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.

The Justiciability of Paraguay’s Claim of Treaty Violation

1998 ◽  
Vol 92 (4) ◽  
pp. 697-704 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lori Fisler Damrosch
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Federal Court ◽  
The United States ◽  
International Court Of Justice ◽  
Court Of Appeals ◽  
International Court ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Domestic Courts ◽  
Judicial Remedy ◽  
The U.S

The U.S. Government’s position asserting nonjusticiability of the treaty claims raised by Paraguay in the domestic and international lawsuits is disturbing. The Government’s amicus filings at the court of appeals and the Supreme Court denied that Paraguay’s claims belonged in federal court (or indeed in any court at all); at die International Court of Justice, the United States admitted a treaty violation but denied the competence of that tribunal to enter a judicial remedy. At one or another phase of these proceedings, the U.S. Government pressed a variety of arguments that (if accepted) would rule out virtually any judicial consideration of a treaty-based claim. The haste with which the Supreme Court denied a stay in Breard’s case foreclosed adequate consideration of the justiciability of such claims in domestic courts and also effectively barred Paraguay from achieving the relief it sought on the international plane.

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.

International Court of Justice Rules in Favor of Germany and Against the United States in the LaGrand Case

2001 ◽  
Vol 2 (12) ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United States Of America ◽  
The United States ◽  
Vienna Convention ◽  
International Court Of Justice ◽  
Binding Effect ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
International Court ◽  
Domestic Courts ◽  
The U.S

In its judgement from June 27, 2001, in the LaGrand Case (Germany v. United States of America), the International Court of Justice made a number of watershed rulings: (a) The Court established that Article 36(1) of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations creates individual rights for foreign nationals abroad, and not just rights protecting the interests of states that are a party to the Convention; (b) The Court ruled that, beyond the undisputed failure on the part of the U.S. to take the measures required by the Convention, the application of an American provision of criminal procedure in the LaGrand brothers' cases (a provision that prevented the domestic courts from reviewing the implications of the Convention violation admitted by the Americans) itself constituted a violation of Article 36(2) of the Convention; (c) The Court, as a remedy in the case of future violations of the Convention, ordered the United States to provide a procedure for the review and reconsideration of convictions secured in circumstances in which the obligations of the Convention had not been observed; and (d) as a separate matter the Court ruled that its provisional orders, issued pursuant to Article 41 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice, have binding effect.

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.

Less Than Zero?

2008 ◽  
Vol 102 (3) ◽  
pp. 563-572 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos Manuel Vázquez
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
State Law ◽  
International Court Of Justice ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
First Case ◽  
International Court ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Executive Agreements ◽  
The Law

Medellín v. Texas is the first case in which the Supreme Court has denied a treaty-based claim solely on the ground that the treaty relied upon was non-self-executing. In Foster v. Neilson, the only other case in which the Court had denied relief on this ground, the Court offered its view that the treaty was non-self-executing as an alternative ground for denying relief. The Court soon thereafter disavowed its conclusion that the treaty involved in Foster was non-selfexecuting, and, in the intervening years, it repeatedly declined invitations to deny relief on this or related grounds. Many observers (including me) thought that the Court would again skirt a ruling on non-self-execution in Medellín because the president had issued a memorandum ordering compliance with the judgment of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in Avena. After all, the Court in American Insurance Ass’n v. Garamendi had recently struck down a California law on the ground that it conflicted with a “policy” reflected in certain sole executive agreements. The president in Medellín seemed to be standing on stronger ground, as he was insisting that state law give way to an obligation imposed by a treaty that had received the consent of the Senate and was accordingly the supreme law of the land. But the Court defied this expectation, with potentially regrettable results for the law of treaties.

Court to Court

1998 ◽  
Vol 92 (4) ◽  
pp. 708-712 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne-Marie Slaughter
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
International Court Of Justice ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
Government Decision ◽  
International Court ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Domestic Law ◽  
Case Based

Leave aside the question whether the indication of provisional measures by the International Court of Justice in the Breard case was binding on the United States as a matter of international or domestic law. Scholars will continue to differ on this question; government decision makers will reach their own conclusions. Leave aside that the state of Virginia violated a solemn treaty obligation, a treaty that the Supreme Court is obliged to uphold as the supreme law of the land. Without denigrating the power of these arguments, a less contentious case can be made for the granting of a stay—a case based less on compulsion than on civility.

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.

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.

Some Observations on the ICJ’s Procedural and Substantive Innovations

1987 ◽  
Vol 81 (1) ◽  
pp. 116-121 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas M. Franck
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
International Court Of Justice ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
International Court ◽  
The Future

The decision of the International Court of Justice in the case between Nicaragua and the United States brims with important procedural and substantive implications for the future of law and adjudication in disputes between states.

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