The United States Senate recently had the good judgment to defeat two strenuous attempts “by the world government proponents to ratify the so-called Genocide Treaty, This Treaty would make American citizens subject to trial by an international court for the alleged crime of causing physical or even mental harm to a single member of any specified national, ethnic, racial or religious group; and the trial would be without the protections guaranteed to us as Americans under the U.S. Bill of Rights.
As originally drafted, the definition of genocide included the words “with the complicity of government.” But the Communists objected to this wording because their governments themselves are the active agents in dealing with dissidents. With this wording deleted, the Genocide Treaty would have no effect on present Soviet persecution of Jews and Christians.
While accomplishing nothing constructive, the Treaty would make individual American citizens subject to being extradited and hauled before some foreign court to face trumped up charges about alleged crimes which may not even include any overt acts. The undefined “crime” of “causing mental harm” is the joker which would have unpredictable and unlimited consequences.
The closeness of the recent Senate votes on the Genocide Treaty, and the persistence of the world government people who keep pushing it, show the urgent need to plug one loophole in the United States Constitution, namely the treaty-making power. This loophole was best described by John Foster Dulles, just before he became Secretary of State under President Eisenhower.
“Under our Constitution,” Dulles said, “treaties become the supreme law of the land. They are indeed more supreme than ordinary laws, for Congressional laws are invalid if they do not conform to the Constitution, whereas treaty laws can override the Constitution. Treaties, for example, can take powers away from the Congress and give them to the President. They can take powers from the States and give them to the Federal Government or to some international body, and they can cut across the rights given the people by the constitutional Bill of Rights.”
Dulles’ words have never been successfully refuted. They were responsible for a great national effort twenty years ago in support of what was then called the Bricker Amendment, which was defeated in the Senate by only one vote.
The danger from treaties invalidating the Bill of Rights is still present. The continuing efforts to pass the Genocide Treaty make it more urgent than ever before to plug this treaty loophole. Congressman John Ashbrook and Stephen Symms have introduced a new Bricker Amendment which will protect American constitutional rights from being overridden by treaty law, and also protect American citizens from being subjected to internal laws concocted by State Department diplomats in connivance with other countries. It will, in effect, simply attach a Bill of Rights to the treaty power. Such a guarantee is long overdue.
