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Comment by walterbell | Hacker News Reader

EFF tweet, https://x.com/eff/status/1821672613468569628

  Member States traded away existing human rights safeguards to reach a contrived consensus for a treaty that will endanger journalists, dissenters, human rights activists, and every day people around the world.

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How does the Supreme Court handle interpreting of treaty agreements? It seems like the language of the 1st amendment would prevent the US from entering into an agreement that violated it?

The US doesn't recognize any court as being above itself. Most countries probably don't either, they're supposed to go back home and get it passed in their own country's system.

No treaty supersedes the Constitution; in fact, treaties don't even supersede conflicting federal statutes passed after ratification. Article III courts will overturn treaty enabling statute clauses that are mooted by the Constitution or subsequent federal laws.

The short answer: it's really complicated. In a broad stroke, a treaty agreement is roughly akin to Congress passing a law, but the roles of the treaty itself versus enabling laws depends on several factors such as "is the treaty actually a treaty?"

As it pertains to your question, the Constitution (and its amendments) are the supreme law of the land, and a treaty stipulation that requires the government to do something unconstitutional would have no legal effect.

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