Who does the president share the power with when negotiating treaties with foreign nations?

Article II, Section 2, Clause 2:

He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.

The 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.” 1 Not until September 7, ten days before the Convention’s final adjournment, was the President made a participant in these powers.2 The constitutional clause evidently assumes that the President and Senate will be associated throughout the entire process of making a treaty, although Jay, writing in The Federalist, foresaw that the initiative must often be seized by the President without benefit of senatorial counsel.3 Yet, so late as 1818 Rufus King, Senator from New York, who had been a member of the Convention, declared on the floor of the Senate: “In these concerns the Senate are the Constitutional and the only responsible counselors of the President. And in this capacity the Senate may, and ought to, look into and watch over every branch of the foreign affairs of the nation; they may, therefore, at any time call for full and exact information respecting the foreign affairs, and express their opinion and advice to the President respecting the same, when, and under whatever other circumstances, they may think such advice expedient.” 4

Actually, 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.5 “He alone negotiates. Into the field of negotiation, the Senate cannot intrude; and Congress itself is powerless to invade it,” declared Justice Sutherland for the Court in 1936.6 The Senate must, moreover, content itself with such information as the President chooses to furnish it.7 In performing the function that remains to it, however, it has several options. It may consent unconditionally to a proposed treaty, it may refuse its consent, or it may stipulate conditions in the form of amendments to the treaty, of reservations to the act of ratification, or of statements of understanding or other declarations, the formal difference between the first two and the third being that amendments and reservations, if accepted by the President must be communicated to the other parties to the treaty, and, at least with respect to amendments and often reservations as well, require reopening negotiations and changes, whereas the other actions may have more problematic results.8 The act of ratification for the United States is the President’s act, but it may not be forthcoming unless the Senate has consented to it by the required two-thirds of the Senators present, which signifies two-thirds of a quorum, otherwise the consent rendered would not be that of the Senate as organized under the Constitution to do business.9 Conversely, the President may, if dissatisfied with amendments which have been affixed by the Senate to a proposed treaty or with the conditions stipulated by it to ratification, decide to abandon the negotiation, which he is entirely free to do.10

Treaty 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, so far as its operation is infra-territorial; but is carried into execution by the sovereign power of the respective parties to the instrument. In the United States, a different principle is established. Our constitution declares a treaty to be the law of the land. It is, consequently, to be regarded in courts of justice as equivalent to an act of the legislature, whenever it operates of itself, without the aid of any legislative provision. But when the terms of the stipulation import a contract—when either of the parties engages to perform a particular act, the treaty addresses itself to the political, not the judicial department; and the legislature must execute the contract, before it can become a rule for the court.” 11

To the same effect, but more accurate, is Justice Miller’s language for the Court a half century later, in the Head Money Cases: “A treaty is primarily a compact between independent nations. It depends for the enforcement of its provisions on the interest and the honor of the governments which are parties of it. . . . But a treaty may also contain provisions which confer certain rights upon the citizens or subjects of one of the nations residing in the territorial limits of the other, which partake of the nature of municipal law, and which are capable of enforcement as between private parties in the courts of the country.” 12

The meaning of treaties, as of statutes, is determined by the courts. “If treaties are to be given effect as federal law under our legal system, determining their meaning as a matter of federal law 'is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department,' headed by the 'one supreme Court' established by the Constitution.” 13 Yet, “[w]hile courts interpret treaties for themselves, the meaning given them by the departments of government particularly charged with their negotiation and enforcement is given great weight.” 14 Decisions of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) interpreting treaties, however, have “no binding force except between the parties and in respect of that particular case.” 15 ICJ decisions “are therefore entitled only to the 'respectful consideration' due an interpretation of an international agreement by an international court.” 16

Even when an ICJ decision has binding force as between the governments of two nations, it is not necessarily enforceable by the individuals affected. If, for example, the ICJ finds that the United States violated a particular defendant's rights under international law, and such a decision “constitutes an international law obligation on the part of the United States,” it does not necessarily “constitute binding federal law enforceable in United States courts. . . . [W]hile treaties may comprise international commitments . . . they are not domestic law unless Congress has either enacted implementing statutes or the treaty itself conveys an intention that it be self-executing and is ratified on these terms.” 17 A memorandum from the President of the United States directing that the United States would “discharge its international obligations” under an ICJ decision interpreting a non-self-executing treaty, “by having State courts give effect to the decision,” is not sufficient to make the decision binding on state courts, unless the President's action is authorized by Congress.18

How did this distinctive feature of the Constitution come about, by virtue of which the treaty-making 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 Article VI, paragraph 2, makes treaties the supreme law of the land on the same footing with acts of Congress. The clause was a direct result of one of the major weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation. Although the Articles entrusted the treaty-making power to Congress, fulfillment of Congress’s promises was dependent on the state legislatures.19 Particularly with regard to provisions of the Treaty of Peace of 1783,20 in which Congress stipulated to protect the property rights of British creditors of American citizens and of the former Loyalists,21 the promises were not only ignored but were deliberately flouted by many legislatures.22 Upon repeated British protests, John Jay, the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, suggested to Congress that it request state legislatures to repeal all legislation repugnant to the Treaty of Peace and to authorize their courts to carry the treaty into effect.23 Although seven states did comply to some extent, the impotency of Congress to effectuate its treaty guarantees was obvious to the Framers who devised Article VI, paragraph 2, to take care of the situation.24

As 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 the Commonwealth’s paper money, which was depreciating rapidly, was to be legal currency for the payment of debts and to confound creditors who would not accept the currency provided that Virginia citizens could pay into the state treasury debts owed by them to subjects of Great Britain, which money was to be used to prosecute the war, and that the auditor would give the debtor a certificate of payment which would discharge the debtor of all future obligations to the creditor.25 The Virginia scheme directly contradicted the assurances in the peace treaty that no bars to collection by British creditors would be raised, and in Ware v. Hylton26 the Court struck down the state law as violating the treaty that Article VI, paragraph 2, made superior. Justice Chase wrote: “A treaty cannot be the supreme law of the land, that is, of all the United States, if any act of a state legislature can stand in its way. If the constitution of a state . . . must give way to a treaty, and fall before it; can it be questioned, whether the less power, an act of the state legislature, must not be prostrate? It is the declared will of the people of the United States, that every treaty made by the authority of the United States, shall be superior to the constitution and laws of any individual state; and their will alone is to decide.” 27

In Hopkirk v. Bell,28 the Court further held that this same treaty provision prevented the operation of a Virginia statute of limitations to bar collection of antecedent debts. In numerous subsequent cases, the Court invariably ruled that treaty provisions superseded inconsistent state laws governing the right of aliens to inherit real estate.29 An example is Hauenstein v. Lynham,30 in which the Court upheld the right of a citizen of the Swiss Republic, under the treaty of 1850 with that country, to recover the estate of a relative dying intestate in Virginia, to sell the same, and to export the proceeds of the sale.31

Certain more recent cases stem from California legislation, most of it directed against Japanese immigrants. A statute that excluded aliens ineligible for American citizenship from owning real estate was upheld in 1923 on the ground that the treaty in question did not secure the rights claimed.32 But, in Oyama v. California,33 a majority of the Court opined that this legislation conflicted with the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, a view that has since been endorsed by the California Supreme Court by a narrow majority.34 Meantime, California was informed that the rights of German nationals, under the Treaty of December 8, 1923, between the United States and the Reich, to whom real property in the United States had descended or been devised, to dispose of it, had survived the recent war and certain war legislation, and accordingly prevailed over conflicting state legislation.35

In the Convention, a proposal to require the adoption of treaties through enactment of a law before they should be binding was rejected.36 But the years since have seen numerous controversies with regard to the duties and obligations of Congress, the necessity for congressional action, and the effects of statutes, in connection with the treaty power. For purposes of this section, the question is whether entry into and ratification of a treaty is sufficient in all cases to make the treaty provisions the “law of the land” or whether there are some types of treaty provisions that only a subsequent act of Congress can put into effect. The language quoted above37 from Foster v. Neilson38 early established that not all treaties are self-executing, for, as Marshall said in that decision, a treaty is “to be regarded in courts of justice as equivalent to an act of the legislature, whenever it operates of itself, without the aid of any legislative provision.” 39

Leaving aside the question of when a treaty is and is not self-executing,40 the issue of the necessity of congressional implementation and the obligation to implement has frequently roiled congressional debates. The matter arose initially in 1796 in connection with the Jay Treaty,41 certain provisions of which required appropriations to carry them into effect. In view of Article I, § 9, clause 7, which says that “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law . . . ,” it seems to have been universally conceded that Congress must be applied to if the treaty provisions were to be executed.42 A bill was introduced in the House to appropriate the needed funds, and its supporters, within and without Congress, argued that, because the treaty was the law of the land, the legislative branch was bound to enact the bill without further ado; opponents led by Madison and Albert Gallatin contended that the House had complete discretion whether or not to carry into effect treaty provisions.43 At the conclusion of the debate, the House voted not only the money but a resolution offered by Madison stating that it did not claim any agency in the treaty-making process, “but that when a treaty stipulates regulations on any of the subjects submitted by the Constitution to the power of Congress, it must depend for its execution as to such stipulations on a law or laws to be passed by Congress, and it is the constitutional right and duty of the House of Representatives in all such cases to deliberate on the expediency or inexpediency of carrying such treaty into effect, and to determine and act thereon as in their judgment may be most conducive to the public good.” 44 This early precedent with regard to appropriations has apparently been uniformly adhered to.45

Similarly, with regard to treaties that modify commercial tariff arrangements, the practice has been that the House always insisted on and the Senate acquiesced in legislation to carry into effect the provisions of such treaties.46 The earliest congressional dispute came over an 1815 Convention with Great Britain,47 which provided for reciprocal reduction of duties. President Madison thereupon recommended to Congress such legislation as the convention might require for effectuation. The Senate and some members of the House believed that no implementing legislation was necessary because of a statute that already permitted the President to reduce duties on goods of nations that did not discriminate against United States goods; the House majority felt otherwise and compromise legislation was finally enacted acceptable to both points of view.48 But subsequent cases have seen legislation enacted;49 the Senate once refused to ratify a treaty that purported to reduce statutorily determined duties,50 and congressional enactment of authority for the President to negotiate reciprocal trade agreements all seem to point to the necessity of some form of congressional implementation.

What other treaty provisions need congressional implementation is debatable. A 1907 memorandum approved by the Secretary of State stated that the limitations on the treaty power that necessitate legislative implementation may “be found in the provisions of the Constitution which expressly confide in Congress or in other branches of the Federal Government the exercise of certain of the delegated powers. . . .” 51 The same thought has been expressed in Congress52 and by commentators.53 Resolution of the issue seems to be for legislative and executive branches rather than for the courts.

Madison 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.54 Developments have vindicated Madison in this regard. This is seen in the answer that the Court gave to the question: What happens when a treaty provision and an act of Congress conflict? The answer is that neither has any intrinsic superiority over the other and therefore the later one will prevail. In short, the treaty commitments of the United States do not diminish Congress’s constitutional powers. To be sure, legislative repeal of a treaty as law of the land may amount to its violation as an international contract. In such case, as the Court said, “its infraction becomes the subject of international negotiations and reclamations, so far as the injured party chooses to seek redress, which may in the end be enforced by actual war. It is obvious that with all this the judicial courts have nothing to do and can give no redress.” 55

The 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 well56 —that a treaty that is self-executing is the law of the land and prevails over an earlier inconsistent statute—and this proposition has been repeated many times in dicta.57 But there is dispute whether in fact a treaty has ever been held to have repealed or superseded an inconsistent statute. Willoughby, for example, writes: “In fact, however, there have been few (the writer is not certain that there has been any) instances in which a treaty inconsistent with a prior act of Congress has been given full force and effect as law in this country without the assent of Congress. There may indeed have been cases in which, by treaty, certain action has been taken without reference to existing Federal laws, as, for example, where by treaty certain populations have been collectively naturalized, but such treaty action has not operated to repeal or annul the existing law upon the subject.” 58

The one instance that may be an exception59 is Cook v. United States,60 in which a divided Court held that a 1924 treaty with Great Britain that allowed the inspection of British vessels for contraband liquor and seizure if any was found had superseded the authority conferred by a section of the Tariff Act of 192261 The difficulty with this case is that the Tariff Act provision had been reenacted in 1930,62 so that a simple application of the rule that the later enactment governs should have caused a different result. It may be suspected that the low estate to which Prohibition had fallen and a desire to avoid a diplomatic controversy should the seizure at issue have been upheld influenced the Court’s decision.

Several 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.” 63 But what is it about a treaty that makes it the law of the land and gives a private litigant the right to rely on it in a court of law? As early as 1801, the Supreme Court took notice of a treaty, and, finding it applicable to the situation before it, gave judgment for the petitioner based on it.64 In Foster v. Neilson,65 Chief Justice Marshall explained that a treaty is to be regarded “as equivalent to an act of the legislature, whenever it operates of itself, without the aid of any legislative provision.” A treaty will not be self-executing, however, “when the terms of the [treaty] stipulation import a contract—when either of the parties engages to perform a particular act. . . .” When this is the case, “the treaty addresses itself to the political, not the judicial department; and the legislature must execute the contract, before it can become a rule for the court.” 66

Sometimes the nature of a treaty will determine whether it requires legislative execution or “conveys an intention that it be 'self-executing' and is ratified on these terms.” 67 One authority states that whether a treaty is self-executing “depends upon whether the obligation is imposed on private individuals or on public authorities. . . .”

“Treaty provisions which define the rights and obligations of private individuals and lay down general principles for the guidance of military, naval or administrative officials in relation thereto are usually considered self-executing. Thus treaty provisions assuring aliens equal civil rights with citizens, defining the limits of national jurisdiction, and prescribing rules of prize, war and neutrality, have been so considered . . . .”

“On the other hand certain treaty obligations are addressed solely to public authorities, of which may be mentioned those requiring the payment of money, the cession of territory, the guarantee of territory or independence, the conclusion of subsequent treaties on described subjects, the participation in international organizations, the collection and supplying of information, and direction of postal, telegraphic or other services, the construction of buildings, bridges, lighthouses, etc.” 68 It may well be that these two characteristics merge with each other at many points and the language of the Court is not always helpful in distinguishing them.69

What power, or powers, does Congress exercise when it enacts legislation for the purpose of carrying treaties of the United States into effect? When the subject matter of the treaty falls within the ambit of Congress’s enumerated powers, then it is these powers that it exercises in carrying the treaty into effect. But if the treaty deals with a subject that falls within the national jurisdiction because of its international character, then recourse is had to the Necessary and Proper Clause. Thus, of itself, Congress would have had no power to confer judicial powers upon foreign consuls in the United States, but the treaty-power can do this and has done it repeatedly and Congress has supplemented these treaties by appropriate legislation.70 Congress could not confer judicial power upon American consuls abroad to be exercised over American citizens abroad, but the treaty-power can and has, and Congress has passed legislation perfecting such agreements, and the Supreme Court has upheld such legislation.71

Again, Congress of itself could not provide for the extradition of fugitives from justice, but the treaty-power can and has done so scores of times, and Congress has passed legislation carrying our extradition treaties into effect.72 And Congress could not ordinarily penalize private acts of violence within a state, but it can punish such acts if they deprive aliens of their rights under a treaty.73 Referring to such legislation, the Court has said: “The power of Congress to make all laws necessary and proper for carrying into execution as well the powers enumerated in section 8 of Article I of the Constitution, as all others vested in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or the officers thereof, includes the power to enact such legislation as is appropriate to give efficacy to any stipulations which it is competent for the President by and with the advice and consent of the Senate to insert in a treaty with foreign power.” 74 In a word, the treaty-power cannot purport to amend the Constitution by adding to the list of Congress’s enumerated powers, but having acted, the consequence will often be that it has provided Congress with an opportunity to enact measures that independently of a treaty Congress could not enact; the only question that can be raised as to such measures is whether they are “necessary and proper” for the carrying of the treaty in question into operation.

The foremost example of this interpretation is Missouri v. Holland.75 There, the United States and Great Britain had entered into a treaty for the protection of migratory birds,76 and Congress had enacted legislation pursuant to the treaty to effectuate it.77 Missouri objected that such regulation was reserved to the states by the Tenth Amendment and that the statute infringed on this reservation, pointing to lower court decisions voiding an earlier act not based on a treaty.78 Noting that treaties “are declared the supreme law of the land,” Justice Holmes for the Court said: “If the treaty is valid there can be no dispute about the validity of the statute under Article I, § 8, as a necessary and proper means to execute the powers of the Government.” 79 “It is obvious,” he continued, “that there may be matters of the sharpest exigency for the national well being that an act of Congress could not deal with but that a treaty followed by such an act could, and it is not lightly to be assumed that, in matters requiring national action, ‘a power which must belong to and somewhere reside in every civilized government’ is not to be found.” 80 Because the treaty and thus the statute dealt with a matter of national and international concern, the treaty was proper and the statute was “necessary and proper” to effectuate the treaty.

A question growing out of the discussion above is whether the treaty power is bounded by constitutional limitations. By the Supremacy Clause, both statutes and treaties “are declared . . . to be the supreme law of the land, and no superior efficacy is given to either over the other.” 81 As statutes may be held void because they contravene the Constitution, it should follow that treaties may be held void, the Constitution being superior to both. And indeed the Court has numerous times so stated.82 It does not appear that the Court has ever held a treaty unconstitutional,83 although there are cases in which the decision seemed to be compelled by constitutional considerations.84 In fact, there would be little argument with regard to the general point were it not for dicta in Justice Holmes’ opinion in Missouri v. Holland.85 “Acts of Congress,” he said, “are the supreme law of the land only when made in pursuance of the Constitution, while treaties are declared to be so when made under the authority of the United States. It is open to question whether the authority of the United States means more than the formal acts prescribed to make the convention.” Although he immediately followed this passage with a cautionary “[w]e do not mean to imply that there are no qualifications to the treaty-making power . . . ,” 86 the Justice’s language and the holding by which it appeared that the reserved rights of the states could be invaded through the treaty power led in the 1950s to an abortive effort to amend the Constitution to restrict the treaty power.87

Controversy over Holmes' language apparently led Justice Black in Reid v. Covert88 to deny that the difference in language of the Supremacy Clause with regard to statutes and with regard to treaties was relevant to the status of treaties as inferior to the Constitution. “There is nothing in this language which intimates that treaties do not have to comply with the provisions of the Constitution. Nor is there anything in the debates which accompanied the drafting and ratification of the Constitution which even suggests such a result. These debates as well as the history that surrounds the adoption of the treaty provision in Article VI make it clear that the reason treaties were not limited to those made in ‘pursuance’ of the Constitution was so that agreements made by the United States under the Articles of Confederation, including the important treaties which concluded the Revolutionary War, would remain in effect. 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.” 89

Establishment of the general principle, however, is but the beginning; there is no readily agreed-upon standard for determining what the limitations are. The most persistently urged proposition in limitation has been that the treaty power must not invade the reserved powers of the states. In view of the sweeping language of the Supremacy Clause, it is hardly surprising that this argument has not prevailed.90 Nevertheless, the issue, in the context of Congress’s power under the Necessary and Proper Clause to effectuate a treaty dealing with a subject arguably within the domain of the states, was presented as recently as 1920, when the Court upheld a treaty and implementing statute providing for the protection of migratory birds.91 “The treaty in question does not contravene any prohibitory words to be found in the Constitution. The only question is whether it is forbidden by some invisible radiation from the general terms of the Tenth Amendment.” 92 The gist of the holding followed. “Here a national interest of very nearly the first magnitude is involved. It can be protected only by national action in concert with that of another power. The subject-matter is only transitorily within the State and has no permanent habitat therein. But for the treaty and the statute there soon might be no birds for any powers to deal with. We see nothing in the Constitution that compels the government to sit by while a food supply is cut off and the protectors of our forests and our crops are destroyed.” 93

The doctrine that seems to follow from this case and others is “that in all that properly relates to matters of international rights and obligations, whether these rights and obligations rest upon the general principles of international law or have been conventionally created by specific treaties, the United States possesses all the powers of a constitutionally centralized sovereign State; and, therefore, that when the necessity from the international standpoint arises the treaty power may be exercised, even though thereby the rights ordinarily reserved to the States are invaded.” 94 It is not, in other words, the treaty power that enlarges either the federal power or the congressional power, but the international character of the interest concerned that might be acted upon.

Dicta in some of the cases lend support to the argument that the treaty power is limited by the delegation of powers among the branches of the National Government95 and especially by the delegated powers of Congress, although it is not clear what the limitation means. If it is meant that no international agreement could be constitutionally entered into by the United States within the sphere of such powers, the practice from the beginning has been to the contrary;96 if it is meant that treaty provisions dealing with matters delegated to Congress must, in order to become the law of the land, receive the assent of Congress through implementing legislation, it states not a limitation on the power of making treaties as international conventions but rather a necessary procedure before certain conventions are cognizable by the courts in the enforcement of rights under them.

It has also been suggested that the prohibitions against governmental action contained in the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights in particular, limit the exercise of the treaty power. No doubt this is true, though again there are no cases which so hold.97

One other limitation of sorts may be contained in the language of certain court decisions that seem to say that only matters of “international concern” may be the subject of treaty negotiations.98 Although this may appear to be a limitation, it does not take account of the elasticity of the concept of “international concern” by which the subject matter of treaties has constantly expanded over the years.99 At best, any attempted resolution of the issue of limitations must be an uneasy one.100

In brief, the fact that all the foreign relations power is vested in the National Government and that no formal restriction is imposed on the treaty-making power in the international context101 leaves little room for the notion of a limited treaty-making power with regard to the reserved rights of the states or in regard to the choice of matters concerning which the Federal Government may treat with other nations; protected individual rights appear to be sheltered by specific constitutional guarantees from the domestic effects of treaties, and the separation of powers at the federal level may require legislative action to give municipal effect to international agreements.

The 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 the treaty to do so. Hence, the questions arise where the Constitution lodges this power and where it lodges the power to interpret the contractual provisions of treaties. The first case of outright abrogation of a treaty by the United States occurred in 1798, when Congress by the Act of July 7 of that year, pronounced the United States freed and exonerated from the stipulations of the Treaties of 1778 with France.102 This act was followed two days later by one authorizing limited hostilities against the same country; in Bas v. Tingy,103 the Supreme Court treated the act of abrogation as simply one of a bundle of acts declaring “public war” upon the French Republic.

Typically, 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 means. But it is in the instance of termination by notice that the issue has frequently been raised: where in the Government of the United States does the Constitution lodge the power to unmake treaties?104 Reasonable arguments may be made locating the power in the President alone, in the President and Senate, or in the Congress. Presidents generally have asserted the foreign relations power reposed in them under Article II and the inherent powers argument made in Curtiss-Wright. Because the Constitution requires the consent of the Senate for making a treaty, one can logically argue that its consent is also required for terminating it. Finally, because treaties are, like statutes, the supreme law of the land, it may well be argued that, again like statutes, they may be undone only through law-making by the entire Congress; additionally, since Congress may be required to implement treaties and may displace them through legislation, this argument is reenforced.

Definitive resolution of this argument appears only remotely possible. Historical practice provides support for all three arguments and the judicial branch seems unlikely to essay any answer.

Although abrogation of the French treaty, mentioned above, is apparently the only example of termination by Congress through a public law, many instances may be cited of congressional actions mandating terminations by notice of the President or changing the legal environment so that the President is required to terminate. The initial precedent in the instance of termination by notice pursuant to congressional action appears to have occurred in 1846,105 when by joint resolution Congress authorized the President at his discretion to notify the British government of the abrogation of the Convention of August 6, 1827, relative to the joint occupation of the Oregon Territory. As the President himself had requested the resolution, the episode is often cited to support the theory that international conventions to which the United States is a party, even those terminable on notice, are terminable only through action of Congress.106 Subsequently, Congress has often passed resolutions denouncing treaties or treaty provisions, which by their own terms were terminable on notice, and Presidents have usually, though not invariably, carried out such resolutions.107 By the La Follette-Furuseth Seaman’s Act,108 President Wilson was directed, “within ninety days after the passage of the act, to give notice to foreign governments that so much of any treaties as might be in conflict with the provisions of the act would terminate on the expiration of the periods of notice provided for in such treaties,” and the required notice was given.109 When, however, by section 34 of the Jones Merchant Marine Act of 1920, the same President was authorized and directed within ninety days to give notice to the other parties to certain treaties, with which the Act was not in conflict but which might restrict Congress in the future from enacting discriminatory tonnage duties, President Wilson refused to comply, asserting that he “did not deem the direction contained in section 34 . . . an exercise of any constitutional power possessed by Congress.” 110 The same attitude toward section 34 was continued by Presidents Harding and Coolidge.111

Very few precedents exist in which the President terminated a treaty after obtaining the approval of the Senate alone. The first occurred in 1854-1855, when President Pierce requested and received Senate approval to terminate a treaty with Denmark.112 When the validity of this action was questioned in the Senate, the Committee on Foreign Relations reported that the procedure was correct, that prior full-Congress actions were incorrect, and that the right to terminate resides in the treaty-making authorities, the President and the Senate.113

Examples of treaty terminations in which the President acted alone are much disputed with respect both to facts and to the underlying legal circumstances.114 Apparently, President Lincoln was the first to give notice of termination in the absence of prior congressional authorization or direction, and Congress shortly thereafter by joint resolution ratified his action.115 The first such action by the President, with no such subsequent congressional action, appears to be that of President McKinley in 1899, in terminating an 1850 treaty with Switzerland, but the action may be explainable as the treaty being inconsistent with a subsequently enacted law.116 Other such renunciations by the President acting on his own have been similarly explained and similarly the explanations have been controverted. Although the Department of State, in setting forth legal justification for President Carter’s notice of termination of the treaty with Taiwan, cited many examples of a President's acting alone, many of these are ambiguous and may be explained away by, for example, conflicts with later statutes, changed circumstances, or the like.117

No such ambiguity accompanied President Carter’s action on the Taiwan treaty,118 and a somewhat lengthy Senate debate was provoked. In the end, the Senate on a preliminary vote approved a “sense of the Senate” resolution claiming for itself a consenting role in the termination of treaties, but no final vote was ever taken and the Senate thus did not place itself in conflict with the President.119 However, several Members of Congress went to court to contest the termination, apparently the first time a judicial resolution of the question had been sought. A divided Court of Appeals, on the merits, held that presidential action was sufficient by itself to terminate treaties, but the Supreme Court, no majority agreeing on a common ground, vacated that decision and instructed the trial court to dismiss the suit.120 Although no Court opinion bars future litigation, it appears that the political question doctrine or some other rule of judicial restraint will leave such disputes to the contending forces of the political branches.121

There is clear judicial recognition that the President may without consulting Congress validly determine the question whether specific treaty provisions have lapsed. The following passage from Justice Lurton’s opinion in Charlton v. Kelly122 is pertinent: “If the attitude of Italy was, as contended, a violation of the obligation of the treaty, which, in international law, would have justified the United States in denouncing the treaty as no longer obligatory, it did not automatically have that effect. If the United States elected not to declare its abrogation, or come to a rupture, the treaty would remain in force. It was only voidable, not void; and if the United States should prefer, it might waive any breach which in its judgment had occurred and conform to its own obligation as if there had been no such breach. . . . That the political branch of the government recognizes the treaty obligation as still existing is evidenced by its action in this case. . . . The executive department having thus elected to waive any right to free itself from the obligation to deliver up its own citizens, it is the plain duty of this court to recognize the obligation to surrender the appellant as one imposed by the treaty as the supreme law of the land as affording authority for the warrant of extradition.” 123 So also it is primarily for the political departments to determine whether certain provisions of a treaty have survived a war in which the other contracting state ceased to exist as a member of the international community.124

It 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:125 It is not “a judicial question, whether a treaty with a foreign sovereign has been violated by him; whether the consideration of a particular stipulation in a treaty, has been voluntarily withdrawn by one party, so that it is no longer obligatory on the other; whether the views and acts of a foreign sovereign, manifested through his representative have given just occasion to the political departments of our government to withhold the execution of a promise contained in a treaty, or to act in direct contravention of such promise. . . . These powers have not been confided by the people to the judiciary, which has no suitable means to exercise them; but to the executive and the legislative departments of our government. They belong to diplomacy and legislation, and not to the administration of existing laws and it necessarily follows that if they are denied to Congress and the Executive, in the exercise of their legislative power, they can be found nowhere, in our system of government.” Chief Justice Marshall’s language in Foster v. Neilson126 is to the same effect.