This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1917 edition. Excerpt: ...which are law of the land? The answer is, to that organ which, at the moment, is called upon to enforce them. However, it must be added: first, that the judiciary will always give great weight to any known interpretation by the Executive, and secondly, that any judicial interpretation of a treaty ...
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1917 edition. Excerpt: ...which are law of the land? The answer is, to that organ which, at the moment, is called upon to enforce them. However, it must be added: first, that the judiciary will always give great weight to any known interpretation by the Executive, and secondly, that any judicial interpretation of a treaty provision must yield to the determination by the President or Congress, as the case may be, that such treaty provision is no longer in force. As was said by the Court in Botiller v. Dominguez: This Court... has no power to set itself up as the instrumentality for enforcing the provisions of a treaty with a foreign nation which the Government of the United States, as a sovereign power, chooses to disregard.23 The reason underlying this rule is clear: It is that no treaty provision can operate as law of the land 22 See generally the present writer's National Supremacy. Holt & Co., 1913. 23130 U. S. 238, 247. which is not first operative as an international engagement, and the question whether it is so operative is a "political question."24 We come now to the President's authority, in the absence of statutory provision, to anticipate and prevent a pending breach of a treaty provision which supports private rights. If we are to follow the line of reasoning taken by the Supreme Court in the familiar 24 It has been argued that a known interpretation of a treaty provision by the Executive is conclusive on the courts. See a note in the Michigan Law Review (Vol. 15, p. 487) on the decision of the Court in the case of the Appam, 243 U. S. 124. This was a British vessel captured by the German raider Moewe and brought into Norfolk by a prize crew. The question in the case was whether the captors were entitled, under the Treaties of 1799 and...
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