My organization, the Judicial Education Project, has filed a Supreme Court amicus curiae brief supporting the cert petition in Bond v. United States. Bond involves a woman’s federal criminal conviction under the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention treaty for her attempt to poison her (former) best friend with toxic chemicals. While normally this application of federal law would unconstitutionally violate state sovereignty, the government argues that Article II’s treaty-making power overrides any federalism concerns. Our brief argues that “treaty making is not a substantive power,” so constitutional limits on executive and legislative power also limit the treaty power. In other words, the treaty power cannot expand the scope of federal power wholesale.
Read the whole brief.