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AN E-BULLETIN
LEGAL INFORMATION INSTITUTE -- CORNELL LAW SCHOOL
lii.law.cornell.edu
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HALL STREET ASSOCIATES, L.L.C. v. MATTEL, INC. (06-989 Syllabus)
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/06-989.ZS.html
MEDELLIN v. TEXAS (06-984 Syllabus)
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/06-984.ZS.html
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MEDELLIN v. TEXAS (No. 06-984)
Web-accessible at:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/06-984.ZS.html
Argued: October 10, 2007 -- Decided: March 25, 2008
Opinion author: Roberts
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In the Case Concerning Avena and Other Mexican Nationals
(Mex. v. U. S.), 2004 I. C. J. 12 (Avena), the International
Court of Justice (ICJ) held that the United States had
violated Article 36(1)(b) of the Vienna Convention on Consular
Relations (Vienna Convention or Convention) by failing
to inform 51 named Mexican nationals, including petitioner
Medelln, of their Vienna Convention rights. The ICJ found
that those named individuals were entitled to review and
reconsideration of their U. S. state-court convictions
and sentences regardless of their failure to comply with
generally applicable state rules governing challenges to
criminal convictions. In Sanchez-Llamas v. Oregon, 548
U. S. 331 --issued after Avena but involving individuals
who were not named in the Avena judgment--this Court held,
contrary to the ICJ's determination, that the Convention
did not preclude the application of state default rules.
The President then issued a memorandum (President's Memorandum
or Memorandum) stating that the United States would "discharge
its international obligations" under Avena "by having State
courts give effect to the decision."
Relying on Avena andthe President's Memorandum, Medelln
filed a second Texas state-court habeas application challenging
his state capital murder conviction and death sentence
on the ground that he had not been informed of his Vienna
Convention rights. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals
dismissed Medelln's application as an abuse of the writ,
concluding that neither Avena nor the President's Memorandum
was binding federal law that could displace the State's
limitations on filing successive habeas applications.
Held: Neither Avena nor the President's Memorandum constitutes
directly enforceable federal law that pre-empts state limitations
on the filing of successive habeas petitions. Pp. 8-37.
1. The Avena judgment is not directly enforceable as domestic
law in state court. Pp. 8-27.
(a) While a treaty may constitute an international commitment,
it is not binding domestic law unless Congress has enacted
statutes implementing it or the treaty itself conveys an
intention that it be "self-executing" and is ratified on
that basis. See, e.g., Foster v. Neilson, 2 Pet. 253, 314.
The Avena judgment creates an international law obligation
on the part of the United States, but it is not automatically
binding domestic law because none of the relevant treaty
sources--the Optional Protocol, the U. N. Charter, or the
ICJ Statute--creates binding federal law in the absence
of implementing legislation, and no such legislation has
been enacted.
The most natural reading of the Optional Protocol is that
it is a bare grant of jurisdiction. The Protocol says nothing
about the effect of an ICJ decision, does not commit signatories
to comply therewith, and is silent as to any enforcement
mechanism. The obligation to comply with ICJ judgments
is derived from Article 94 of the U. N. Charter, which
provides that "[e]ach ... Member ... undertakes to comply
with the [ICJ's] decision ... in any case to which it is
a party." The phrase "undertakes to comply" is simply a
commitment by member states to take future action through
their political branches. That language does not indicate
that the Senate, in ratifying the Optional Protocol, intended
to vest ICJ decisions with immediate legal effect in domestic
courts.
This reading is confirmed by Article 94(2)--the enforcement
provision--which provides the sole remedy for noncompliance:
referral to the U. N. Security Council by an aggrieved
state. The provision of an express diplomatic rather than
judicial remedy is itself evidence that ICJ judgments were
not meant to be enforceable in domestic courts. See Sanchez-Llamas,
548 U. S., at 347. Even this "quintessentially international
remed[y]," id., at 355, is not absolute. It requires a
Security Council resolution, and the President and Senate
were undoubtedly aware that the United States retained
the unqualified right to exercise its veto of any such
resolution. Medelln's construction would eliminate the
option of noncompliance contemplated by Article 94(2),
undermining the ability of the political branches to determine
whether and how to comply with an ICJ judgment.
The ICJ Statute, by limiting disputes to those involving
nations, not individuals, and by specifying that ICJ decisions
have no binding force except between those nations, provides
further evidence that the Avena judgment does not automatically
constitute federal law enforceable in U. S. courts. Medelln,
an individual, cannot be considered a party to the Avena
decision. Finally, the United States' interpretation of
a treaty "is entitled to great weight," Sumitomo Shoji
America, Inc. v. Avagliano, 457 U. S., at 184-185, and
the Executive Branch has unfailingly adhered to its view
that the relevant treaties do not create domestically enforceable
federal law. Pp. 8-17.
(b) The foregoing interpretive approach--parsing a treaty's
text to determine if it is self-executing--is hardly novel.
This Court has long looked to the language of a treaty
to determine whether the President who negotiated it and
the Senate that ratified it intended for the treaty to
automatically create domestically enforceable federal law.
See, e.g., Foster, supra. Pp. 18-20.
(c) The Court's conclusion that Avena does not by itself
constitute binding federal law is confirmed by the "postratification
understanding" of signatory countries. See Zicherman v.
Korean Air Lines Co., 516 U. S. 217 . There are currently
47 nations that are parties to the Optional Protocol and
171 nations that are parties to the Vienna Convention.
Yet neither Medelln nor his amici have identified a single
nation that treats ICJ judgments as binding in domestic
courts. The lack of any basis for supposing that any other
country would treat ICJ judgments as directly enforceable
as a matter of their domestic law strongly suggests that
the treaty should not be so viewed in our courts. See Sanchez-Llamas,
548 U. S., at 343-344, and n. 3.
The Court's conclusion is further supported by general
principles of interpretation. Given that the forum state's
procedural rules govern a treaty's implementation absent
a clear and express state
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