Treaties in US Domestic Law: Medellín v. Texas in Context

2009 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucy Reed ◽  
Ilmi Granoff
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
The United States ◽  
Federal Law ◽  
International Court Of Justice ◽  
International Court ◽  
The Us ◽  
Treaty Law ◽  
Us Constitution ◽  
Death Penalty Case

AbstractIn Medellín v. Texas, a Texas death penalty case, the United States Supreme Court decided that it could not enforce what it acknowledged to be an international legal obligation to comply with the Avena judgment of the International Court of Justice. The Supreme Court's judgment in Medellín has put our understanding of the domestic treatment of US treaty law in a state of flux. Under the Supremacy Clause of the US Constitution, treaties are the supreme law of the land: binding, equivalent to federal statutes and enforceable by judges. After Medellín, treaties may not necessarily be enforceable federal law, depending on whether they are self-executing without additional legislation. The Supreme Court's decision depends upon the dramatic expansion of a narrow but necessary exception to the Supremacy Clause provided in an 1829 Supreme Court precedent. The consequence of that expansion is to put the US historical approach to treaty-making in question. This article provides (a) a brief overview of treaty law in the United States, including the law before Medellín regarding the domestic effect of treaty law, (b) an overview of Medellín, (c) a critique of the Court's reasoning in Medellín and (d) a discussion of its consequences.

Post-Avena Application of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations by United States Courts

2005 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 215-235 ◽  
Author(s):  
CHRISTOPHER J. LE MON
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
The United States ◽  
Vienna Convention ◽  
International Court Of Justice ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
International Court ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Supreme Court ◽  
The Icj

Following the judgment of the International Court of Justice in the Avena case, US courts have had a mixed record in applying the decision domestically. In this article, I examine the treatment by US courts of claims by criminal defendants alleging Vienna Convention violations, subsequent to the Avena judgment. First, I discuss the two limited decisions so far taken by the US Supreme Court regarding the Vienna Convention, and briefly explain several of the judicially-created rules that have prevented most US courts from reaching the merits of Vienna Convention claims. Next, I analyse the ICJ judgment in the LaGrand case, and provide an overview of the reception of that case by the US courts. After a summary of the Avena decision, I turn to the latest cases in which Vienna Convention claims based on Avena have been raised in US courts, focusing on the two most important decisions, and examining their contradictory rulings. As the US Supreme Court has now decided to hear an appeal in one of these cases, I conclude by arguing that the Supreme Court should take the opportunity to elucidate the role of the International Court of Justice in US law when the United States has consented to binding treaty interpretation by that court.

The U.S. Supreme Court: Garcia V. Texas

2012 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-53
Author(s):  
David P. Stewart
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Due Process ◽  
United States Supreme Court ◽  
The United States ◽  
Vienna Convention ◽  
International Court Of Justice ◽  
International Court ◽  
The Icj ◽  
The U.S

On July 7, 2011, the United States Supreme Court declined to stay the execution of Humberto Leal García, a Mexican national who had been convicted some sixteen years ago in Texas of murder.1 Relying on the decision of the International Court of Justice (‘‘ICJ’’) in the Avena case,2 García contended that the United States had violated his right to consular notification and access under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (‘‘Consular Convention’’).3 He sought the stay so that the U.S. Congress could consider enactment of proposed legislation to implement the ICJ decision.4 In a 5-4 decision, the Court rejected his argument, stating that ‘‘[t]he Due Process Clause does not prohibit a State from carrying out a lawful judgment in light of unenacted legislation that might someday authorize a collateral attack on that judgment.’’5 García was executed by lethal injection that evening.

Conclusion

2021 ◽  
pp. 185-196
Author(s):  
Elliott Young
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
The United States ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
The Us ◽  
Indefinite Detention ◽  
Us Constitution ◽  
Immigrant Detention ◽  
Constitutional Protections

Although the Supreme Court limited detention for non-citizens in the first decade of the twenty-first century (Zadvydas [2000] and Martinez [2005]), its most recent decisions indicate that under certain circumstances non-citizens can be held indefinitely behind bars with no possibility of even a bond hearing. In practice, non-citizens deemed excludable from the United States are like the forever prisoners of Guantanamo, exposed to massive state power with few constitutional protections. Khalid Qassim is one of the forty Guantanamo detainees held for more than eighteen years to date with no charges and no trial. Although Guantanamo prisoners are not voluntary immigrants, they share with immigrants a lack of protection by the US Constitution and a vulnerability to indefinite detention. Immigrant detention today is part of a carceral landscape in the United States that includes more than 2 million citizens behind bars.

scholarly journals Revitalizing The U.S. Compliance Power

2008 ◽  
Vol 102 (3) ◽  
pp. 551-562 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steve Charnovitz
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
The United States ◽  
International Court Of Justice ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
International Obligation ◽  
International Court ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
The Law ◽  
The U.S

Although “[tjreaties are the law of the land, and a rule of decision in all courts,” the president and the courts may sometimes be powerless to achieve compliance with a U.S. treaty. That was the puzzling outcome of Medellin v. Texas. Even though the Supreme Court declared that the United States has an international obligation to comply with the Avena judgment of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the Court invalidated the president’s memorandum directing Texas and other errant states to comply.

US Supreme Court, Medellín v. Texas: More than an Assiduous Building Inspector?

2009 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 151-169 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOHN KING GAMBLE ◽  
CHRISTINE M. GIULIANO
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
The United States ◽  
Court Case ◽  
Federal Law ◽  
Strong Reaction ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Supreme Court ◽  
Supreme Court Case

AbstractThe US Supreme Court case of José Ernesto Medellín, Petitioner v. Texas, decided on 25 March 2008, has generally been seen as a US refusal to follow unambiguous treaty provisions. There has not been such a strong reaction to US behaviour relative to specific treaty obligations since the 1992 Alvarez-Machain case. The Supreme Court majority (six votes to three) held that ‘neither Avena nor the President's Memorandum constitutes directly enforceable federal law’. The uncomfortable – and to many illogical – conclusion reached by the Court was that even though Avena is an ‘international law obligation on the part of the United States’, it is not binding law within the United States even in the light of an explicit presidential order. While the result may be disappointing, the case should be understood in the context of a legal system that (i) makes treaties part of ‘the supreme Law of the Land’; (ii) has developed a complicated concept of self-executing treaties; and (iii) can be hesitant to direct states (sub-national units) to follow presidential directives even on matters of foreign policy.

scholarly journals Ethical Principles on the Freedom of Speech and Expression in the Developed and Developing Countries

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdul Alim
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
First Amendment ◽  
Free Speech ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
The United States ◽  
United States Constitution ◽  
Bill Of Rights ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Constitution

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is an essential part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, obstructing the free exercise of religion, infringing on the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering peoples assembling rights in a peaceful manner or prohibiting the petitioning for a governmental remedy of grievances. The guarantees of this Bill of Rights were subject to the limitation imposed by the free speech and press provisions of the First Amendment to the US Constitution as interpreted and applied by the Supreme Court and other courts. The United States and India are the largest democratic country and almost have similar free speech provisions in their Constitutions. This Article is intended to present the free speech provisions of the American and Indian Constitution as a basic fundamental right of human being. It is also to be examined that what is the role of Supreme Court in interpreting the freedom of speech and expression provisions. The study also tries to incorporate the comparison between the looms of both countries as far as freedom of speech is disturbed.

Protecting the Court’s Institutional Interests: Why Not the Marbury Approach?

1987 ◽  
Vol 81 (1) ◽  
pp. 121-129
Author(s):  
Michael J. Glennon
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Legal System ◽  
United States Supreme Court ◽  
The United States ◽  
United States Supreme ◽  
International Court Of Justice ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
International Court ◽  
The One

A wise prince must rely on what is in his power and not on what is in the power of others.MachiavelliThe International Court of Justice in Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua confronted a dilemma that paralleled in many ways the one confronted by the United States Supreme Court in the famous 1803 case of Marbury v. Madison. Each dispute confronted a young court that had not yet established its legitimacy; each court faced a powerful, recalcitrant defendant that challenged its right to decide the case; and each therefore seemed to face two equally unpalatable choices: avoiding the case and seeming to admit defeat, or resolving it only to have the judgment ignored. Either choice seemed to entail profound damage not only for the court as an institution but also for the legal system in which it operated.

People’s right to keep and bear arms

2016 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 173-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pille Põiklik
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
District Of Columbia ◽  
The United States ◽  
Court Case ◽  
Second Amendment ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
The Us ◽  
Values And Beliefs ◽  
Us Constitution

The article presents an analysis of the majority and minority opinions from the Supreme Court of the United States issued on District of Columbia v. Heller in 2008. The court case addressed the meaning of the Second Amendment to the US Constitution that establishes gun rights in a famously confusing wording. The analysis applies parts of Fairclough and Fairclough’s (2011, 2012) model of analysing argumentation and also discusses intertextuality to account for how the justices construct their arguments. The analysis shows how the justices shape their arguments on the basis of their values and beliefs, presenting contradictory readings of the amendment, sources of evidence and the preferred application of the amendment.

The United States Accepts Compulsory Jurisdiction

1946 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 699-719 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francis O. Wilcox
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United Nations ◽  
The United States ◽  
United States Senate ◽  
International Court Of Justice ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
International Court ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
One Year ◽  
United Nations Charter

On August 2, 1946, the United States Senate approved the Morse resolution by the overwhelming vote of 62-2, thereby giving its advice and consent to the acceptance on the part of the United States of the compulsory jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice. It was the same Senate which, just one year and one week earlier, had cast a vote of 89-2 in favor of the United Nations Charter. On August 26 Herschel Johnson, acting United States representative on the Security Council, deposited President Truman’s declaration of adherence with the Secretary-General of the United Nations. At long last the United States assumed far-reaching obligations to submit its legal disputes to an international court.

Insult of Public Officials

2021 ◽  
pp. 388-409
Author(s):  
Christoph Bezemek
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Officials ◽  
European Court ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Supreme Court ◽  
Structural Differences

This chapter assesses public insult, looking at the closely related question of ‘fighting words’ and the Supreme Court of the United States’ decision in Chaplinsky v New Hampshire. While Chaplinsky’s ‘fighting words’ exception has withered in the United States, it had found a home in Europe where insult laws are widely accepted both by the European Court of Human Rights and in domestic jurisdictions. However, the approach of the European Court is structurally different, turning not on a narrowly defined categorical exception but upon case-by-case proportionality analysis of a kind that the US Supreme Court would eschew. Considering the question of insult to public officials, the chapter focuses again on structural differences in doctrine. Expanding the focus to include the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) and the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACtHPR), it shows that each proceeds on a rather different conception of ‘public figure’.

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