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US Supreme Court, Medellín v. Texas: More than an Assiduous Building Inspector?
Abstract
The 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.
The cases discussed have one dimension in common: they all rebuked the President in one way or the other; the issue in each had foreign policy as its origin; and each case also had implications for the foreign affairs of the USA. The Youngstown case was of tremendous significance. It did not overturn the ruling of Curtiss-Wright, but it rejected that decision’s vision of unrestrained executive discretion and action. That in itself was a devastating rebuke to President Truman’s overreach in the midst of the Korean War.
„Die Europäische Gemeinschaft ist ein Juristen-Kosmos. Sie hat sich einen eigenen Begriffshimmel geschaffen, der noch einmal höher hängt und heller leuchtet als die nationalen Himmel.“ Diese Bemerkung eines Rechtssoziologen bezieht sich zwar auf die seinerzeitige EWG; es lässt sich jedoch nicht leugnen, dass auch heute noch, bedingt durch die Ursprünge der Gemeinschaft als Rechtsgemeinschaft, in den Organen der EU ein Primat der Juristen herrscht, das nur langsam bröckelt. Entsprechend bewegt sich auch der wissenschaftliche Diskurs zum Unionsrecht teilweise in Sphären jenseits der nationalen Niederungen. Was zunächst im Verhältnis zur Unionsgerichtsbarkeit nur als peripher-kommentierende Tätigkeit erscheinen mag, ist eine andauernde Arbeit an der Vermittlung von Rechtsprechung – gegenüber der Unionsgerichtsbarkeit und anderen Interpreten, aber vor allem auch im wissenschaftlichen Diskurs selbst. Die in diesem Diskurs herausgebildeten Denkrahmen helfen beim Erfassen der komplexen Materie Unionsrecht. Sie haben zusätzlich innerhalb des wissenschaftlichen Diskurses eine soziale Dimension, wenn von ihnen die Existenz einer wissenschaftlichen (Teil-)Disziplin als Interpretenkollektiv abhängt, sie also Grundlage eines kollektiven Selbstverständnisses sind. Dieses bedarf der absichernden Vergegenwärtigung und kann sie in unionsgerichtlichen Entscheidungen finden, die durch universalisierende Verwendung als Leitentscheidung ins disziplinäre Gedächtnis eingeschrieben werden.
Although the controversy surrounding the International Court’s judgment in Avena and the Supreme Court’s denial of the resulting claims in Medellin marked the high point of the debate over the US application of the Vienna Convention, the story did not end there. Among the condemned men included in the Avena judgment, several remain on death row in Texas, one serves a life sentence without parole in Oklahoma, and several have been executed. The case that drew the most attention involved Humberto Leal Garcia, put to death in Texas in 2011. The matters at issue in the Leal case will be the central focus of this chapter. However, the fate of a few others named in Avena is worth considering.
An American Dilemma examines the issue of capital punishment in the United States as it conflicts with the nation's obligations under the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. In a number of high profile cases, foreign nationals have been executed after being denied their rights under the Vienna Convention. The International Court of Justice has ruled against the United States, but individual states have chosen to defy international law. The Supreme Court has not resolved the question of legal remedies for such breaches.
Judges are "liars." 1 They "routinely engage in delusion." 2 They occupy a paradoxical position in this world, one in which their function requires them to make law, while their legitimacy depends on the fiction that they interpret law. 3 It is a strange fiction, but it is a necessary one. The legitimacy of the judicial system requires that the rule of law be above the whims of the individual personalities who happen to occupy positions on the Supreme Court at any given time. Rather, the rule of law must be grounded in objective analysis and immutable logic, reasoning that does not change with the changing of personnel. Otherwise, there would be no reason to accept the decisions of the Court as the governing framework for our society. Judges sustain the fiction that they interpret law, but never create it, by adhering to the doctrine of stare decisis. Stare decisis states that judicial decisionmaking should adhere to precedent. Precedent provides a source external to the judges' individual opinions that legitimizes their reasoning, supplying ready evidence that judicial decisions are based on more than individual whim. After all, there is a certain amount of security in trusting precedent. Assuming that judges in a series of decisions have conducted independent analyses to confirm their predecessors' views, and that such a 1. Martin Shapiro, Judges as Liars, 17 HARV.
What did the United States Supreme Court mean when it famously said, "International law is part of our law, and must be ascertained and administered by the courts ofjustice of appropriatejurisdiction, as often as questions of right depending upon it are duly presented for their determination"? Perhaps the Courtwas suggesting that, in an interdependent world, United States courts should not decide cases without paying "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind," in the memorable words of the Declaration of Independence. The framers and early Justices understood that the global legitimacy of a fledgling nation crucially depended upon the compatibility of its domestic law with the rules of the international system within which it sought acceptance. Their recognition seems both prudent and sensible. Even today, for any nation consciously to ignore global standards not only would ensure constant frictions with the rest of the world, but also would diminish that nation's ability to invoke those international rules that served its own national purposes.
The article addresses treaty-based obligations of the United States under the United Nations Charter to enforce a binding judgment of the International Court of Justice in Case Concerning Avena (Mexico v. United States) and U.S. Executive execution of the judgment through an executive memorandum - all of which the majority of the Supreme Court disagreed with in Medellin v. Texas (2008). The article also addresses important U.S. Constitutional issues concerning the Article II mandate to the President to faithfully execute the laws, the supremacy of all treaties against the laws of states within the U.S., federal preemption, and state power to comply with decisions of the International Court of Justice. In particular, the article addresses several Supreme Court opinions that were not addressed by the majority in Medellin and which demonstrate that the President has the competence, and responsibility, faithfully to execute treaties despite a statement in the majority opinion to the contrary. The article also documents why the Tenth Amendment is no barrier with respect to the reach of treaty law and documents numerous federal and state court cases on point as well as the many subjects regulated by treaty law that have had primacy over state authority.
International Law in the Reagan Years: How Much of an Outlier?
- Gamble
Medellín v. Texas: Implications of the Supreme Court's Decision for the United States and the Rule of Law in International Affairs
- Murphy