CDZ Can the President “Unsign” a Treaty? A Constitutional Inquiry

[Picaro]

Thank you, Picaro, but the Supremacy Clause determines the issue.

"The strongest argument for those asserting that Congress must be involved in terminating treaties is based on the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, Article VI, which states that treaties are "the supreme law of the land." The Constitution is silent on how federal statutes can be terminated, and they too are the law of the land. No one would suggest the President could unilaterally revoke a federal statute. Nor should he be able to unilaterally terminate a treaty -- another part of the law of the land -- without the authority of the Congress.

A more limited, but related argument is that since the President can only make a treaty with the advice and consent of the Senate, he must procure the same advice and consent to end a treaty.

Those claiming that the president has unilateral power to terminate brush aside the Supremacy Clause. They say it is addressed to the courts alone, and that its purpose was to make sure treaties were superior to state laws. And they dismiss treating treaties as the equivalent to federal statutes as little more than sophistry. Treaties are international agreements, not domestic laws, they point out, and few treaties have any domestic implications. Equating the two simply because they are both forms of federal law and thus supreme over state law, they argue, is mere sophistry."

CNN.com - FindLaw Forum: The president, Congress and treaties - September 3, 2001

The "treaties" that Obama created were NEVER approved by the Senate so President Trump is more then allowed to get rid of them.

LEft wingers loved Obama's 'executive agreements' as long as they screwed over the U.S., no 'concerns over breaking treaties' then, of course, such as when the vermin 'agreed' with the UN scum that Christians weren't 'legitimate refugees' in Syria or anywhere else in Islamo-Land, or from Red China, either; the latter made his Wall Street buddies and his beloved Iranian terrorist Mullahs especially happy.. They also love those 'self-executing treaties' for the same reasons.

Opinio Juris » Blog Archive The Modern Doctrine(s) of Non-Self-Executing Treaties - Opinio Juris

Opinio Juris » Blog Archive Medellín, Non-Self-Executing Treaties, and the Supremacy Clause - Opinio Juris

Some of the 'related' links at the bottom of these pages are also worth a read for those with the time.

 

[Picaro]

A Treaty approved by the Senate becomes part of federal law.

The president cannot undo federal law under treaty without the Senate undoing its previous action.

That only apples to domestic state law; it has nothing to do with separation of powers.

 

[JakeStarkey]

We are talking about federal not state law. A Treaty requires the consent of the Senate. A President cannot overturn a Treaty without the consent of the Senate, unless is written as such. Equally a President cannot overturn a federal statute unilaterally. If he could, he could overturn ACA.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

We are talking about federal not state law. A Treaty requires the consent of the Senate. A President cannot overturn a Treaty without the consent of the Senate, unless is written as such. Equally a President cannot overturn a federal statute unilaterally. If he could, he could overturn ACA.

Did you read the link Carter did it. And the Courts did nothing.

 

[JakeStarkey]

Thank you, RGS. That link refers to what I said: the President had the power to unilaterally abrogate the treaty because the language of the treaty gave the US the right to do so.

"Article 10 of the treaty provided that either Party could terminate it one year after notice had been given to the other Party. Accordingly, the treaty came to an end on 1 January 1980, one year after the United States established diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China on 1 January 1979.

The authority for President Jimmy Carter to unilaterally annul a treaty, in this case the Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty, was the topic of the Supreme Court case Goldwater v. Carter in which the court declined to rule on the legality of this action, given the political nature rather than judicial nature of the case, thereby allowing it to proceed."

If Article 10 had not given either Party the executive right to end the treaty, Carter could not do it. But since the US could do it, and Carter, not the Senate, was the executive.