Final Paper Treaties In Peace And Conflict Example

Final Paper Treaties In Peace And Conflict Example Final Paper: Treaties In Peace And Conflict â€" Term Paper Example > IntroductionThe rise of the United States of America into a most prominent place in world affairs has been naturally attended by an increasing number of agreements with other countries. As their number increases, more attention becomes focused upon them. This attention is not due primarily to the importance of these agreements as they affect relations with other countries. To the typical American the state of foreign affairs is not closely known, the ripe time and conditions for commencing negotiations for agreements are highly problematical, and the intricacies and niceties of negotiations and international law are a complete maze. Much confusion is felt in this regard, but it is a confusion little lamented. This is not because there is indifference to the nation's course in foreign affairs, but because there is no overriding, direct personal concern; any individual will fare in these matters very much the same as all other individuals fare (Davis, Meyer, 1998). In many respects , however, these agreements become domestic law and are enforceable in the domestic courts. Cases in the courts are matters of conflict between juristic persons, and consequently an individual may have occasion to become very much directly concerned personally. Where the foreign operations and effects of agreements may be shrouded in acceptable confusion, a like confusion may become well nigh intolerable in the realm of domestic law. Resulting from this confusion has been a most pressing controversy in recent history over the question of whether or not there are any limitations on the federal government's treaty power; a question which, in view of the climate of opinion regarding United States traditional governmental theory, presents something of a paradox. This problem has been compounded by the various types of international agreements in United States law, along with the varying procedures by which they are consummated or become legally binding within the framework of domestic governmental machinery. There is confusion, for example, over whether there is any difference as to scope between treaties and executive agreements. The results can become frightening when extremities are joined in a sort of syllogism: treaties are unlimited; treaties and executive agreements are interchangeable; ergo, the power of the President or some appointed underling is wholly without legal limit. This terrifying conclusion is used principally in political campaigns, and is not to be found so baldly stated in authoritative and responsible works on the subject, but since the beginning of U. S. constitutional history there has existed a latent source of confusion, not only in the Constitution itself but in the writings of its Founders, in Supreme Court opinions, and consequently in the texts of commentators on the matter. There have been, therefore, rational and legal bases for a limited amount of the confusion. This confusion has reached and thoroughly penetrated the scholar ly world. Although statements on the subject of limitations on the treaty power treat it variously, there appears not to be a modern text on American Government which professes to reveal the limitations on the treaty power or which will state an overall rule on the difference between treaties and executive agreements as to the extremities of subject matter with which they can deal. In the same vein, many respected professors have often admitted inability to point to the outer limits of the treaty power, and on the various instruments have thrown up their hands with the allowance that the difference between treaties and executive agreements is that treaties are called treaties and executive agreements are called executive agreements.