[Still Thinking]

My understanding is that approved and signed treaties become part of US law, hence the UN/treaty route instead of attempting to pass a bill/law through congress.

No, it still requires a two-thirds vote of the Senate to go into force, so it doesn't work as a way to do an end run around the legislature, and besides some experts say that a treaty conflicting with the Constitution would be null and void, i.e. a treaty is not interpreted as a mini-amendment if there is a Constitutional conflict.

[Dick Bachert]

Because the rats smell a turnover in the senate in 2012, they know they’ve got to hustle.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6XOxduodKU

[Vendome]

Your name came up again....

[DTogo]

I'm not a lawyer or a Constitutional scholar, just a simple Army officer who swore an Oath to uphold and defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic.

[Abundy]

No, it still requires a two-thirds vote of the Senate to go into force, so it doesn't work as a way to do an end run around the legislature, and besides some experts say that a treaty conflicting with the Constitution would be null and void, i.e. a treaty is not interpreted as a mini-amendment if there is a Constitutional conflict.

You would be correct.

There is a basic principle of constitutional interpretation regarding "surplusage."

Basically, every sentence in the Constution must mean something and not conflict with any other part.

Applying that principle to an international treaty that would modify portions of the Constitution requiring an amendment, the principle would favor the treaty being illegal/unconstitutional...

since there is a section of the Constitution that creates a mechanism for modification - the amendment process - that process must be followed to modify the document and no other provision of the document can be used as a mechanism to modify it. (IOW, an international treaty)

allowing an international treaty to have the effect of modifying the constitution makes the amendment process surplusage (uncessary) and therefore that treaty would be null and void.

I probably didn't explain that very well...sorry...first year Con Law was a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.

I'm surprised our Constitutional Scholar in Chief didn't jump on this right away and put the UN on notice that the treaty won't fly here in the US. /SARCASM