.
Monday's Supreme Court decision in Bond v. United States, 2014 DJDAR 6919, largely avoided the big constitutional issue that was the original focus of the case: the scope of the treaty power. But the ruling still has some important implications for the future. All nine justices expressed serious qualms about the argument that treaties can authorize Congress to legislate beyond the scope of its other enumerated powers. The need to enforce constraints on the treaty power is more tha...
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