On August 23, 2020, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued its decision in Mitchell v. U.S., denying a certificate of appealability to the petitioner who sought a motion to vacate his conviction and sentence of death. The petitioner, Lezmond Mitchell, argued that his conviction and sentence must be vacated in light of an August 12, 2020, report by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights that concluded that Mr. Mitchell's trial and sentence were a violation of his rights under the American Declaration on the Rights and Duties of Man. Mr. Mitchell, the only Native American on federal death row, argued that the IACHR report created rights binding on the U.S. “‘(1) because they are derived directly from the OAS Charter, a treaty within the meaning of the U.S. Constitution; and (2) because they are derived, through the OAS Charter, from the American Declaration, a statement of human rights norms the United States has not only adopted, but helped to draft.’” The Ninth Circuit concluded that Mr. Mitchell's motion to vacate “did not make ‘a substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right’” under 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(2) and denied his motion. In its reasoning, the Court explained that “reasonable jurists would not find debatable the district court's conclusion that the IACHR's decision is not binding in federal court.” It agreed with the District Court's conclusion that IACHR rulings are not binding on the U.S. because the OAS Charter is “not self-executing” and there is no U.S. statute which implements it. Moreover, the District Court correctly determined that because the American Declaration is not a treaty, it creates no binding legal obligations, nor does the “IACHR's governing statute, the Statute of Inter-American Commission on Human Rights . . . give the IACHR power to make binding rulings with respect to nations, like the United States, that have not ratified the American Convention.” The Ninth Circuit thus joins the other federal courts of appeals that have addressed this issue by concluding that neither the American Declaration, nor the IACHR's recommendations related thereto, is a source of binding obligations for the United States under international law. Cf. Cardenas v. Stephens, 820 F.3d 197, 203 (5th Cir. 2016); Tamayo v. Stephens, 740 F.3d 991, 997–98 (5th Cir. 2014); Flores-Nova v. Attorney Gen. of U.S., 652 F.3d 488, 493 (3d Cir. 2011); Igartua v. United States, 626 F.3d 592, 603 n. 11 (1st Cir. 2010); In re Hicks, 375 F.3d 1237, 1241 n. 2 (11th Cir. 2004); Garza v. Lappin, 253 F.3d 918, 925 (7th Cir. 2001); Roach v. Aiken, 781 F.2d 379, 381 (4th Cir. 1986).
