SCOTUS precedent on treaties
Nothing overrides the Constitution!
In the Reid v. Covert case, it was an executive agreement (not a
treaty) between the United States and Great Britain that was in
question. However, in Part II, we find:
“MR. JUSTICE BLACK announced the judgment of the Court and
delivered an opinion, in which THE CHIEF JUSTICE, MR. JUSTICE
DOUGLAS, and MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN join.”
Significant excerpts include:
“At the time of Mrs. Covert's alleged offense, an executive agreement
was in effect between the United States and Great Britain which
permitted United States' military courts to exercise exclusive
jurisdiction over offenses committed in Great Britain by American
servicemen or their dependents.”
“It would be manifestly contrary to the objectives of those who
created the Constitution, as well as those who were responsible for
the Bill of Rights -- let alone alien to our entire constitutional history
and tradition -- to construe Article VI as permitting the United States
to exercise power under an international agreement without
observing constitutional prohibitions. ... In effect, such construction
would permit amendment of that document in a manner not
sanctioned by Article V. The prohibitions of the Constitution were
designed to apply to all branches of the National Government, and
they cannot be nullified by the Executive or by the Executive and the
Senate combined.”
“There is nothing new or unique about what we say here. This Court
has regularly and uniformly recognized the supremacy of the
Constitution over a treaty. ... For example, in Geofroy v. Riggs, 133
U.S. 258, 267, it declared: The treaty power, as expressed in the
Constitution, is in terms unlimited except by those restraints which
are found in that instrument against the action of the government or
of its departments, and those arising from the nature of the
government itself and of that of the States. It would not be
contended that it extends so far as to authorize what the Constitution
forbids, or a change in the character of the [p*18] government, or in
that of one of the States, or a cession of any portion of the territory
of the latter, without its consent.”
“This Court has also repeatedly taken the position that an Act of
Congress, which must comply with the Constitution, is on a full parity
with a treaty, and that, when a statute which is subsequent in time is
inconsistent with a treaty, the statute to the extent of conflict renders
the treaty null. ... It would be completely anomalous to say that a
treaty need not comply with the Constitution when such an
agreement can be overridden by a statute that must conform to that
instrument.”
