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To: MarcusTulliusCicero
Congress had to pass implementing legislation in order to carry out the terms of the treaty, which it would not have had to do if the treaty superseded the Constitution.

You clearly haven't read the treaty. Allow me to quote myself:

The Convention on Nature Protection must be read to be believed. In his summary report to a distracted Senate, Executive Report No. 5, April 3 1941, Secretary of State Cordell Hull misrepresented its virtually unlimited scope. From the Preamble (bold emphasis added):

“The Governments of the American Republics, wishing to protect and preserve in their natural habitat representatives of all species and genera of their native flora and fauna, including migratory birds, in sufficient numbers and over areas extensive enough to assure them from becoming extinct through any agency within man’s control;”

After going on at considerable length about wilderness areas and national parks, they come back with this language in Article V Section 1:

“The Contracting Governments agree to adopt, or to propose such adoption to their respective appropriate law-making bodies, suitable laws and regulations for the protection and preservation of flora and fauna within their national boun¬daries but not included in the national parks, national reserves, nature monu¬ments, or strict wilderness reserves referred to in Article II hereof.”

All species, all land, no limits to the commitment. Mr. Hull made no mention of the scope of Article V in the summary he submitted to the Senate. It was he who convened the Planning Commission that created the United Nations soon after the adoption of this treaty. It is a document that exceeds the constitutional authority of the government of the United States.

It can’t work either. This treaty is contrary to natural law.

Nature is a dynamic, adaptive, and competitive system. Under changing conditions, some species go extinct, indeed, for natural selection to operate, they must. The problem arises when human influence grows so powerful that one can always attribute loss of a species to being “within man’s control.” When humans ask, “Which ones lose?” the treaty specifies, “None,” and demands no limit to the commitment to save them all. This of course destroys the ability to act as agent to save anything, much less objectively evaluate how best to expend our resources to do the best that can be done.

This treaty cannot be satisfied: It calls for a halt to natural selection, itself.

So, a treaty that exceeds Constituional authority of the United States (not to mention Natural Law) is on the books and was attached to the ESA. Together with CITES, they have brought resource enterprise to its knees, and done little to nothing for endangered species to boot.


13 posted on 09/02/2005 7:13:51 PM PDT by Carry_Okie (There are people in power who are REALLY stupid.)
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To: Carry_Okie
So, a treaty that exceeds Constituional authority of the United States (not to mention Natural Law) is on the books and was attached to the ESA.

The treaty, in and of itself, did not supersede the Constitution. I am not saying that there aren't treaties that unConstitutionally give away elements of our sovreignty. My dispute with the article is whether, when the Constitution says that a treaty becomes the "supremem law of the land", that was understood to mean that it had equal weight with the Constitution. It clearly does not. At the time of ratification of the Congress, this provision meant that treaties applied to the separate states and superseded state law. That goes along with the provision that states, by themselves, cannot enter into treaties with other nations. That is a power restricted to the Federal government.

Congress passed legislation to implement the treaty that you cited. If treaties had equal authority as the Constitution, then implementing legislation by the Congress following ratification of the treaty would be superfluous. Treaties have the same weight as any piece of Congressional legislation. That is why there is often subsequent implementing legislation passed. If there weren't, then you'd have, in effect, two Congressional statutes in conflict. The implementing legislation resolves the conflict. So, it isn't the treaty that superseded the Constitution. It was the implementing legislation that Congress subsequently passed that put the treaty provisions in conflict with Constitutional authority. Robert's opinion in Rancho Viejo, LLC., v. Norton addressed this very issue. It was his opinion that the Endangered Species Act was not Constitutional under the Commerce Clause provisions (which is why conservatives think it was an originalist decision on his part - they didn't read the rest of the paragraph where he intimated that ESA could be found Constitutional under other provisions.)

Whether or not the treaty is against natural law is not relevant to whether it supercedes the Constitution. The point made in the article that I was commenting on was trying to claim that the Geneva Conventions had greater authority than the U.S. Constitution, simply because we ratified it. It doesn't. They might have a claim if had Congress passed implementing legislation following ratification that limited the power of the President to authorize military tribunals under his powers as Commander in Chief. It would be on that basis that SCOTUS would decide if Congress exceeded its Constitutional authority in authorizing the implementing legislation. They also fail to mention that the Geneva conventions only apply to soldiers wearing uniforms of the countries to whose army they belong. The Conventions did not extend to terrorists at the time of their ratification and have not been amended to do so.

14 posted on 09/02/2005 7:43:17 PM PDT by MarcusTulliusCicero
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