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Supreme Court of The United States: Cite As: 540 U. S. - (2003) 1 B, J., Dissenting
Supreme Court of The United States: Cite As: 540 U. S. - (2003) 1 B, J., Dissenting
____ (2003) 1
dispute.
II
Torres and Mexico are aware that this Court, in Breard,
523 U. S., at 375–376, held that the Vienna Convention
itself permits both state and federal courts to apply ordi-
nary “procedural default” rules in a case such as this one,
thereby effectively barring a defendant from raising in
federal court a Convention-violation claim that he failed to
assert in the state courts in a timely fashion. The Court
also said that a defendant claiming a violation would not
likely prevail unless he also showed that “the violation
had an effect on the trial.” Id., at 377. But, say Torres
and Mexico, the ICJ, in its subsequent LaGrand decision,
interpreted the Convention to the contrary. They add that
this later ICJ decision authoritatively interprets the Con-
vention, which in turn has become part of domestic law,
and for that reason binds the Court.
For one thing, Article VI of the Constitution specifies
that (along with the Constitution and federal laws) “all
Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Author-
ity of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the
Land.”
For another, lower courts have held that the Convention
is self-executing, at least in the sense that its provisions
automatically become part of the law of the United States
without additional congressional legislation. E.g., United
States v. Torres-Del Muro, 58 F. Supp. 2d 931, 932 (CD Ill.
1999) (noting that “the treaty is ‘self-executing’ in the
sense that there is no need for enabling legislation for the
Convention to have the force of law”). Indeed, the United
States itself has taken that position. See S. Exec. Rep. No.
91–9, App. p. 5 (1969) (statement of State Department
Deputy Legal Adviser J. Edward Lyerly) (testifying at a
Senate hearing prior to ratification that the treaty is
“entirely self-executive and does not require any imple-
4 TORRES v. MULLIN