Medellin, Norm Portals, and the Horizontal Integration of International Human Rights

Authors

Margaret E. McGuinness, St. John's University School of LawFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Notre Dame Law Review

Publication Date

2006

Volume

82

First Page

755

Abstract

(Excerpt)

The dominant narrative of the Medellín v. Dretke line of cases challenging widespread noncompliance by the United States with the notification provisions of Article 36 of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (VCCR) tells a story of vertical treaty enforcement. The United States has agreed to be bound by a treaty that requires law enforcement authorities to inform foreign nationals arrested in this country of their right to notify their consulates and also requires authorities to permit the foreign consulate to assist its nationals. The United States has further agreed that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has jurisdiction to resolve any disputes between state parties arising under the treaty. In a 2003 opinion, the ICJ ordered the United States to provide a remedy in the form of additional review for fifty-one Mexican nationals on death row in the United States. One of these Mexican defendants, Jose Ernesto Medellín, subsequently requested federal habeas relief on the basis of the ICJ opinion. The Supreme Court granted certiorari in Medellín’s case, but in May 2005 dismissed the case on the ground that certiorari had been improvidently granted. What effect U.S. federal courts should give the ICJ opinion, including the ICJ's interpretation of obligations under the VCCR and the nature of remedies for non-notification, was thus left unresolved.

A year later, the Court revisited the question of vertical treaty enforcement in Sanchez-Llamas v. Oregon. On the question of what effect U.S. courts should give to the ICJ's interpretation of a treaty, the Court in Sanchez-Llamas noted that while the ICJ ruling was entitled to "respectful consideration," in the absence of specific language in the treaty, the Court was final arbiter on what remedies for failure to notify would be available to individual defendants in U.S. courts. The Court therefore held that the remedies requested—suppression of incriminating statements and habeas review of a procedurally defaulted claim—were not constitutionally required. In short, the Court rejected the contention that "'the United States is obligated to comply 'with the Convention, as interpreted by the ICJ.'” Chief Justice Roberts, writing for the majority, was clear: "If treaties are to be given effect as federal law under our legal system, determining their meaning as a matter of federal law 'is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department.'”

Comments

Available at: https://scholarship.law.nd.edu/ndlr/vol82/iss2/5/