In 1997, a Mexican national named Jose Ernesto Medellin was sentenced to death for raping and murdering two teenage girls in Texas. In 2004, the International Court of Justice ruled that he was entitled to an appellate review of his sentence because the arresting officers had not informed him of his right to seek assistance from the Mexican consulate prior to trial, as prescribed by a treaty ratified by Congress in 1963. In 2008, amid fierce controversy, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that the international ruling had no weight. Medellin subsequently was executed. As this book shows the Medel ... More

In 1997, a Mexican national named Jose Ernesto Medellin was sentenced to death for raping and murdering two teenage girls in Texas. In 2004, the International Court of Justice ruled that he was entitled to an appellate review of his sentence because the arresting officers had not informed him of his right to seek assistance from the Mexican consulate prior to trial, as prescribed by a treaty ratified by Congress in 1963. In 2008, amid fierce controversy, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that the international ruling had no weight. Medellin subsequently was executed. As this book shows the Medellin case only hints at the legal complications that will embroil American courts in the twenty-first century. Like Medellin, tens of millions of foreign citizens live in the United States; and like the International Court of Justice, dozens of international institutions cast a legal net across the globe, from border commissions to the World Trade Organization. All of this presents an unavoidable challenge to U.S. constitutional law, particularly the separation of powers between the branches of federal government and between Washington and the states. To reconcile the demands of globalization with a traditional, formal constitutional structure, we must re-conceptualize the Constitution, as Americans did in the early twentieth century, when faced with nationalization. The book identifies three “mediating devices” that we must embrace: non-self-execution of treaties, recognition of the president's power to terminate international agreements and interpret international law, and a reliance on state implementation of international law and agreements.