Just a few things to report on the Water Splash v. Menon case, which the Supreme Court will hear next week. First, here is the petitioner’s reply brief. I am not going to review the reply brief in detail.

Second, Charlotte Garden has previewed the case at SCOTUSBlog. Her account is more sympathetic to Menon’s brief than is mine. She puts the case in a somewhat broader context, too:

The fight over whether or when it is appropriate to look to extra-textual sources in order to discern a text’s meaning will likely seem familiar to many readers. Earlier decisions, including Schlunk, show that the court has previously been willing to look to those sources in the treaty context; oral argument may forecast whether the court’s view on this point has shifted since that case. Beyond that, the key issue to watch during argument is the extent to which the court views treaty interpretation as meaningfully different from statutory interpretation.

Last, the Court has granted the Acting Solicitor General’s motion for leave to participate in the argument as an amicus curiae.

I will post the transcript of the argument and the audio recording as soon as they are available.