Ted Cruz slams the federal government over claim that international treaties trump US law.

reply to post by BobAthome


Well that's the thing isn't it, we have the might... Nuclear powers have the ability to keep each other in check. That's why we don't have as much power over Russia and China as we'd like. Here's the thing though, we proved by dropping 2 huge bombs on Japan that we were willing to back up our words.

Also can you think of very much any nation does when international treaties are violated? All anyone ever does in this case is bitch. Can you think of anything the UN can do to enforce us to comply with what they want? We are the might of the UN. Do you understand that any agreement or treaty that we have with foreign countries or on the the international level has absolutely no bearing on US or States Law unless we engage the process at home to make it so.

reply to post by Kali74


"we proved by dropping 2 huge bombs on Japan",,that the Emperor was not a god. and that the Divine Wind,, did not emminate,,from
MiltaryJapan,,,but from Washinton.
that is what it proved,,to the Emperor,,,at that time.

reply to post by Kali74


"We are the might of the UN. " really the might of the U.N???,,,then u might want too re-think,, what does the U.N fight for???

Polio shots in Syria?
Ban on War?
Peace Keeping??,,,were exactly?

maybe on the Security Council???,,

sorry the USA is the laughing stock,,of the un,,,those whistles,,means there boo ing ,,not hey there cutie,,

reply to post by gladtobehere


So... to return to the actual topic of this thread: Is there any evidence from a reliable source (The Examiner is not a reliable source) that Ted Cruz actually made the statements attributed to him? If so, is his distortion of the Justice Department's position intentional or based on simple ignorance? And why (if true) did he choose to invoke the specter of a threat to Second Amendment rights when, in fact, the Defense argues, with justification, that it is a Tenth Amendment issue? By side-tracking the debate with an hysterical reference to the Second Amendment, Cruz has muddied that waters and distracted from the ultimate issue which, as far as I can tell from the background to the case, has to do with preventing the establishment of an amendment to guarantee freedom from unwarranted surveillance which, believe it or not, is not currently protected under the constitution.

reply to post by DJW001

t doesn't matter whether other nations consider a rejected treaty... It has no legal force in the United States until the Congress ratifies it....

U.S. law distinguishes what it calls treaties, which are derived from the Treaty Clause of the United States Constitution, from congressional-executive agreements and executive agreements. All three classes are considered treaties under international law; they are distinct only from the perspective of internal United States law...

...So for instance, if the US Supreme Court found that a treaty violated the US constitution, it would no longer be binding on the US under US law; but it would still be binding on the US under international law, unless its unconstitutionality was manifestly obvious to the other states[nations] at the time the treaty was contracted...
www.allacademic.com...

Let me try to explain it again.
IF a president signs a treaty OTHER countries consider it VALID. Therefore it completely depends on WHAT type of enforcement is contained within the treaty itself. WTO has TEETH!!

Instead of the usual trade treaties for the first time a world organization, WTO, with tough sanction and enforcement powers, was formed. More important, decision making would be secret, with no oversight. The most vital issues of economic life on the planet were to be decided behind closed doors.

Under WTO rules, countries or Corporations can challenge another’s laws. The case is heard by a tribunal of three trade bureaucrats (corporate lawyers). There is no conflict of interest rules binding them, and the names of the judges are kept secret. There is no rule that the judges of WTO respect any national laws, the three judges meet in secret and all court documents are confidential and cannot be published.

US wins WTO backing in war with Europe over GM food

The bans in EU countries were declared illegal by the World Trade Organization in 2006.

EU may face trade sanctions over WTO biotech case

...In 1999, Roquefort cheese was among European products hit with punitive 100 percent duties when the United States imposed $117 million of sanctions on EU goods in retaliation for the EU's failure to lift a ban on hormone-treated beef. Other affected European products included pork, truffles and tomatoes.

The same year, Washington imposed $191 million of sanctions against EU exports after the WTO ruled the EU's banana import policies broke world trade rules. The sanctions hit goods ranging from handbags, cardboard boxes, bed linen and batteries...

Eli Lilly files $500M NAFTA suit against Canada over drug patents

That is why I used the World Trade Organization and the FDA 'Harmonization efforts to avoid penalties as examples. .

Failure to reach a consistent, harmonized set of laws, regulations and standards within the free trade agreements and the World Trade Organization Agreements can result in considerable economic repercussions...

NEW IMPROVED WTO 2005

...The WTO Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures encourages the use of international standards..developed by ... other international organizations. These organizations are the joint FAO/WHO Codex Alimentarius Commission (“Codex”) for food safety; the World Organization for Animal Health (previously the Office International des Epizooties “OIE”) for animal health and zoonoses; and the FAO International Plant Protection Convention (“IPPC”) for plant health. Most of the WTO’s member countries are also members of these international bodies... The main purposes of this Programme are to protect the health of consumers, to promote coordination of all food standards work undertaken by international governmental and non-governmental organizations, and to ensure fair trade practices in food trade.

HARMONIZATION

....As noted previously, both the TBT and SPS Agreements make reference to international standards. The TBT Agreement contains the obligation to use relevant international standards as a basis for technical regulations and standards set at the national level... the SPS Agreement mandates Members to base their sanitary or phytosanitary (SPS) measures on international standards... Most importantly, a country may have SPS measures in place that result in a higher level of SPS protection than that implicit in the international standard, if there is a scientific justification or if the level of SPS protection deemed appropriate by the Member requires such measures in light of the risk assessment performed....
www.wto.org/english/res_e/booksp_e/anrep_e/world_trade_report05_e.pdf -

There is is just one fly in the soup.
From EastLaw.net

...First of all, according to relevant U.S. statues, trade treaties are not self-executing...

... status of trade agreements in U.S. law is governed by the Trade Agreements Act of 1979 ... In the Act, Congress made clear that any provision of the Tokyo Round agreements negotiated under the GATT framework would not prevail over a U.S. statute, regardless of when the statue was enacted. Clearly, this was not consistent with the later-in-time-prevail rule. ....

For implementing the GATT/WTO embodied in the Uruguay Round Agreements, the U.S. Congress adopted the Uruguay Round Agreement Act of 1994 (URAA) to define the limits of legal effects of the GATT/WTO agreements in U.S. legal order. A brief of the URAA is that it prevents terms of the GATT/WTO that conflict with existing federal law from having domestic effects, and allows for continued ability of the United States to take unilateral actions pose for the WTO... During the debate on approving the WTO Agreement, the prevailing view was that the multinational pact was not in conflict with U.S. sovereignty generally for two reasons: first, Congress is ultimately responsible for changing the laws of the United States; and second, the U.S. is entitled to withdraw .... These arguments were vehemently endorsed by Clinton Administration officials who were eager to get the agreement passed Congress. Mickey Kantor, U.S. Trade Representatives, stated... "[n]o ruling by any dispute panel … can force us to change any federal, state or local law or regulation. ...His assistant, Deputy USTR Rufus Yerxa reiterated that "a WTO dispute settlement panel recommendation does not automatically change U.S. law. It has not self-executing effect …

...the language of the URAA is even clearer. The features of the URAA are described as follows:
United States Law to Prevail in Conflict The URAA puts U.S. sovereignty and U.S. law under perfect protection. According to the Act, if there is a conflict between U.S. and any of the Uruguay Round agreements, U.S. law will take precedence regardless when U.S. law is enacted.

The Monsanto run FDA LIED!

reply to post by Kali74

Also can you think of very much any nation does when international treaties are violated?

You are not up to date. I just gave two examples.

reply to post by crimvelvet

if the US Supreme Court found that a treaty violated the US constitution, it would no longer be binding on the US under US law

My point exactly. In the United States, the Constitution always trumps International Law. It is part of "American Exceptionalism," one of the main reasons some of the posters here at ATS hate the United States.

reply to post by crimvelvet


No one we are allied with is going to impose sanctions on us, and still you fail to produce evidence of overriding any sovereign laws in your two above cases. Countries that entered into the WTO violated the terms of the treaties and suffered the consequence. They shouldn't have entered into them.