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ABM Treaty: Decision Expected Soon in Congressional Lawsuit A decision is expected within a few weeks on a lawsuit filed by 32 members of the U.S. House of Representatives to stop the U.S. withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, The Nation reported Tuesday (see GSN, Aug. 11). The representatives, led by Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), have claimed the Bush administration does not have the right to withdraw the United States from a treaty without first seeking the approval of Congress. During the hearing, which began Oct. 31, Peter Weiss of the Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy argued that the U.S. Constitution describes a treaty as a “supreme law of the land,” and that the president is obligated to execute all laws. “The president insists he has unilateral authority to terminate treaties and he can do so without Congress,” Kucinich said during a press conference held after the hearing. “But nowhere in the Constitution does it say the president has the power to repeal laws,” he added. “What is to prevent this or future presidents,” the representatives’ legal filing asks, “from terminating, by his or her sole decision, U.S. adherence to the North Atlantic Treaty (NATO), the Genocide Convention, the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights, various anti-terrorism conventions, the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the Chemical and Biological Weapons Conventions or, for that matter, the charter of the United Nations?” U.S. Deputy Assistant Attorney General Shannen Coffin, representing the White House, claimed that the plaintiffs were trying to improperly fight an issue in the legal system that they had already lost in the political arena. The Justice Department’s legal filing in the case labels the lawmakers’ claims as “little more than a purely political attack” (Matt Bivens, The Nation, Nov. 5). For further information, see: ABM Treaty Text and Associated Documents (U.S. Defense Department) U.S. Fact Sheet on Withdrawal from ABM Treaty
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