§1928f Limitation on withdrawal from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization

Summary

The President may not suspend, end, denounce, or withdraw the United States from the North Atlantic Treaty (the treaty of April 4, 1949) unless the Senate approves it with two-thirds of Senators present or Congress passes a law allowing it. No government money may be used to support any official decision to do those things unless the Senate gives that two-thirds approval or a law permits it. Before giving written notice, the President must talk with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee and must notify those committees in writing as soon as possible but no later than 180 days before taking action. This does not give the President power to leave any treaty that the Senate approved without the Senate’s approval or a law. If a court finds part of this law unconstitutional, the rest stays in effect. The words withdrawal, denunciation, suspension, and termination are used as defined in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, concluded in Vienna on May 23, 1969.