The facts in Bond v. United States seem to come more from soap opera than real life: a wife outraged by the discovery that her husband impregnated another woman sought to punish the other woman by spreading toxic chemicals on things she was likely to touch, hoping to cause a rash.
Hardly the stuff of a federal case, right? Wrong. The U.S. government charged her with violating a federal law that implements the international chemical weapons convention. But in a unanimous opinion, the United States Supreme Court held that the charge exceeded the scope of the federal government’s authority to implement the treaty, ruling that nothing in the international chemical weapons convention requires that the government implement it by claiming jurisdiction over every assault case where the assailant uses bleach instead of a baseball bat.
What may be most important about the opinion is that it unanimously rejects the idea that an international treaty can override elements of the U.S. legal system. The fear that international treaties could compromise U.S. sovereignty has emerged in recent years as a staple among the libertarian(ish) wing of the Republican Party, as figures like Ron/Rand Paul and their acolytes have hyperventilated about the threat posed by a “NAFTA superhighway” that destroys U.S. sovereignty and the U.N. small-arms convention that threatens to abolish the Second Amendment right to bear arms in self-defense. These conspiracy theories are the latest iteration in a decades-long campaign of suspicion about the United Nations and international institutions generally, including the anti-U.N. diatribes of the late Senator Jesse Helms, the 1990s reports about U.N. internment camps being constructed to house dissenters after a U.N. takeover of the U.S. government, and the fears about international communist conspiracies trumpeted in Cold War-era books like None Dare Call It Conspiracy.
Leaving aside the outlandish logical leaps common in conspiracy theories (and the far left has plenty of their own examples, though they tend to feature all-powerful evil corporations instead of all-powerful demonic international institutions), Bond v. United States reveals their fundamental legal flaw: The United States Supreme Court shows no sign of ever allowing international treaties to trump anything in the U.S. Constitution. When even a relatively technical feature like the distinct bases of federal and state criminal law is enough to win a unanimous decision in favor of the Constitution from an ideologically polarized Supreme Court, there is no chance that even if the United Nations did conspire with Congress and the President to to take your guns and jail you for flying a “Don’t Tread On Me” flag that the courts would allow it to happen.
Jason is an attorney practicing criminal law, civil litigation, and administrative law. Jason formerly worked as a Resident Instructor of International Relations at Creighton University, focusing on civil-military relations and national security strategy. Jason also served 15 years in the United States Air Force, including service at USSTRATCOM, America’s nuclear-weapons command.
Jason lives in Minnesota with his wife, three sons, three dogs, and three cats.