MEDELLIN v. TEXAS

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MEDELLIN v. TEXAS
certiorari to the court of criminal appeals of texas
No. 06–984. Argued October 10, 2007—Decided March 25, 2008
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
Medellı´n, 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 Memo
randum or Memorandum) stating that the United States would “dis
charge its international obligations” under Avena “by having State
courts give effect to the decision.”
Relying on Avena and the President’s Memorandum, Medellı´n 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 Medellı´n’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 di
rectly enforceable federal law that pre-empts state limitations on the
filing of successive habeas petitions. Pp. 504–532.
1. The Avena judgment is not directly enforceable as domestic law in
state court. Pp. 504–523.
(a) While a treaty may constitute an international commitment, it
is not binding domestic law unless Congress has enacted statutes imple
menting 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 obliga
tion on the part of the United States, but it is not automatically binding

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domestic law because none of the relevant treaty sources—the Optional
Protocol, the United Nations Charter, or the ICJ Statute—creates bind
ing 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 provi
sion—which provides the sole remedy for noncompliance: referral to the
U. N. Security Council by an aggrieved state. The provision of an ex
press 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 inter
national 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. Medellı´n’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. Medellı´n, 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. 176, 184–185, and the Executive Branch has unfail
ingly adhered to its view that the relevant treaties do not create domes
tically enforceable federal law. Pp. 504–514.
(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 that the treaty

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automatically create domestically enforceable federal law. See, e. g.,
Foster, supra. Pp. 514–516.
(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, 226. There are currently 47 nations that are parties to the
Optional Protocol and 171 nations that are parties to the Vienna Conven
tion. Yet neither Medellı´n 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 judg
ments as directly enforceable as a matter of its 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 statement to the
contrary, see, e. g., id., at 351, one would expect the ratifying parties to
the relevant treaties to have clearly stated any intent to give ICJ judg
ments such effect. There is no statement in the Optional Protocol, the
U. N. Charter, or the ICJ Statute that supports this notion. Moreover,
the consequences of Medellı´n’s argument give pause: neither Texas nor
this Court may look behind an ICJ decision and quarrel with its reason
ing or result, despite this Court’s holding in Sanchez-Llamas that
“[n]othing in the [ICJ’s] structure or purpose . . . suggests that its inter
pretations were intended to be conclusive on our courts,” id., at 354.
Pp. 516–519.
(d) The Court’s holding does not call into question the ordinary en
forcement of foreign judgments. An agreement to abide by the result
of an international adjudication can be a treaty obligation like any other,
so long as the agreement is consistent with the Constitution. In addi
tion, Congress is up to the task of implementing non-self-executing trea
ties, even those involving complex commercial disputes. Medellı´n con
tends that domestic courts generally give effect to foreign judgments,
but the judgment Medellı´n asks us to enforce is hardly typical: It would
enjoin the operation of state law and force the State to take action to
“review and reconside[r]” his case. Foreign judgments awarding in
junctive relief against private parties, let alone sovereign States, “are
not generally entitled to enforcement.” 1 Restatement (Third) of For
eign Relations Law of the United States § 481, Comment b, p. 595
(1986). Pp. 519–523.
2. The President’s Memorandum does not independently require the
States to provide review and reconsideration of the claims of the 51

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Mexican nationals named in Avena without regard to state procedural
default rules. Pp. 523–532.
(a) The President seeks to vindicate plainly compelling interests in
ensuring the reciprocal observance of the Vienna Convention, protecting
relations with foreign governments, and demonstrating commitment to
the role of international law. But those interests do not allow the Court
to set aside first principles. The President’s authority to act, as with
the exercise of any governmental power, “must stem either from an act
of Congress or from the Constitution itself.” Youngstown Sheet & Tube
Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U. S. 579, 585.
Justice Jackson’s familiar tripartite scheme provides the accepted
framework for evaluating executive action in this area. First, “[w]hen
the President acts pursuant to an express or implied authorization of
Congress, his authority is at its maximum, for it includes all that he
possesses in his own right plus all that Congress can delegate.” Id.,
at 635 (Jackson, J., concurring). Second, “[w]hen the President acts in
absence of either a congressional grant or denial of authority, he can only
rely upon his own independent powers, but there is a zone of twilight in
which he and Congress may have concurrent authority, or in which its
distribution is uncertain.” Id., at 637. In such a circumstance, Presi
dential authority can derive support from “congressional inertia, indif
ference or quiescence.” Ibid. Finally, “[w]hen the President takes
measures incompatible with the expressed or implied will of Congress,
his power is at its lowest ebb,” and the Court can sustain his actions
“only by disabling the Congress from acting upon the subject.” Id., at
637–638. Pp. 523–525.
(b) The United States marshals two principal arguments in favor
of the President’s authority to establish binding rules of decision that
pre-empt contrary state law. The United States argues that the rele
vant treaties give the President the authority to implement the Avena
judgment and that Congress has acquiesced in the exercise of such au
thority. The United States also relies upon an “independent” interna
tional dispute-resolution power. We find these arguments, as well as
Medellı´n’s additional argument that the President’s Memorandum is a
valid exercise of his “Take Care” power, unpersuasive. Pp. 525–532.
(i) The United States maintains that the President’s Memoran
dum is implicitly authorized by the Optional Protocol and the U. N.
Charter. But the responsibility for transforming an international obli
gation arising from a non-self-executing treaty into domestic law falls
to Congress, not the Executive. Foster, 2 Pet., at 315. It is a funda
mental constitutional principle that “ ‘[t]he power to make the necessary
laws is in Congress; the power to execute in the President.’ ” Hamdan
v. Rumsfeld, 548 U. S. 557, 591. A non-self-executing treaty, by defini

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tion, is one that was ratified with the understanding that it is not to
have domestic effect of its own force. That understanding precludes
the assertion that Congress has implicitly authorized the President—
acting on his own—to achieve precisely the same result. Accordingly,
the President’s Memorandum does not fall within the first category of
the Youngstown framework. Indeed, because the non-self-executing
character of the relevant treaties not only refutes the notion that the
ratifying parties vested the President with the authority to unilaterally
make treaty obligations binding on domestic courts, but also implicitly
prohibits him from doing so, the President’s assertion of authority is
within Youngstown’s third category, not the first or even the second.
The United States maintains that congressional acquiescence requires
that the President’s Memorandum be given effect as domestic law. But
such acquiescence is pertinent when the President’s action falls within
the second Youngstown category, not the third. In any event, congres
sional acquiescence does not exist here. Congress’ failure to act follow
ing the President’s resolution of prior ICJ controversies does not dem
onstrate acquiescence because in none of those prior controversies did
the President assert the authority to transform an international obliga
tion into domestic law and thereby displace state law. The United
States’ reliance on the President’s “related” statutory responsibilities
and on his “established role” in litigating foreign policy concerns is also
misplaced. The President’s statutory authorization to represent the
United States before the United Nations, the ICJ, and the U. N. Security
Council speaks to his international responsibilities, not to any unilat
eral authority to create domestic law.
The combination of a non-self-executing treaty and the lack of imple
menting legislation does not preclude the President from acting to com
ply with an international treaty obligation by other means, so long as
those means are consistent with the Constitution. But the President
may not rely upon a non-self-executing treaty to establish binding rules
of decision that pre-empt contrary state law. Pp. 525–530.
(ii) The United States also claims that—independent of the
United States’ treaty obligations—the Memorandum is a valid exercise
of the President’s foreign affairs authority to resolve claims disputes.
See, e. g., American Ins. Assn. v. Garamendi, 539 U. S. 396, 415. This
Court’s claims-settlement cases involve a narrow set of circumstances:
the making of executive agreements to settle civil claims between
American citizens and foreign governments or foreign nationals. They
are based on the view that “a systematic, unbroken, executive practice,
long pursued to the knowledge of the Congress and never before ques
tioned,” can “raise a presumption that the [action] had been [taken] in
pursuance of its consent.” Dames & Moore v. Regan, 453 U. S. 654,

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686. But “[p]ast practice does not, by itself, create power.” Ibid.
The President’s Memorandum—a directive issued to state courts that
would compel those courts to reopen final criminal judgments and set
aside neutrally applicable state laws—is not supported by a “particu
larly longstanding practice.” The Executive’s limited authority to set
tle international claims disputes pursuant to an executive agreement
cannot stretch so far. Pp. 530–532.
(iii) Medellı´n’s argument that the President’s Memorandum is a
valid exercise of his power to “Take Care” that the laws be faithfully
executed, U. S. Const., Art. II, § 3, fails because the ICJ’s decision in
Avena is not domestic law. P. 532.
223 S. W. 3d 315, affirmed.
Roberts, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Scalia,
Kennedy, Thomas, and Alito, JJ., joined. Stevens, J., filed an opinion
concurring in the judgment, post, p. 533. Breyer, J., filed a dissenting
opinion, in which Souter and Ginsburg, JJ., joined, post, p. 538.
Donald Francis Donovan argued the cause for petitioner.
With him on the briefs were Carl Micarelli and Catherine
M. Amirfar.
Solicitor General Clement argued the cause for the
United States as amicus curiae urging reversal. With him
on the brief were Assistant Attorney General Fisher, Dep
uty Solicitor General Dreeben, Irving L. Gornstein, and
Robert J. Erickson.
R. Ted Cruz, Solicitor General of Texas, argued the cause
for respondent. With him on the brief were Greg Abbott,
Attorney General, Kent C. Sullivan, First Assistant Attor
ney General, Eric J. R. Nichols, Deputy Attorney General,
Sean D. Jordan, Deputy Solicitor General, and Kristofer S.
Monson, Daniel L. Geyser, and Adam W. Aston, Assistant
Solicitors General.*
*Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the Government
of the United Mexican States by Sandra L. Babcock; for the American Bar
Association by Karen J. Mathis and Jeffrey L. Bleich; for Foreign Sover
eigns by Asim M. Bhansali, Steven A. Hirsch, Craig Smyser, and Jason
Luong; for Former United States Diplomats by Harold Hongju Koh, Don

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Opinion of the Court
Chief Justice Roberts delivered the opinion of the
Court.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ), located in the
Hague, is a tribunal established pursuant to the United Na
tions Charter to adjudicate disputes between member states.
In the Case Concerning Avena and Other Mexican Nation
als (Mex. v. U. S.), 2004 I. C. J. 12 (Judgment of Mar. 31)
(Avena), that tribunal considered a claim brought by Mexico
against the United States. The ICJ held that, based on vio
lations of the Vienna Convention, 51 named Mexican nation
ald B. Ayer, Charles R. A. Morse, and Christian G. Vergonis; and for
Ambassador L. Bruce Laingen et al. by Daniel C. Malone.
Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for the Common
wealth of Virginia et al. by Robert F. McDonnell, Attorney General of
Virginia, William E. Thro, State Solicitor General, Stephen R. McCul
lough, Deputy State Solicitor General, and William C. Mims, Chief Dep
uty Attorney General, and by the Attorneys General for their respective
jurisdictions as follows: Troy King of Alabama, Talis J. Colberg of Alaska,
Terry Goddard of Arizona, Dustin McDaniel of Arkansas, Edmund G.
Brown, Jr., of California, John W. Suthers of Colorado, Joseph R. Biden
III of Delaware, Bill McCollum of Florida, Thurbert E. Baker of Georgia,
Lawrence Wasden of Idaho, Steve Carter of Indiana, Paul J. Morrison of
Kansas, Gregory D. Stumbo of Kentucky, Jim Hood of Mississippi, Jere
miah W. (Jay) Nixon of Missouri, Mike McGrath of Montana, Catherine
Cortez Masto of Nevada, Roy Cooper of North Carolina, Wayne Stenehjem
of North Dakota, W. A. Drew Edmondson of Oklahoma, Hardy Myers of
Oregon, Thomas W. Corbett, Jr., of Pennsylvania, Roberto J. Sa´ nchez-
Ramos of Puerto Rico, Henry D. McMaster of South Carolina, Lawrence
E. Long of South Dakota, Robert E. Cooper, Jr., of Tennessee, Mark L.
Shurtleff of Utah, and Rob McKenna of Washington; for Constitutional
and International Law Scholars by Ernest A. Young and Edward C. Daw
son; for Former Senior Officials of the Department of Justice by Charles
J. Cooper and Brian Stuart Koukoutchos; for the Washington Legal Foun
dation et al. by Daniel J. Popeo and Richard A. Samp; and for Randy and
Sandra Ertman et al. by Kent S. Scheidegger.
Briefs of amici curiae were filed for the European Union et al. by
S. Adele Shank and John B. Quigley; for EarthRights International by
Judith Brown Chomsky; for International Court of Justice Experts by
Lori Fisler Damrosch and Charles Owen Verrill, Jr.; and for the Moun
tain States Legal Foundation by William Perry Pendley.

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als were entitled to review and reconsideration of their
state-court convictions and sentences in the United States.
This was so regardless of any forfeiture of the right to raise
Vienna Convention claims because of a failure to comply with
generally applicable state rules governing challenges to
criminal convictions.
In Sanchez-Llamas v. Oregon, 548 U. S. 331 (2006)—issued
after Avena but involving individuals who were not named
in the Avena judgment—we held that, contrary to the ICJ’s
determination, the Vienna Convention did not preclude the
application of state default rules. After the Avena decision,
President George W. Bush determined, through a Memoran
dum for the Attorney General (Feb. 28, 2005), App. to Pet.
for Cert. 187a (Memorandum or President’s Memorandum),
that the United States would “discharge its international ob
ligations” under Avena “by having State courts give effect
to the decision.”
Petitioner Jose´ Ernesto Medellı´n, who had been convicted
and sentenced in Texas state court for murder, is one of the
51 Mexican nationals named in the Avena decision. Relying
on the ICJ’s decision and the President’s Memorandum,
Medellı´n filed an application for a writ of habeas corpus in
state court. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals dis
missed Medellı´n’s application as an abuse of the writ under
state law, given Medellı´n’s failure to raise his Vienna Con
vention claim in a timely manner under state law. We
granted certiorari to decide two questions. First, is the
ICJ’s judgment in Avena directly enforceable as domestic
law in a state court in the United States? Second, does the
President’s Memorandum independently require the States
to provide review and reconsideration of the claims of the 51
Mexican nationals named in Avena without regard to state
procedural default rules? We conclude that neither Avena
nor the President’s Memorandum constitutes directly en
forceable federal law that pre-empts state limitations on the

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filing of successive habeas petitions. We therefore affirm
the decision below.
I
A
In 1969, the United States, upon the advice and consent
of the Senate, ratified the Vienna Convention on Consular
Relations (Vienna Convention or Convention), Apr. 24, 1963,
[1970] 21 U. S. T. 77, T. I. A. S. No. 6820, and the Optional
Protocol Concerning the Compulsory Settlement of Disputes
to the Vienna Convention (Optional Protocol or Protocol),
Apr. 24, 1963, [1970] 21 U. S. T. 325, T. I. A. S. No. 6820. The
preamble to the Convention provides that its purpose is to
“contribute to the development of friendly relations among
nations.” 21 U. S. T., at 79; Sanchez-Llamas, supra, at 337.
Toward that end, Article 36 of the Convention was drafted
to “facilitat[e] the exercise of consular functions.” Art.
36(1), 21 U. S. T., at 100. It provides that if a person de
tained by a foreign country “so requests, the competent au
thorities of the receiving State shall, without delay, inform
the consular post of the sending State” of such detention,
and “inform the [detainee] of his righ[t]” to request assist
ance from the consul of his own state. Art. 36(1)(b), id.,
at 101.
The Optional Protocol provides a venue for the resolution
of disputes arising out of the interpretation or application of
the Vienna Convention. Art. I, 21 U. S. T., at 326. Under
the Protocol, such disputes “shall lie within the compulsory
jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice” and “may
accordingly be brought before the [ICJ] . . . by any party to
the dispute being a Party to the present Protocol.” Ibid.
The ICJ is “the principal judicial organ of the United Na
tions.” United Nations Charter, Art. 92, 59 Stat. 1051, T. S.
No. 993 (1945). It was established in 1945 pursuant to the
United Nations Charter. The ICJ Statute—annexed to the

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U. N. Charter—provides the organizational framework and
governing procedures for cases brought before the ICJ.
Statute of the International Court of Justice (ICJ Statute),
59 Stat. 1055, T. S. No. 993 (1945).
Under Article 94(1) of the U. N. Charter, “[e]ach Member
of the United Nations undertakes to comply with the deci
sion of the [ICJ] in any case to which it is a party.” 59 Stat.
1051. The ICJ’s jurisdiction in any particular case, how
ever, is dependent upon the consent of the parties. See Art.
36, id., at 1060. The ICJ Statute delineates two ways in
which a nation may consent to ICJ jurisdiction: It may con
sent generally to jurisdiction on any question arising under
a treaty or general international law, Art. 36(2), ibid., or it
may consent specifically to jurisdiction over a particular cat
egory of cases or disputes pursuant to a separate treaty, Art.
36(1), ibid. The United States originally consented to the
general jurisdiction of the ICJ when it filed a declaration
recognizing compulsory jurisdiction under Art. 36(2) in 1946.
The United States withdrew from general ICJ jurisdiction
in 1985. See U. S. Dept. of State Letter and Statement Con
cerning Termination of Acceptance of ICJ Compulsory Juris
diction (Oct. 7, 1985), reprinted in 24 I. L. M. 1742 (1985).
By ratifying the Optional Protocol to the Vienna Convention,
the United States consented to the specific jurisdiction of the
ICJ with respect to claims arising out of the Vienna Conven
tion. On March 7, 2005, subsequent to the ICJ’s judgment
in Avena, the United States gave notice of withdrawal from
the Optional Protocol to the Vienna Convention. Letter
from Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State, to Kofi A. Annan,
Secretary-General of the United Nations.
B
Petitioner Jose´ Ernesto Medellı´n, a Mexican national, has
lived in the United States since preschool. A member of the

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“Black and Whites” gang, Medellı´n was convicted of capital
murder and sentenced to death in Texas for the gang rape
and brutal murders of two Houston teenagers.
On June 24, 1993, 14-year-old Jennifer Ertman and 16-year
old Elizabeth Pena were walking home when they encoun
tered Medellı´n and several fellow gang members. Medellı´n
attempted to engage Elizabeth in conversation. When she
tried to run, petitioner threw her to the ground. Jennifer
was grabbed by other gang members when she, in response
to her friend’s cries, ran back to help. The gang members
raped both girls for over an hour. Then, to prevent their
victims from identifying them, Medellı´n and his fellow gang
members murdered the girls and discarded their bodies in
a wooded area. Medellı´n was personally responsible for
strangling at least one of the girls with her own shoelace.
Medellı´n was arrested at approximately 4 a.m. on June 29,
1993. A few hours later, between 5:54 and 7:23 a.m.,
Medellı´n was given Miranda warnings; he then signed a
written waiver and gave a detailed written confession.
App. to Brief for Respondent 32–36. Local law enforcement
officers did not, however, inform Medellı´n of his Vienna Con
vention right to notify the Mexican consulate of his deten
tion. Brief for Petitioner 6–7. Medellı´n was convicted of
capital murder and sentenced to death; his conviction and
sentence were affirmed on appeal. Medellı´n v. State,
No. 71,997 (Tex. Crim. App., May 16, 1997), App. to Brief for
Respondent 2–31.
Medellı´n first raised his Vienna Convention claim in his
first application for state postconviction relief. The state
trial court held that the claim was procedurally defaulted
because Medellı´n had failed to raise it at trial or on direct
review. The trial court also rejected the Vienna Convention
claim on the merits, finding that Medellı´n had “fail[ed] to
show that any non-notification of the Mexican authorities im

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pacted on the validity of his conviction or punishment.” Id.,
at 62.1 The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed. Id.,
at 64–65.
Medellı´n then filed a habeas petition in Federal District
Court. The District Court denied relief, holding that
Medellı´n’s Vienna Convention claim was procedurally de
faulted and that Medellı´n had failed to show prejudice aris
ing from the Vienna Convention violation. See Medellı´n v.
Cockrell, Civ. Action No. H–01–4078 (SD Tex., June 26, 2003),
App. to Brief for Respondent 66, 86–92.
While Medellı´n’s application for a certificate of appeala
bility was pending in the Fifth Circuit, the ICJ issued its
decision in Avena. The ICJ held that the United States
had violated Article 36(1)(b) of the Vienna Convention by
failing to inform the 51 named Mexican nationals, including
Medellı´n, of their Vienna Convention rights. 2004 I. C. J., at
53–55. In the ICJ’s determination, the United States was
obligated “to provide, by means of its own choosing, review
and reconsideration of the convictions and sentences of the
1 The requirement of Article 36(1)(b) of the Vienna Convention that the
detaining state notify the detainee’s consulate “without delay” is satisfied,
according to the ICJ, where notice is provided within three working days.
Avena, 2004 I. C. J. 12, 52, ¶ 97 (Judgment of Mar. 31). See Sanchez-
Llamas v. Oregon, 548 U. S. 331, 362 (2006) (Ginsburg, J., concurring in
judgment). Here, Medellı´n confessed within three hours of his arrest—
before there could be a violation of his Vienna Convention right to consul
ate notification. App. to Brief for Respondent 32–36. In a second state
habeas application, Medellı´n sought to expand his claim of prejudice by
contending that the State’s noncompliance with the Vienna Convention
deprived him of assistance in developing mitigation evidence during the
capital phase of his trial. This argument, however, was likely waived:
Medellı´n had the assistance of consulate counsel during the preparation of
his first application for state postconviction relief, yet failed to raise this
argument at that time. See Application for Writ of Habeas Corpus in
Ex parte Medellı´n, No. 675430–A (Tex. Crim. App., Mar. 26, 1998),
pp. 25–31. In light of our disposition of this case, we need not consider
whether Medellı´n was prejudiced in any way by the violation of his Vienna
Convention rights.

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[affected] Mexican nationals.” Id., at 72, ¶ 153(9). The ICJ
indicated that such review was required without regard to
state procedural default rules. Id., at 56–57.
The Fifth Circuit denied a certificate of appealability.
Medellı´n v. Dretke, 371 F. 3d 270, 281 (2004). The court
concluded that the Vienna Convention did not confer indi
vidually enforceable rights. Id., at 280. The court further
ruled that it was in any event bound by this Court’s decision
in Breard v. Greene, 523 U. S. 371, 375 (1998) (per curiam),
which held that Vienna Convention claims are subject to pro
cedural default rules, rather than by the ICJ’s contrary deci
sion in Avena. 371 F. 3d, at 280.
This Court granted certiorari. Medellı´n v. Dretke, 544
U. S. 660, 661 (2005) (per curiam) (Medellı´n I). Before we
heard oral argument, however, President George W. Bush
issued his Memorandum for the United States Attorney Gen
eral, providing:
“I have determined, pursuant to the authority vested in
me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the
United States of America, that the United States will
discharge its international obligations under the decision
of the International Court of Justice in [Avena], by hav
ing State courts give effect to the decision in accordance
with general principles of comity in cases filed by the 51
Mexican nationals addressed in that decision.” App. to
Pet. for Cert. 187a.
Medellı´n, relying on the President’s Memorandum and the
ICJ’s decision in Avena, filed a second application for habeas
relief in state court. Ex parte Medellı´n, 223 S. W. 3d 315,
322–323 (Tex. Crim. App. 2006). Because the state-court
proceedings might have provided Medellı´n with the review
and reconsideration he requested, and because his claim for
federal relief might otherwise have been barred, we dis
missed his petition for certiorari as improvidently granted.
Medellı´n I, supra, at 664.

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The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals subsequently dis
missed Medellı´n’s second state habeas application as an
abuse of the writ. 223 S. W. 3d, at 352. In the court’s view,
neither the Avena decision nor the President’s Memorandum
was “binding federal law” that could displace the State’s lim
itations on the filing of successive habeas applications. 223
S. W. 3d, at 352. We again granted certiorari. 550 U. S.
917 (2007).
II
Medellı´n first contends that the ICJ’s judgment in Avena
constitutes a “binding” obligation on the state and fed
eral courts of the United States. He argues that “by virtue
of the Supremacy Clause, the treaties requiring compli
ance with the Avena judgment are already the ‘Law of the
Land’ by which all state and federal courts in this country
are ‘bound.’ ” Reply Brief for Petitioner 1. Accordingly,
Medellı´n argues, Avena is a binding federal rule of decision
that pre-empts contrary state limitations on successive ha
beas petitions.
No one disputes that the Avena decision—a decision that
flows from the treaties through which the United States sub
mitted to ICJ jurisdiction with respect to Vienna Convention
disputes—constitutes an international law obligation on the
part of the United States. But not all international law obli
gations automatically constitute binding federal law enforce
able in United States courts. The question we confront here
is whether the Avena judgment has automatic domestic legal
effect such that the judgment of its own force applies in state
and federal courts.
This Court has long recognized the distinction between
treaties that automatically have effect as domestic law, and
those that—while they constitute international law commit
ments—do not by themselves function as binding federal law.
The distinction was well explained by Chief Justice Mar
shall’s opinion in Foster v. Neilson, 2 Pet. 253, 315 (1829),

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overruled on other grounds, United States v. Percheman, 7
Pet. 51 (1833), which held that a treaty is “equivalent to an
act of the legislature,” and hence self-executing, when it “op
erates of itself without the aid of any legislative provision.”
Foster, supra, at 314. When, in contrast, “[treaty] stipula
tions are not self-executing they can only be enforced pursu
ant to legislation to carry them into effect.” Whitney v.
Robertson, 124 U. S. 190, 194 (1888). In sum, while treaties
“may comprise international commitments . . . they are not
domestic law unless Congress has either enacted implement
ing statutes or the treaty itself conveys an intention that
it be ‘self-executing’ and is ratified on these terms.”
Igartu´ a-De La Rosa v. United States, 417 F. 3d 145, 150 (CA1
2005) (en banc) (Boudin, C. J.).2
A treaty is, of course, “primarily a compact between inde
pendent nations.” Head Money Cases, 112 U. S. 580, 598
(1884). It ordinarily “depends for the enforcement of its
provisions on the interest and the honor of the governments
which are parties to it.” Ibid.; see also The Federalist
No. 33, p. 207 (J. Cooke ed. 1961) (A. Hamilton) (comparing
laws that individuals are “bound to observe” as “the supreme
law of the land” with “a mere treaty, dependent on the good
faith of the parties”). “If these [interests] fail, its infraction
becomes the subject of international negotiations and recla
mations . . . . It is obvious that with all this the judicial
courts have nothing to do and can give no redress.” Head
Money Cases, supra, at 598. Only “[i]f the treaty contains
stipulations which are self-executing, that is, require no leg
islation to make them operative, [will] they have the force
2 The label “self-executing” has on occasion been used to convey differ
ent meanings. What we mean by “self-executing” is that the treaty has
automatic domestic effect as federal law upon ratification. Conversely, a
“non-self-executing” treaty does not by itself give rise to domestically
enforceable federal law. Whether such a treaty has domestic effect de
pends upon implementing legislation passed by Congress.

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and effect of a legislative enactment.” Whitney, supra, at
194.3
Medellı´n and his amici nonetheless contend that the Op
tional Protocol, U. N. Charter, and ICJ Statute supply the
“relevant obligation” to give the Avena judgment binding
effect in the domestic courts of the United States. Reply
Brief for Petitioner 5–6.4 Because none of these treaty
sources creates binding federal law in the absence of imple
menting legislation, and because it is uncontested that no
such legislation exists, we conclude that the Avena judgment
is not automatically binding domestic law.
A
The interpretation of a treaty, like the interpretation of
a statute, begins with its text. Air France v. Saks, 470
3 Even when treaties are self-executing in the sense that they create
federal law, the background presumption is that “[i]nternational agree
ments, even those directly benefiting private persons, generally do not
create private rights or provide for a private cause of action in domestic
courts.” 2 Restatement (Third) of Foreign Relations Law of the United
States § 907, Comment a, p. 395 (1986) (hereinafter Restatement). Ac
cordingly, a number of the Courts of Appeals have presumed that treaties
do not create privately enforceable rights in the absence of express lan
guage to the contrary. See, e. g., United States v. Emuegbunam, 268 F. 3d
377, 389 (CA6 2001); United States v. Jimenez-Nava, 243 F. 3d 192, 195
(CA5 2001); United States v. Li, 206 F. 3d 56, 60–61 (CA1 2000) (en banc);
Goldstar (Panama) S. A. v. United States, 967 F. 2d 965, 968 (CA4 1992);
Canadian Transp. Co. v. United States, 663 F. 2d 1081, 1092 (CADC 1980);
Mannington Mills, Inc. v. Congoleum Corp., 595 F. 2d 1287, 1298 (CA3
1979).
4 The question is whether the Avena judgment has binding effect in
domestic courts under the Optional Protocol, ICJ Statute, and U. N. Char
ter. Consequently, it is unnecessary to resolve whether the Vienna Con
vention is itself “self-executing” or whether it grants Medellı´n individually
enforceable rights. See Reply Brief for Petitioner 5 (disclaiming reliance
on the Vienna Convention). As in Sanchez-Llamas, 548 U. S., at 342–343,
we thus assume, without deciding, that Article 36 grants foreign nationals
“an individually enforceable right to request that their consular officers be
notified of their detention, and an accompanying right to be informed by
authorities of the availability of consular notification.”

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U. S. 392, 396–397 (1985). Because a treaty ratified by the
United States is “an agreement among sovereign powers,”
we have also considered as “aids to its interpretation” the
negotiation and drafting history of the treaty as well as
“the postratification understanding” of signatory nations.
Zicherman v. Korean Air Lines Co., 516 U. S. 217, 226
(1996); see also United States v. Stuart, 489 U. S. 353, 365–
366 (1989); Choctaw Nation v. United States, 318 U. S. 423,
431–432 (1943).
As a signatory to the Optional Protocol, the United States
agreed to submit disputes arising out of the Vienna Conven
tion to the ICJ. The Protocol provides: “Disputes arising
out of the interpretation or application of the [Vienna] Con
vention shall lie within the compulsory jurisdiction of the
International Court of Justice.” Art. I, 21 U. S. T., at 326.
Of course, submitting to jurisdiction and agreeing to be
bound are two different things. A party could, for example,
agree to compulsory nonbinding arbitration. Such an agree
ment would require the party to appear before the arbitral
tribunal without obligating the party to treat the tribunal’s
decision as binding. See, e. g., North American Free Trade
Agreement, U. S.-Can.-Mex., Art. 2018(1), Dec. 17, 1992, 32
I. L. M. 605, 697 (1993) (“On receipt of the final report of [the
arbitral panel requested by a Party to the agreement], the
disputing Parties shall agree on the resolution of the dispute,
which normally shall conform with the determinations and
recommendations of the panel”).
The most natural reading of the Optional Protocol is as a
bare grant of jurisdiction. It provides only that “[d]isputes
arising out of the interpretation or application of the
[Vienna] Convention shall lie within the compulsory jurisdic
tion of the International Court of Justice” and “may accord
ingly be brought before the [ICJ] . . . by any party to the
dispute being a Party to the present Protocol.” Art. I, 21
U. S. T., at 326. The Protocol says nothing about the effect
of an ICJ decision and does not itself commit signatories to

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comply with an ICJ judgment. The Protocol is similarly si
lent as to any enforcement mechanism.
The obligation on the part of signatory nations to comply
with ICJ judgments derives not from the Optional Protocol,
but rather from Article 94 of the U. N. Charter—the provi
sion that specifically addresses the effect of ICJ decisions.
Article 94(1) provides that “[e]ach Member of the United Na
tions undertakes to comply with the decision of the [ICJ] in
any case to which it is a party.” 59 Stat. 1051 (emphasis
added). The Executive Branch contends that the phrase
“undertakes to comply” is not “an acknowledgement that an
ICJ decision will have immediate legal effect in the courts
of U. N. members,” but rather “a commitment on the part
of U. N. members to take future action through their political
branches to comply with an ICJ decision.” Brief for United
States as Amicus Curiae in Medellı´n I, O. T. 2004,
No. 04–5928, p. 34.
We agree with this construction of Article 94. The Arti
cle is not a directive to domestic courts. It does not provide
that the United States “shall” or “must” comply with an ICJ
decision, nor indicate that the Senate that ratified the U. N.
Charter intended to vest ICJ decisions with immediate legal
effect in domestic courts. Instead, “[t]he words of Article
94 . . . call upon governments to take certain action.” Com
mittee of United States Citizens Living in Nicaragua v.
Reagan, 859 F. 2d 929, 938 (CADC 1988) (quoting Diggs
v. Richardson, 555 F. 2d 848, 851 (CADC 1976); internal
quotation marks omitted). See also Foster, 2 Pet., at 314,
315 (holding a treaty non-self-executing because its text—
“ ‘all . . . grants of land . . . shall be ratified and confirmed’ ”—
did not “act directly on the grants” but rather “pledge[d] the
faith of the United States to pass acts which shall ratify and
confirm them”). In other words, the U. N. Charter reads
like “a compact between independent nations” that “depends
for the enforcement of its provisions on the interest and the

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honor of the governments which are parties to it.” Head
Money Cases, 112 U. S., at 598.5
The remainder of Article 94 confirms that the U. N. Char
ter does not contemplate the automatic enforceability of ICJ
decisions in domestic courts.6 Article 94(2)—the enforce
ment provision—provides the sole remedy for noncompli
ance: referral to the United Nations Security Council by an
aggrieved state. 59 Stat. 1051.
The U. N. Charter’s provision of an express diplomatic—
that is, nonjudicial—remedy is itself evidence that ICJ judg
ments were not meant to be enforceable in domestic courts.
See Sanchez-Llamas, 548 U. S., at 347. And even this
“quintessentially international remed[y],” id., at 355, is not
absolute. First, the Security Council must “dee[m] neces
sary” the issuance of a recommendation or measure to effec
tuate the judgment. Art. 94(2), 59 Stat. 1051. Second, as
the President and Senate were undoubtedly aware in sub
scribing to the U. N. Charter and Optional Protocol, the
5 We do not read “undertakes” to mean that “ ‘ “[t]he United States . . .
shall be at liberty to make respecting th[e] matter, such laws as they think
proper.” ’ ” Post, at 554 (Breyer, J., dissenting) (quoting Todok v. Union
State Bank of Harvard, 281 U. S. 449, 453, 454 (1930) (holding that a treaty
with Norway did not “operat[e] to override the law of [Nebraska] as to the
disposition of homestead property”)). Whether or not the United States
“undertakes” to comply with a treaty says nothing about what laws it may
enact. The United States is always “at liberty to make . . . such laws as
[it] think[s] proper.” Id., at 453. Indeed, a later-in-time federal statute
supersedes inconsistent treaty provisions. See, e. g., Cook v. United
States, 288 U. S. 102, 119–120 (1933). Rather, the “undertakes to comply”
language confirms that further action to give effect to an ICJ judgment
was contemplated, contrary to the dissent’s position that such judgments
constitute directly enforceable federal law, without more. See also post,
at 533–535 (Stevens, J., concurring in judgment).
6 Article 94(2) provides in full: “If any party to a case fails to perform
the obligations incumbent upon it under a judgment rendered by the
Court, the other party may have recourse to the Security Council, which
may, if it deems necessary, make recommendations or decide upon meas
ures to be taken to give effect to the judgment.” 59 Stat. 1051.

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United States retained the unqualified right to exercise its
veto of any Security Council resolution.
This was the understanding of the Executive Branch when
the President agreed to the U. N. Charter and the declara
tion accepting general compulsory ICJ jurisdiction. See,
e. g., The Charter of the United Nations for the Maintenance
of International Peace and Security: Hearings before the
Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, 79th Cong., 1st
Sess., 124–125 (1945) (“[I]f a state fails to perform its obliga
tions under a judgment of the [ICJ], the other party may
have recourse to the Security Council”); id., at 286 (state
ment of Leo Pasvolsky, Special Assistant to the Secretary of
State for International Organizations and Security Affairs)
(“[W]hen the Court has rendered a judgment and one of the
parties refuses to accept it, then the dispute becomes politi
cal rather than legal. It is as a political dispute that the
matter is referred to the Security Council”); A Resolution
Proposing Acceptance of Compulsory Jurisdiction of Interna
tional Court of Justice: Hearings on S. Res. 196 before the
Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Foreign Rela
tions, 79th Cong., 2d Sess., 142 (1946) (statement of Charles
Fahy, State Dept. Legal Adviser) (while parties that accept
ICJ jurisdiction have “a moral obligation” to comply with
ICJ decisions, Article 94(2) provides the exclusive means of
enforcement).
If ICJ judgments were instead regarded as automatically
enforceable domestic law, they would be immediately and di
rectly binding on state and federal courts pursuant to the
Supremacy Clause. Mexico or the ICJ would have no need
to proceed to the Security Council to enforce the judgment
in this case. Noncompliance with an ICJ judgment through
exercise of the Security Council veto—always regarded as
an option by the Executive and ratifying Senate during and
after consideration of the U. N. Charter, Optional Protocol,
and ICJ Statute—would no longer be a viable alternative.

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There would be nothing to veto. In light of the U. N. Char
ter’s remedial scheme, there is no reason to believe that the
President and Senate signed up for such a result.
In sum, Medellı´n’s view that ICJ decisions are automati
cally enforceable as domestic law is fatally undermined by
the enforcement structure established by Article 94. His
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. Those sensitive foreign policy deci
sions would instead be transferred to state and federal
courts charged with applying an ICJ judgment directly as
domestic law. And those courts would not be empowered to
decide whether to comply with the judgment—again, always
regarded as an option by the political branches—any more
than courts may consider whether to comply with any other
species of domestic law. This result would be particularly
anomalous in light of the principle that “[t]he conduct of the
foreign relations of our Government is committed by the
Constitution to the Executive and Legislative—‘the politi
cal’—Departments.” Oetjen v. Central Leather Co., 246
U. S. 297, 302 (1918).
The ICJ Statute, incorporated into the U. N. Charter, pro
vides further evidence that the ICJ’s judgment in Avena
does not automatically constitute federal law judicially en
forceable in United States courts. Art. 59, 59 Stat. 1062.
To begin with, the ICJ’s “principal purpose” is said to be
to “arbitrate particular disputes between national govern
ments.” Sanchez-Llamas, supra, at 355 (citing 59 Stat.
1055). Accordingly, the ICJ can hear disputes only between
nations, not individuals. Art. 34(1), id., at 1059 (“Only
states [i. e., countries] may be parties in cases before the
[ICJ]”). More important, Article 59 of the statute provides
that “[t]he decision of the [ICJ] has no binding force except
between the parties and in respect of that particular case.”

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Id., at 1062 (emphasis added).7 The dissent does not explain
how Medellı´n, an individual, can be a party to the ICJ
proceeding.
Medellı´n argues that because the Avena case involves him,
it is clear that he—and the 50 other Mexican nationals named
in the Avena decision—should be regarded as parties to the
Avena judgment. Brief for Petitioner 21–22. But cases
before the ICJ are often precipitated by disputes involving
particular persons or entities, disputes that a nation elects
to take up as its own. See, e. g., Case Concerning the Barce
lona Traction, Light & Power Co. (Belg. v. Spain), 1970
I. C. J. 3 (Judgment of Feb. 5) (claim brought by Belgium on
behalf of Belgian nationals and shareholders); Case Concern
ing the Protection of French Nationals and Protected Per
sons in Egypt (Fr. v. Egypt), 1950 I. C. J. 59 (Order of Mar.
29) (claim brought by France on behalf of French nationals
and protected persons in Egypt); Anglo-Iranian Oil Co.
Case (U. K. v. Iran), 1952 I. C. J. 93, 112 (Judgment of July
22) (claim brought by the United Kingdom on behalf of the
Anglo-Iranian Oil Company). That has never been under
stood to alter the express and established rules that only
nation-states may be parties before the ICJ, Art. 34, 59 Stat.
1059, and—contrary to the position of the dissent, post, at
559—that ICJ judgments are binding only between those
parties, Art. 59, 59 Stat. 1062.8
7 Medellı´n alters this language in his brief to provide that the ICJ Stat
ute makes the Avena judgment binding “in respect of [his] particular
case.” Brief for Petitioner 22 (internal quotation marks omitted). Med
ellı´n does not and cannot have a case before the ICJ under the terms of
the ICJ Statute.
8 The dissent concludes that the ICJ judgment is binding federal law
based in large part on its belief that the Vienna Convention overrides
contrary state procedural rules. See post, at 555–557, 559. But not even
Medellı´n relies on the Convention. See Reply Brief for Petitioner 5 (dis
claiming reliance). For good reason: Such reliance is foreclosed by the
decision of this Court in Sanchez-Llamas, 548 U. S., at 351 (holding that

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It is, moreover, well settled that the United States’
interpretation of a treaty “is entitled to great weight.”
Sumitomo Shoji America, Inc. v. Avagliano, 457 U. S. 176,
184–185 (1982); see also El Al Israel Airlines, Ltd. v. Tsui
Yuan Tseng, 525 U. S. 155, 168 (1999). The Executive
Branch has unfailingly adhered to its view that the relevant
treaties do not create domestically enforceable federal law.
See Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 4, 27–29.9
The pertinent international agreements, therefore, do not
provide for implementation of ICJ judgments through direct
enforcement in domestic courts, and “where a treaty does not
provide a particular remedy, either expressly or implicitly, it
the Convention does not preclude the application of state procedural bars);
see also id., at 363 (Ginsburg, J., concurring in judgment). There is no
basis for relitigating the issue. Further, to rely on the Convention would
elide the distinction between a treaty—negotiated by the President and
signed by Congress—and a judgment rendered pursuant to those treaties.
9 In interpreting our treaty obligations, we also consider the views of
the ICJ itself, “giv[ing] respectful consideration to the interpretation of an
international treaty rendered by an international court with jurisdiction to
interpret [the treaty].” Breard v. Greene, 523 U. S. 371, 375 (1998) (per
curiam); see Sanchez-Llamas, supra, at 355–356. It is not clear whether
that principle would apply when the question is the binding force of ICJ
judgments themselves, rather than the substantive scope of a treaty the
ICJ must interpret in resolving disputes. Cf. Phillips Petroleum Co. v.
Shutts, 472 U. S. 797, 805 (1985) (“[A] court adjudicating a dispute may not
be able to predetermine the res judicata effect of its own judgment”); 18
C. Wright, A. Miller, & E. Cooper, Federal Practice and Procedure § 4405,
p. 82 (2d ed. 2002) (“The first court does not get to dictate to other courts
the preclusion consequences of its own judgment”). In any event, nothing
suggests that the ICJ views its judgments as automatically enforceable in
the domestic courts of signatory nations. The Avena judgment itself di
rects the United States to provide review and reconsideration of the af
fected convictions and sentences “by means of its own choosing.” 2004
I. C. J., at 72, ¶ 153(9) (emphasis added). This language, as well as the
ICJ’s mere suggestion that the “judicial process” is best suited to provide
such review, id., at 65–66, confirm that domestic enforceability in court is
not part and parcel of an ICJ judgment.

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is not for the federal courts to impose one on the States
through lawmaking of their own.” Sanchez-Llamas, 548
U. S., at 347.
B
The dissent faults our analysis because it “looks for the
wrong thing (explicit textual expression about self
execution) using the wrong standard (clarity) in the wrong
place (the treaty language).” Post, at 562. Given our obli
gation to interpret treaty provisions to determine whether
they are self-executing, we have to confess that we do think
it rather important to look to the treaty language to see what
it has to say about the issue. That is after all what the Sen
ate looks to in deciding whether to approve the treaty.
The interpretive approach employed by the Court today—
resorting to the text—is hardly novel. In two early cases
involving an 1819 land-grant treaty between Spain and the
United States, Chief Justice Marshall found the language of
the treaty dispositive. In Foster, after distinguishing be
tween self-executing treaties (those “equivalent to an act of
the legislature”) and non-self-executing treaties (those “the
legislature must execute”), Chief Justice Marshall held that
the 1819 treaty was non-self-executing. 2 Pet., at 314.
Four years later, the Supreme Court considered another
claim under the same treaty, but concluded that the treaty
was self-executing. See Percheman, 7 Pet., at 87. The rea
son was not because the treaty was sometimes self-executing
and sometimes not, but because “the language of ” the Span
ish translation (brought to the Court’s attention for the
first time) indicated the parties’ intent to ratify and con
firm the land grant “by force of the instrument itself.” Id.,
at 89.
As against this time-honored textual approach, the dissent
proposes a multifactor, judgment-by-judgment analysis that
would “jettiso[n] relative predictability for the open-ended
rough-and-tumble of factors.” Jerome B. Grubart, Inc. v.
Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Co., 513 U. S. 527, 547 (1995).

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The dissent’s novel approach to deciding which (or, more ac
curately, when) treaties give rise to directly enforceable fed
eral law is arrestingly indeterminate. Treaty language is
barely probative. Post, at 549 (“[T]he absence or presence
of language in a treaty about a provision’s self-execution
proves nothing at all”). Determining whether treaties
themselves create federal law is sometimes committed to the
political branches and sometimes to the judiciary. Post,
at 549–550. Of those committed to the judiciary, the courts
pick and choose which shall be binding United States law—
trumping not only state but other federal law as well—and
which shall not. Post, at 550–562. They do this on the
basis of a multifactor, “context-specific” inquiry. Post, at
549. Even then, the same treaty sometimes gives rise to
United States law and sometimes does not, again depending
on an ad hoc judicial assessment. Post, at 550–562.
Our Framers established a careful set of procedures that
must be followed before federal law can be created under the
Constitution—vesting that decision in the political branches,
subject to checks and balances. U. S. Const., Art. I, § 7.
They also recognized that treaties could create federal law,
but again through the political branches, with the President
making the treaty and the Senate approving it. Art. II, § 2.
The dissent’s understanding of the treaty route, depending
on an ad hoc judgment of the judiciary without looking to
the treaty language—the very language negotiated by the
President and approved by the Senate—cannot readily be
ascribed to those same Framers.
The dissent’s approach risks the United States’ involve
ment in international agreements. It is hard to believe that
the United States would enter into treaties that are some
times enforceable and sometimes not. Such a treaty would
be the equivalent of writing a blank check to the judiciary.
Senators could never be quite sure what the treaties on
which they were voting meant. Only a judge could say for
sure and only at some future date. This uncertainty could

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hobble the United States’ efforts to negotiate and sign inter
national agreements.
In this case, the dissent—for a grab bag of no less than
seven reasons—would tell us that this particular ICJ judg
ment is federal law. Post, at 549–562. That is no sort of
guidance. Nor is it any answer to say that the federal
courts will diligently police international agreements and en
force the decisions of international tribunals only when they
should be enforced. Ibid. The point of a non-self-executing
treaty is that it “addresses itself to the political, not the judi
cial department; and the legislature must execute the con
tract before it can become a rule for the Court.” Foster,
supra, at 314 (emphasis added); Whitney, 124 U. S., at 195.
See also Foster, supra, at 307 (“The judiciary is not that de
partment of the government, to which the assertion of its
interests against foreign powers is confided”). The dissent’s
contrary approach would assign to the courts—not the politi
cal branches—the primary role in deciding when and how
international agreements will be enforced. To read a treaty
so that it sometimes has the effect of domestic law and some
times does not is tantamount to vesting with the judiciary
the power not only to interpret but also to create the law.
C
Our conclusion that Avena does not by itself constitute
binding federal law is confirmed by the “postratification un
derstanding” of signatory nations. See Zicherman, 516
U. S., at 226. There are currently 47 nations that are parties
to the Optional Protocol and 171 nations that are parties to
the Vienna Convention. Yet neither Medellı´n nor his amici
have identified a single nation that treats ICJ judgments
as binding in domestic courts.10 In determining that the
10 The best that the ICJ experts as amici curiae can come up with is
the contention that local Moroccan courts have referred to ICJ judgments
as “dispositive.” Brief for ICJ Experts as Amici Curiae 20, n. 31. Even
the ICJ experts do not cite a case so holding, and Moroccan practice is at

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Vienna Convention did not require certain relief in United
States courts in Sanchez-Llamas, we found it pertinent that
the requested relief would not be available under the treaty
in any other signatory country. See 548 U. S., at 343–344,
and n. 3. So too here the lack of any basis for supposing
that any other country would treat ICJ judgments as di
rectly enforceable as a matter of its domestic law strongly
suggests that the treaty should not be so viewed in our
courts.
Our conclusion is further supported by general principles
of interpretation. To begin with, we reiterated in Sanchez-
Llamas what we held in Breard, that “ ‘absent a clear and
express statement to the contrary, the procedural rules of
the forum State govern the implementation of the treaty in
that State.’ ” 548 U. S., at 351 (quoting Breard, 523 U. S., at
375). Given that ICJ judgments may interfere with state
procedural rules, one would expect the ratifying parties to
the relevant treaties to have clearly stated their intent to
give those judgments domestic effect, if they had so in
tended. Here there is no statement in the Optional Proto
col, the U. N. Charter, or the ICJ Statute that supports the
notion that ICJ judgments displace state procedural rules.
Moreover, the consequences of Medellı´n’s argument give
pause. An ICJ judgment, the argument goes, is not only
binding domestic law but is also unassailable. As a result,
neither Texas nor this Court may look behind a judgment
and quarrel with its reasoning or result. (We already know,
from Sanchez-Llamas, that this Court disagrees with both
best inconsistent, for at least one local Moroccan court has held that ICJ
judgments are not binding as a matter of municipal law. See, e. g.,
Mackay Radio & Tel. Co. v. Lal-La Fatma Bent si Mohamed el Khadar,
[1954] 21 Int’l L. Rep. 136 (Tangier, Ct. App. Int’l Trib.) (holding that ICJ
decisions are not binding on Morocco’s domestic courts); see also “Socobel”
v. Greek State, [1951] 18 Int’l L. Rep. 3 (Belg., Trib. Civ. de Bruxelles)
(holding that judgments of the ICJ’s predecessor, the Permanent Court of
International Justice, were not domestically enforceable).

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the reasoning and result in Avena.) Medellı´n’s interpreta
tion would allow ICJ judgments to override otherwise bind
ing state law; there is nothing in his logic that would exempt
contrary federal law from the same fate. See, e. g., Cook v.
United States, 288 U. S. 102, 119 (1933) (later-in-time self
executing treaty supersedes a federal statute if there is a
conflict). And there is nothing to prevent the ICJ from or
dering state courts to annul criminal convictions and sen
tences, for any reason deemed sufficient by the ICJ. Indeed,
that is precisely the relief Mexico requested. Avena, 2004
I. C. J., at 58–59.
Even the dissent flinches at reading the relevant treaties
to give rise to self-executing ICJ judgments in all cases. It
admits that “Congress is unlikely to authorize automatic
judicial enforceability of all ICJ judgments, for that could
include some politically sensitive judgments and others bet
ter suited for enforcement by other branches.” Post, at 560.
Our point precisely. But the lesson to draw from that in
sight is hardly that the judiciary should decide which judg
ments are politically sensitive and which are not.
In short, and as we observed in Sanchez-Llamas, “[n]oth
ing in the structure or purpose of the ICJ suggests that
its interpretations were intended to be conclusive on our
courts.” 548 U. S., at 354. Given that holding, it is difficult
to see how that same structure and purpose can establish,
as Medellı´n argues, that judgments of the ICJ nonetheless
were intended to be conclusive on our courts. A judgment
is binding only if there is a rule of law that makes it so.
And the question whether ICJ judgments can bind domes
tic courts depends upon the same analysis undertaken in
Sanchez-Llamas and set forth above.
Our prior decisions identified by the dissent as holding a
number of treaties to be self-executing, see post, at 545–546,
and Appendix A, stand only for the unremarkable proposi
tion that some international agreements are self-executing
and others are not. It is well settled that the “[i]nterpreta

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tion of [a treaty] . . . must, of course, begin with the language
of the Treaty itself.” Sumitomo Shoji America, Inc., 457
U. S., at 180. As a result, we have held treaties to be self
executing when the textual provisions indicate that the Pres
ident and Senate intended for the agreement to have domes
tic effect.
Medellı´n and the dissent cite Comegys v. Vasse, 1 Pet. 193
(1828), for the proposition that the judgments of inter
national tribunals are automatically binding on domestic
courts. See post, at 546; Reply Brief for Petitioner 2; Brief
for Petitioner 19–20. That case, of course, involved a differ
ent treaty than the ones at issue here; it stands only for the
modest principle that the terms of a treaty control the out
come of a case.11 We do not suggest that treaties can never
afford binding domestic effect to international tribunal judg
ments—only that the U. N. Charter, the Optional Protocol,
and the ICJ Statute do not do so. And whether the treaties
underlying a judgment are self-executing so that the judg
ment is directly enforceable as domestic law in our courts is,
of course, a matter for this Court to decide. See Sanchez-
Llamas, supra, at 353–354.
D
Our holding does not call into question the ordinary en
forcement of foreign judgments or international arbitral
11 The other case Medellı´n cites for the proposition that the judgments
of international courts are binding, La Abra Silver Mining Co. v. United
States, 175 U. S. 423 (1899), and the cases he cites for the proposition that
this Court has routinely enforced treaties under which foreign nationals
have asserted rights, similarly stand only for the principle that the terms
of a treaty govern its enforcement. See Reply Brief for Petitioner 4, 5,
and n. 2. In each case, this Court first interpreted the treaty prior to
finding it domestically enforceable. See, e. g., United States v. Rauscher,
119 U. S. 407, 422–423 (1886) (holding that the treaty required extradition
only for specified offenses); Hopkirk v. Bell, 3 Cranch 454, 458 (1806) (hold
ing that the treaty of peace between Great Britain and the United States
prevented the operation of a state statute of limitations on British debts).

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agreements. Indeed, we agree with Medellı´n that, as a gen
eral matter, “an agreement to abide by the result” of an in
ternational adjudication—or what he really means, an agree
ment to give the result of such adjudication domestic legal
effect—can be a treaty obligation like any other, so long
as the agreement is consistent with the Constitution. See
Brief for Petitioner 20. The point is that the particular
treaty obligations on which Medellı´n relies do not of their
own force create domestic law.
The dissent worries that our decision casts doubt on some
70-odd treaties under which the United States has agreed to
submit disputes to the ICJ according to “roughly similar”
provisions. See post, at 540–541, 552–553. Again, under
our established precedent, some treaties are self-executing
and some are not, depending on the treaty. That the judg
ment of an international tribunal might not automatically be
come domestic law hardly means the underlying treaty is
“useless.” See post, at 553; cf. post, at 548 (describing the
British system in which treaties “virtually always requir[e]
parliamentary legislation”). Such judgments would still
constitute international obligations, the proper subject of po
litical and diplomatic negotiations. See Head Money Cases,
112 U. S., at 598. And Congress could elect to give them
wholesale effect (rather than the judgment-by-judgment ap
proach hypothesized by the dissent, post, at 560) through im
plementing legislation, as it regularly has. See, e. g., For
eign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act of 1998, § 2242,
112 Stat. 2681–822, note following 8 U. S. C. § 1231 (directing
the “appropriate agencies” to “prescribe regulations to im
plement the obligations of the United States under Article
3” of the Convention Against Torture and Other Forms of
Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment);
see also infra, at 521–522 (listing examples of legislation im
plementing international obligations).
Further, that an ICJ judgment may not be automatically
enforceable in domestic courts does not mean the particular

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underlying treaty is not. Indeed, we have held that a num
ber of the “Friendship, Commerce, and Navigation” Treaties
cited by the dissent, see Appendix B, post, are self
executing—based on “the language of the[se] Treat[ies].”
See Sumitomo Shoji America, Inc., supra, at 180, 189–190.
In Kolovrat v. Oregon, 366 U. S. 187, 191, 196 (1961), for ex
ample, the Court found that Yugoslavian claimants denied
inheritance under Oregon law were entitled to inherit per
sonal property pursuant to an 1881 Treaty of Friendship,
Navigation, and Commerce between the United States and
Serbia. See also Clark v. Allen, 331 U. S. 503, 507–511, 517–
518 (1947) (finding that the right to inherit real property
granted German aliens under the Treaty of Friendship, Com
merce and Consular Rights with Germany prevailed over
California law). Contrary to the dissent’s suggestion, see
post, at 547, neither our approach nor our cases require that
a treaty provide for self-execution in so many talismanic
words; that is a caricature of the Court’s opinion. Our cases
simply require courts to decide whether a treaty’s terms re
flect a determination by the President who negotiated it and
the Senate that confirmed it that the treaty has domestic
effect.
In addition, Congress is up to the task of implementing
non-self-executing treaties, even those involving complex
commercial disputes. Cf. post, at 560 (Breyer, J., dissent
ing). The judgments of a number of international tribunals
enjoy a different status because of implementing legislation
enacted by Congress. See, e. g., 22 U. S. C. § 1650a(a) (“An
award of an arbitral tribunal rendered pursuant to chapter
IV of the [Convention on the Settlement of Investment Dis
putes] shall create a right arising under a treaty of the
United States. The pecuniary obligations imposed by such
an award shall be enforced and shall be given the same full
faith and credit as if the award were a final judgment of a
court of general jurisdiction of one of the several States”); 9
U. S. C. §§ 201–208 (“The [U. N.] Convention on the Recogni

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tion and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards of June
10, 1958, shall be enforced in United States courts in accord
ance with this chapter,” § 201). Such language demon
strates that Congress knows how to accord domestic effect
to international obligations when it desires such a result.12
Further, Medellı´n frames his argument as though giving
the Avena judgment binding effect in domestic courts simply
conforms to the proposition that domestic courts generally
give effect to foreign judgments. But Medellı´n does not ask
us to enforce a foreign-court judgment settling a typical com
mercial or property dispute. See, e. g., Hilton v. Guyot, 159
U. S. 113 (1895); United States v. Arredondo, 6 Pet. 691
(1832); see also Uniform Foreign Money-Judgments Recogni
tion Act § 1(2), 13 U. L. A., pt. 2, p. 44 (2002) (“ ‘[F]oreign
judgment’ means any judgment of a foreign state granting
or denying recovery of a sum of money”). Rather, Medellı´n
argues that the Avena judgment has the effect of enjoining
the operation of state law. What is more, on Medellı´n’s
view, the judgment would force the State to take action to
“review and reconside[r]” his case. The general rule, how
ever, is that judgments of foreign courts awarding injunctive
relief, even as to private parties, let alone sovereign States,
“are not generally entitled to enforcement.” See 1 Restate
ment § 481, Comment b, at 595.
In sum, while the ICJ’s judgment in Avena creates an in
ternational law obligation on the part of the United States,
it does not of its own force constitute binding federal law
12 That this Court has rarely had occasion to find a treaty non-self
executing is not all that surprising. See post, at 545 (Breyer, J., dissent
ing). To begin with, the Courts of Appeals have regularly done so. See,
e. g., Pierre v. Gonzales, 502 F. 3d 109, 119–120 (CA2 2007) (holding that
the United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhu
man or Degrading Treatment or Punishment is non-self-executing); Singh
v. Ashcroft, 398 F. 3d 396, 404, n. 3 (CA6 2005) (same); Beazley v. Johnson,
242 F. 3d 248, 267 (CA5 2001) (holding that the International Covenant
on Civil and Political Rights is non-self-executing). Further, as noted,
Congress has not hesitated to pass implementing legislation for treaties
that in its view require such legislation.

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that pre-empts state restrictions on the filing of successive
habeas petitions. As we noted in Sanchez-Llamas, a con
trary conclusion would be extraordinary, given that basic
rights guaranteed by our own Constitution do not have the
effect of displacing state procedural rules. See 548 U. S.,
at 360. Nothing in the text, background, negotiating and
drafting history, or practice among signatory nations sug
gests that the President or Senate intended the improbable
result of giving the judgments of an international tribunal a
higher status than that enjoyed by “many of our most funda
mental constitutional protections.” Ibid.
III
Medellı´n next argues that the ICJ’s judgment in Avena
is binding on state courts by virtue of the President’s
February 28, 2005 Memorandum. The United States con
tends that while the Avena judgment does not of its own
force require domestic courts to set aside ordinary rules of
procedural default, that judgment became the law of the land
with precisely that effect pursuant to the President’s Memo
randum and his power “to establish binding rules of decision
that preempt contrary state law.” Brief for United States
as Amicus Curiae 5. Accordingly, we must decide whether
the President’s declaration alters our conclusion that the
Avena judgment is not a rule of domestic law binding in
state and federal courts.13
A
The United States maintains that the President’s constitu
tional role “uniquely qualifies” him to resolve the sensitive
13 The dissent refrains from deciding the issue, but finds it “difficult to
believe that in the exercise of his Article II powers pursuant to a ratified
treaty, the President can never take action that would result in setting
aside state law.” Post, at 564. We agree. The questions here are the
far more limited ones of whether he may unilaterally create federal law
by giving effect to the judgment of this international tribunal pursuant to
this non-self-executing treaty, and, if not, whether he may rely on other
authority under the Constitution to support the action taken in this partic
ular case. Those are the only questions we decide.

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foreign policy decisions that bear on compliance with an ICJ
decision and “to do so expeditiously.” Brief for United
States as Amicus Curiae 11, 12. We do not question these
propositions. See, e. g., First Nat. City Bank v. Banco
Nacional de Cuba, 406 U. S. 759, 767 (1972) (plurality opin
ion) (The President has “the lead role . . . in foreign policy”);
American Ins. Assn. v. Garamendi, 539 U. S. 396, 414 (2003)
(Article II of the Constitution places with the President the
“ ‘vast share of responsibility for the conduct of our foreign
relations’ ” (quoting Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer,
343 U. S. 579, 610–611 (1952) (Frankfurter, J., concurring))).
In this case, the President seeks to vindicate United States
interests in ensuring the reciprocal observance of the Vienna
Convention, protecting relations with foreign governments,
and demonstrating commitment to the role of international
law. These interests are plainly compelling.
Such considerations, however, do not allow us to set aside
first principles. The President’s authority to act, as with
the exercise of any governmental power, “must stem either
from an act of Congress or from the Constitution itself.”
Youngstown, supra, at 585; Dames & Moore v. Regan, 453
U. S. 654, 668 (1981).
Justice Jackson’s familiar tripartite scheme provides the
accepted framework for evaluating executive action in this
area. First, “[w]hen the President acts pursuant to an ex
press or implied authorization of Congress, his authority is
at its maximum, for it includes all that he possesses in his
own right plus all that Congress can delegate.” Youngs
town, 343 U. S., at 635 (concurring opinion). Second,
“[w]hen the President acts in absence of either a congres
sional grant or denial of authority, he can only rely upon his
own independent powers, but there is a zone of twilight in
which he and Congress may have concurrent authority, or
in which its distribution is uncertain.” Id., at 637. In this
circumstance, Presidential authority can derive support from
“congressional inertia, indifference or quiescence.” Ibid.

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Finally, “[w]hen the President takes measures incompatible
with the expressed or implied will of Congress, his power is
at its lowest ebb,” and the Court can sustain his actions “only
by disabling the Congress from acting upon the subject.”
Id., at 637–638.
B
The United States marshals two principal arguments in
favor of the President’s authority “to establish binding rules
of decision that preempt contrary state law.” Brief for
United States as Amicus Curiae 5. The Solicitor General
first argues that the relevant treaties give the President the
authority to implement the Avena judgment and that Con
gress has acquiesced in the exercise of such authority. The
United States also relies upon an “independent” interna
tional dispute-resolution power wholly apart from the as
serted authority based on the pertinent treaties. Medellı´n
adds the additional argument that the President’s Memoran
dum is a valid exercise of his power to take care that the
laws be faithfully executed.
1
The United States maintains that the President’s Memo
randum is authorized by the Optional Protocol and the U. N.
Charter. Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 9.
That is, because the relevant treaties “create an obligation
to comply with Avena,” they “implicitly give the President
authority to implement that treaty-based obligation.” Id.,
at 11 (emphasis added). As a result, the President’s Memo
randum is well grounded in the first category of the Youngs
town framework.
We disagree. The President has an array of political and
diplomatic means available to enforce international obliga
tions, but unilaterally converting a non-self-executing treaty
into a self-executing one is not among them. The responsi
bility for transforming an international obligation arising
from a non-self-executing treaty into domestic law falls to

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Congress. Foster, 2 Pet., at 315; Whitney, 124 U. S., at 194;
Igartu´ a-De La Rosa, 417 F. 3d, at 150. As this Court has
explained, when treaty stipulations are “not self-executing
they can only be enforced pursuant to legislation to carry
them into effect.” Whitney, supra, at 194. Moreover,
“[u]ntil such act shall be passed, the Court is not at liberty
to disregard the existing laws on the subject.” Foster,
supra, at 315.
The requirement that Congress, rather than the President,
implement a non-self-executing treaty derives from the text
of the Constitution, which divides the treaty-making power
between the President and the Senate. The Constitution
vests the President with the authority to “make” a treaty.
Art. II, § 2. If the Executive determines that a treaty
should have domestic effect of its own force, that determina
tion may be implemented in “mak[ing]” the treaty, by ensur
ing that it contains language plainly providing for domestic
enforceability. If the treaty is to be self-executing in this
respect, the Senate must consent to the treaty by the requi
site two-thirds vote, ibid., consistent with all other constitu
tional restraints.
Once a treaty is ratified without provisions clearly accord
ing it domestic effect, however, whether the treaty will ever
have such effect is governed by the fundamental constitu
tional principle that “ ‘[t]he power to make the necessary
laws is in Congress; the power to execute in the President.’ ”
Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 548 U. S. 557, 591 (2006) (quot
ing Ex parte Milligan, 4 Wall. 2, 139 (1866) (opinion of
Chase, C. J.)); see U. S. Const., Art. I, § 1 (“All legislative
Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the
United States”). As already noted, the terms of a non-self
executing treaty can become domestic law only in the same
way as any other law—through passage of legislation by both
Houses of Congress, combined with either the President’s
signature or a congressional override of a Presidential veto.
See Art. I, § 7. Indeed, “the President’s power to see that

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the laws are faithfully executed refutes the idea that he is to
be a lawmaker.” Youngstown, 343 U. S., at 587.
A non-self-executing treaty, by definition, is one that was
ratified with the understanding that it is not to have domes
tic effect of its own force. That understanding precludes the
assertion that Congress has implicitly authorized the Pres
ident—acting on his own—to achieve precisely the same
result. We therefore conclude, given the absence of con
gressional legislation, that the non-self-executing treaties
at issue here did not “express[ly] or implied[ly]” vest the
President with the unilateral authority to make them self
executing. See id., at 635 (Jackson, J., concurring). Ac
cordingly, the President’s Memorandum does not fall within
the first category of the Youngstown framework.
Indeed, the preceding discussion should make clear that
the non-self-executing character of the relevant treaties not
only refutes the notion that the ratifying parties vested the
President with the authority to unilaterally make treaty obli
gations binding on domestic courts, but also implicitly pro
hibits him from doing so. When the President asserts the
power to “enforce” a non-self-executing treaty by unilater
ally creating domestic law, he acts in conflict with the im
plicit understanding of the ratifying Senate. His assertion
of authority, insofar as it is based on the pertinent non-self
executing treaties, is therefore within Justice Jackson’s third
category, not the first or even the second. See id., at
637–638.
Each of the two means described above for giving do
mestic effect to an international treaty obligation under the
Constitution—for making law—requires joint action by the
Executive and Legislative Branches: The Senate can ratify
a self-executing treaty “ma[de]” by the Executive, or, if the
ratified treaty is not self-executing, Congress can enact im
plementing legislation approved by the President. It should
not be surprising that our Constitution does not contemplate
vesting such power in the Executive alone. As Madison ex

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plained in The Federalist No. 47, under our constitutional
system of checks and balances, “[t]he magistrate in whom
the whole executive power resides cannot of himself make a
law.” J. Cooke ed., p. 326 (1961). That would, however,
seem an apt description of the asserted executive authority
unilaterally to give the effect of domestic law to obligations
under a non-self-executing treaty.
The United States nonetheless maintains that the Presi
dent’s Memorandum should be given effect as domestic law
because “this case involves a valid Presidential action in the
context of Congressional ‘acquiescence.’ ” Brief for United
States as Amicus Curiae 11, n. 2. Under the Youngstown
tripartite framework, congressional acquiescence is perti
nent when the President’s action falls within the second cate
gory—that is, when he “acts in absence of either a con
gressional grant or denial of authority.” 343 U. S., at 637
(Jackson, J., concurring). Here, however, as we have ex
plained, the President’s effort to accord domestic effect to
the Avena judgment does not meet that prerequisite.
In any event, even if we were persuaded that congres
sional acquiescence could support the President’s asserted
authority to create domestic law pursuant to a non-self
executing treaty, such acquiescence does not exist here.
The United States first locates congressional acquiescence in
Congress’s failure to act following the President’s resolution
of prior ICJ controversies. A review of the Executive’s ac
tions in those prior cases, however, cannot support the claim
that Congress acquiesced in this particular exercise of Presi
dential authority, for none of them remotely involved trans
forming an international obligation into domestic law and
thereby displacing state law.14
14 Rather, in the Case Concerning Military and Paramilitary Activi
ties in and Against Nicaragua (Nicar. v. U. S.), 1986 I. C. J. 14 (Judgment
of June 27), the President determined that the United States would not
comply with the ICJ’s conclusion that the United States owed reparations
to Nicaragua. In the Case Concerning Delimitation of the Maritime

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The United States also directs us to the President’s “re
lated” statutory responsibilities and to his “established role”
in litigating foreign policy concerns as support for the Presi
dent’s asserted authority to give the ICJ’s decision in Avena
the force of domestic law. Brief for United States as Ami
cus Curiae 16–19. Congress has indeed authorized the
President to represent the United States before the United
Nations, the ICJ, and the Security Council, 22 U. S. C. § 287,
but the authority of the President to represent the United
Boundary in the Gulf of Maine Area (Can. v. U. S.), 1984 I. C. J. 246 (Judg
ment of Oct. 12), a federal agency—the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration—issued a final rule which complied with the ICJ’s bound
ary determination. The Case Concerning Rights of Nationals of the
United States of America in Morocco (Fr. v. U. S.), 1952 I. C. J. 176 (Judg
ment of Aug. 27), concerned the legal status of United States citizens liv
ing in Morocco; it was not enforced in United States courts.
The final two cases arose under the Vienna Convention. In the
LaGrand Case (F. R. G. v. U. S.), 2001 I. C. J. 466 (Judgment of June 27),
the ICJ ordered the review and reconsideration of convictions and sen
tences of German nationals denied consular notification. In response, the
State Department sent letters to the States “encouraging” them to con
sider the Vienna Convention in the clemency process. Brief for United
States as Amicus Curiae 20–21. Such encouragement did not give the
ICJ judgment direct effect as domestic law; thus, it cannot serve as prece
dent for doing so in which Congress might be said to have acquiesced. In
the Case Concerning the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations
(Para. v. U. S.), 1998 I. C. J. 248 (Judgment of Apr. 9), the ICJ issued a
provisional order, directing the United States to “take all measures at its
disposal to ensure that [Breard] is not executed pending the final decision
in [the ICJ’s] proceedings.” Breard, 523 U. S., at 374 (internal quotation
marks omitted; emphasis added). In response, the Secretary of State sent
a letter to the Governor of Virginia requesting that he stay Breard’s exe
cution. Id., at 378. When Paraguay sought a stay of execution from this
Court, the United States argued that it had taken every measure at its
disposal: because “our federal system imposes limits on the federal govern
ment’s ability to interfere with the criminal justice systems of the States,”
those measures included “only persuasion,” not “legal compulsion.” Brief
for United States as Amicus Curiae, O. T. 1997, No. 97–8214 (A–732), p. 51.
This of course is precedent contrary to the proposition asserted by the
Solicitor General in this case.

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530 MEDELLIN v. TEXAS
Opinion of the Court
States before such bodies speaks to the President’s interna
tional responsibilities, not any unilateral authority to create
domestic law. The authority expressly conferred by Con
gress in the international realm cannot be said to “invite”
the Presidential action at issue here. See Youngstown,
supra, at 637 (Jackson, J., concurring). At bottom, none of
the sources of authority identified by the United States sup
ports the President’s claim that Congress has acquiesced in
his asserted power to establish on his own federal law or to
override state law.
None of this is to say, however, that the combination of a
non-self-executing treaty and the lack of implementing legis
lation precludes the President from acting to comply with an
international treaty obligation. It is only to say that the
Executive cannot unilaterally execute a non-self-executing
treaty by giving it domestic effect. That is, the non-self
executing character of a treaty constrains the President’s
ability to comply with treaty commitments by unilaterally
making the treaty binding on domestic courts. The Presi
dent may comply with the treaty’s obligations by some other
means, so long as they are consistent with the Constitution.
But he may not rely upon a non-self-executing treaty to “es
tablish binding rules of decision that preempt contrary state
law.” Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 5.
2
We thus turn to the United States’ claim that—independ
ent of the United States’ treaty obligations—the Memoran
dum is a valid exercise of the President’s foreign affairs au
thority to resolve claims disputes with foreign nations. Id.,
at 12–16. The United States relies on a series of cases in
which this Court has upheld the authority of the President
to settle foreign claims pursuant to an executive agreement.
See Garamendi, 539 U. S., at 415; Dames & Moore, 453 U. S.,
at 679–680; United States v. Pink, 315 U. S. 203, 229 (1942);

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Opinion of the Court
United States v. Belmont, 301 U. S. 324, 330 (1937). In these
cases this Court has explained that, if pervasive enough, a
history of congressional acquiescence can be treated as a
“gloss on ‘Executive Power’ vested in the President by § 1
of Art. II.” Dames & Moore, supra, at 686 (some internal
quotation marks omitted).
This argument is of a different nature than the one re
jected above. Rather than relying on the United States’
treaty obligations, the President relies on an independent
source of authority in ordering Texas to put aside its proce
dural bar to successive habeas petitions. Nevertheless, we
find that our claims-settlement cases do not support the au
thority that the President asserts in this case.
The claims-settlement cases involve a narrow set of cir
cumstances: the making of executive agreements to settle
civil claims between American citizens and foreign govern
ments or foreign nationals. See, e. g., Belmont, supra, at
327. They are based on the view that “a systematic, un
broken, executive practice, long pursued to the knowledge
of the Congress and never before questioned,” can “raise
a presumption that the [action] had been [taken] in pursu
ance of its consent.” Dames & Moore, supra, at 686 (inter
nal quotation marks omitted). As this Court explained in
Garamendi:
“Making executive agreements to settle claims of Amer
ican nationals against foreign governments is a particu
larly longstanding practice . . . . Given the fact that
the practice goes back over 200 years, and has received
congressional acquiescence throughout its history, the
conclusion that the President’s control of foreign rela
tions includes the settlement of claims is indisputable.”
539 U. S., at 415 (internal quotation marks and brack
ets omitted).
Even still, the limitations on this source of executive power
are clearly set forth and the Court has been careful to note

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532 MEDELLIN v. TEXAS
Opinion of the Court
that “[p]ast practice does not, by itself, create power.”
Dames & Moore, supra, at 686.
The President’s Memorandum is not supported by a “par
ticularly longstanding practice” of congressional acquies
cence, see Garamendi, supra, at 415, but rather is what the
United States itself has described as “unprecedented action,”
Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae in Sanchez-
Llamas, O. T. 2005, Nos. 05–51 and 04–10566, pp. 29–30. In
deed, the Government has not identified a single instance in
which the President has attempted (or Congress has acqui
esced in) a Presidential directive issued to state courts, much
less one that reaches deep into the heart of the State’s police
powers and compels state courts to reopen final criminal
judgments and set aside neutrally applicable state laws.
Cf. Brecht v. Abrahamson, 507 U. S. 619, 635 (1993) (“States
possess primary authority for defining and enforcing the
criminal law” (quoting Engle v. Isaac, 456 U. S. 107, 128
(1982); internal quotation marks omitted)). The Executive’s
narrow and strictly limited authority to settle international
claims disputes pursuant to an executive agreement can
not stretch so far as to support the current Presidential
Memorandum.
3
Medellı´n argues that the President’s Memorandum is a
valid exercise of his “[T]ake Care” power. Brief for Peti
tioner 28. The United States, however, does not rely upon
the President’s responsibility to “take Care that the Laws
be faithfully executed.” U. S. Const., Art. II, § 3. We think
this a wise concession. This authority allows the President
to execute the laws, not make them. For the reasons we
have stated, the Avena judgment is not domestic law; accord
ingly, the President cannot rely on his Take Care powers
here.
The judgment of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals is
affirmed.
It is so ordered.

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Stevens, J., concurring in judgment
Justice Stevens, concurring in the judgment.
There is a great deal of wisdom in Justice Breyer’s dis
sent. I agree that the text and history of the Supremacy
Clause, as well as this Court’s treaty-related cases, do not
support a presumption against self-execution. See post, at
541–546. I also endorse the proposition that the Vienna
Convention on Consular Relations, Apr. 24, 1963, [1970] 21
U. S. T. 77, T. I. A. S. No. 6820, “is itself self-executing and
judicially enforceable.” Post, at 555. Moreover, I think
this case presents a closer question than the Court’s opinion
allows. In the end, however, I am persuaded that the rele
vant treaties do not authorize this Court to enforce the judg
ment of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in Case Con
cerning Avena and Other Mexican Nationals (Mex. v.
U. S.), 2004 I. C. J. 12 (Judgment of Mar. 31) (Avena).
The source of the United States’ obligation to comply with
judgments of the ICJ is found in Article 94(1) of the United
Nations Charter, which was ratified in 1945. Article 94(1)
provides that “[e]ach Member of the United Nations under
takes to comply with the decision of the [ICJ] in any case to
which it is a party.” 59 Stat. 1051, T. S. No. 993 (emphasis
added). In my view, the words “undertakes to comply”—
while not the model of either a self-executing or a non
self-executing commitment—are most naturally read as a
promise to take additional steps to enforce ICJ judgments.
Unlike the text of some other treaties, the terms of the
United Nations Charter do not necessarily incorporate inter
national judgments into domestic law. Cf., e. g., United Na
tions Convention on the Law of the Sea, Annex VI, Art. 39,
Dec. 10, 1982, S. Treaty Doc. No. 103–39, 1833 U. N. T. S. 570
(“[D]ecisions of the [Seabed Disputes] Chamber shall be en
forceable in the territories of the States Parties in the same
manner as judgments or orders of the highest court of the
State Party in whose territory the enforcement is sought”).
Moreover, Congress has passed implementing legislation to
ensure the enforcement of other international judgments,

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534 MEDELLIN v. TEXAS
Stevens, J., concurring in judgment
even when the operative treaty provisions use far more man
datory language than “undertakes to comply.” 1
On the other hand Article 94(1) does not contain the kind
of unambiguous language foreclosing self-execution that is
found in other treaties. The obligation to undertake to com
ply with ICJ decisions is more consistent with self-execution
than, for example, an obligation to enact legislation. Cf.,
e. g., International Plant Protection Convention, Art. I,
Dec. 6, 1951, [1972] 23 U. S. T. 2770, T. I. A. S. No. 7465
(“[T]he contracting Governments undertake to adopt the leg
islative, technical and administrative measures specified in
this Convention”). Furthermore, whereas the Senate has
issued declarations of non-self-execution when ratifying
some treaties, it did not do so with respect to the United
Nations Charter.2
Absent a presumption one way or the other, the best read
ing of the words “undertakes to comply” is, in my judgment,
one that contemplates future action by the political branches.
I agree with the dissenters that “Congress is unlikely to au
thorize automatic judicial enforceability of all ICJ judg
ments, for that could include some politically sensitive judg
1 See, e. g., Convention on the Settlement of Investment Disputes be
tween States and Nationals of Other States (ICSID Convention), ch. IV,
§ 6, Art. 54(1), Mar. 18, 1965, [1966] 17 U. S. T. 1291, T. I. A. S. No. 6090
(“Each Contracting State shall recognize an award rendered pursuant to
this Convention as binding and enforce the pecuniary obligations imposed
by that award within its territories as if it were a final judgment of a
court in that State”); 22 U. S. C. § 1650a (“An award of an arbitral tribunal
rendered pursuant to chapter IV of the [ICSID Convention] shall create a
right arising under a treaty of the United States. The pecuniary obliga
tions imposed by such an award shall be enforced and shall be given the
same full faith and credit as if the award were a final judgment of a court
of general jurisdiction of one of the several States”).
2 Cf., e. g., U. S. Reservations, Declarations and Understandings, Inter
national Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 138 Cong. Rec. 8071 (1992)
(“[T]he United States declares that the provisions of Articles 1 through
27 of the Covenant are not self-executing”).

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Stevens, J., concurring in judgment
ments and others better suited for enforcement by other
branches.” Post, at 560. But this concern counsels in favor
of reading any ambiguity in Article 94(1) as leaving the
choice of whether to comply with ICJ judgments, and in
what manner, “to the political, not the judicial department.”
Foster v. Neilson, 2 Pet. 253, 314 (1829).3
The additional treaty provisions cited by the dissent do
not suggest otherwise. In an annex to the United Nations
Charter, the Statute of the International Court of Justice
(ICJ Statute) states that a decision of the ICJ “has no bind
ing force except between the parties and in respect of that
particular case.” Art. 59, 59 Stat. 1062. Because I read
that provision as confining, not expanding, the effect of ICJ
judgments, it does not make the undertaking to comply with
such judgments any more enforceable than the terms of Arti
cle 94(1) itself. That the judgment is “binding” as a matter
of international law says nothing about its domestic legal
effect. Nor in my opinion does the reference to “compulsory
jurisdiction” in the Optional Protocol Concerning the Com
pulsory Settlement of Disputes to the Vienna Convention,
Art. I, Apr. 24, 1963, [1970] 21 U. S. T. 325, T. I. A. S.
No. 6820, shed any light on the matter. This provision
merely secures the consent of signatory nations to the spe
cific jurisdiction of the ICJ with respect to claims arising out
of the Vienna Convention. See ICJ Statute, Art. 36(1), 59
Stat. 1060 (“The jurisdiction of the Court comprises . . . all
matters specially provided for . . . in treaties and conventions
in force”).
3 Congress’ implementation options are broader than the dissent sug
gests. In addition to legislating judgment by judgment, enforcing all
judgments indiscriminately, and devising “legislative bright lines,” post,
at 560, Congress could, for example, make ICJ judgments enforceable
upon the expiration of a waiting period that gives the political branches an
opportunity to intervene. Cf., e. g., 16 U. S. C. § 1823 (imposing a 120-day
waiting period before international fishery agreements take effect).

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536 MEDELLIN v. TEXAS
Stevens, J., concurring in judgment
Even though the ICJ’s judgment in Avena is not “the su
preme Law of the Land,” U. S. Const., Art. VI, cl. 2, no one
disputes that it constitutes an international law obligation on
the part of the United States, ante, at 504. By issuing a
memorandum declaring that state courts should give effect
to the judgment in Avena, the President made a commend
able attempt to induce the States to discharge the Nation’s
obligation. I agree with the Texas judges and the majority
of this Court that the President’s memorandum is not bind
ing law. Nonetheless, the fact that the President cannot leg
islate unilaterally does not absolve the United States from
its promise to take action necessary to comply with the
ICJ’s judgment.
Under the express terms of the Supremacy Clause, the
United States’ obligation to “undertak[e] to comply” with the
ICJ’s decision falls on each of the States as well as the Fed
eral Government. One consequence of our form of govern
ment is that sometimes States must shoulder the primary
responsibility for protecting the honor and integrity of the
Nation. Texas’ duty in this respect is all the greater since
it was Texas that—by failing to provide consular notice
in accordance with the Vienna Convention—ensnared the
United States in the current controversy. Having already
put the Nation in breach of one treaty, it is now up to Texas
to prevent the breach of another.
The decision in Avena merely obligates the United States
“to provide, by means of its own choosing, review and recon
sideration of the convictions and sentences of the [affected]
Mexican nationals,” 2004 I. C. J., at 72, ¶ 153(9), “with a view
to ascertaining” whether the failure to provide proper notice
to consular officials “caused actual prejudice to the defendant
in the process of administration of criminal justice,” id., at
60, ¶ 121. The cost to Texas of complying with Avena would
be minimal, particularly given the remote likelihood that the
violation of the Vienna Convention actually prejudiced Jose´

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537 Cite as: 552 U. S. 491 (2008)
Stevens, J., concurring in judgment
Ernesto Medellı´n. See ante, at 500–502, and n. 1. It is a
cost that the State of Oklahoma unhesitatingly assumed.4
On the other hand, the costs of refusing to respect the
ICJ’s judgment are significant. The entire Court and the
President agree that breach will jeopardize the United
States’ “plainly compelling” interests in “ensuring the recip
rocal observance of the Vienna Convention, protecting rela
tions with foreign governments, and demonstrating commit
ment to the role of international law.” Ante, at 524. When
the honor of the Nation is balanced against the modest cost
of compliance, Texas would do well to recognize that more is
at stake than whether judgments of the ICJ, and the princi
pled admonitions of the President of the United States,
trump state procedural rules in the absence of implement
ing legislation.
The Court’s judgment, which I join, does not foreclose fur
ther appropriate action by the State of Texas.
4 In Avena, the ICJ expressed “great concern” that Oklahoma had set
the date of execution for one of the Mexican nationals involved in the
judgment, Osbaldo Torres, for May 18, 2004. 2004 I. C. J., at 28, ¶ 21.
Responding to Avena, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals stayed
Torres’ execution and ordered an evidentiary hearing on whether Torres
had been prejudiced by the lack of consular notification. See Torres v.
State, No. PCD–04–442 (May 13, 2004), 43 I. L. M. 1227. On the same day,
the Governor of Oklahoma commuted Torres’ death sentence to life with
out the possibility of parole, stressing that (1) the United States signed
the Vienna Convention, (2) that treaty is “important in protecting the
rights of American citizens abroad,” (3) the ICJ ruled that Torres’ rights
had been violated, and (4) the U. S. State Department urged his office to
give careful consideration to the United States’ treaty obligations. See
Office of Governor Brad Henry, Press Release: Gov. Henry Grants Clem
ency to Death Row Inmate Torres (May 13, 2004), online at http://www.ok.
gov/governor/display_article.php?article_id=301&article_type=1 (as vis
ited Mar. 20, 2008, and available in Clerk of Court’s case file). After the
evidentiary hearing, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals held that
Torres had failed to establish prejudice with respect to the guilt phase of
his trial, and that any prejudice with respect to the sentencing phase had
been mooted by the commutation order. Torres v. State, 120 P. 3d 1184
(2005).

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538 MEDELLIN v. TEXAS
Breyer, J., dissenting
Justice Breyer, with whom Justice Souter and Jus
tice Ginsburg join, dissenting.
The Constitution’s Supremacy Clause provides that “all
Treaties . . . which shall be made . . . under the Authority of
the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land;
and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby.”
Art. VI, cl. 2. The Clause means that the “courts” must
regard “a treaty . . . as equivalent to an act of the legislature,
whenever it operates of itself without the aid of any legisla
tive provision.” Foster v. Neilson, 2 Pet. 253, 314 (1829)
(majority opinion of Marshall, C. J.).
In the Avena case the International Court of Justice (ICJ)
(interpreting and applying the Vienna Convention on Con
sular Relations) issued a judgment that requires the United
States to reexamine certain criminal proceedings in the
cases of 51 Mexican nationals. Case Concerning Avena and
Other Mexican Nationals (Mex. v. U. S.), 2004 I. C. J. 12
(Judgment of Mar. 31) (Avena). The question here is
whether the ICJ’s Avena judgment is enforceable now as a
matter of domestic law, i. e., whether it “operates of itself
without the aid” of any further legislation.
The United States has signed and ratified a series of trea
ties obliging it to comply with ICJ judgments in cases in
which it has given its consent to the exercise of the ICJ’s
adjudicatory authority. Specifically, the United States has
agreed to submit, in this kind of case, to the ICJ’s “compul
sory jurisdiction” for purposes of “compulsory settlement.”
Optional Protocol Concerning the Compulsory Settlement of
Disputes (Optional Protocol or Protocol), Art. I, Apr. 24,
1963, [1970] 21 U. S. T. 326, T. I. A. S. No. 6820 (capitalization
altered). And it agreed that the ICJ’s judgments would
have “binding force . . . between the parties and in respect
of [a] particular case.” United Nations Charter, Art. 59, 59
Stat. 1062, T. S. No. 993 (1945). President Bush has deter
mined that domestic courts should enforce this particular
ICJ judgment. Memorandum for the Attorney General

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Breyer, J., dissenting
(Feb. 28, 2005), App. to Pet. for Cert. 187a (hereinafter Presi
dent’s Memorandum). And Congress has done nothing to
suggest the contrary. Under these circumstances, I believe
the treaty obligations, and hence the judgment, resting as
it does upon the consent of the United States to the ICJ’s
jurisdiction, bind the courts no less than would “an act of the
[federal] legislature.” Foster, supra, at 314.
I
To understand the issue before us, the reader must keep
in mind three separate ratified United States treaties and
one ICJ judgment against the United States. The first
treaty, the Vienna Convention, contains two relevant provi
sions. The first requires the United States and other signa
tory nations to inform arrested foreign nationals of their sep
arate Convention-given right to contact their nation’s consul.
The second says that these rights (of an arrested person)
“shall be exercised in conformity with the laws and regula
tions” of the arresting nation, provided that the “laws and
regulations . . . enable full effect to be given to the purposes
for which” those “rights . . . are intended.” See Vienna Con
vention on Consular Relations, Arts. 36(1)(b), 36(2), Apr. 24,
1963, [1970] 21 U. S. T. 100–101 (emphasis added).
The second treaty, the Optional Protocol, concerns the
“compulsory settlement” of Vienna Convention disputes. 21
U. S. T., at 326. It provides that for parties that elect to
subscribe to the Protocol, “[d]isputes arising out of the inter
pretation or application of the [Vienna] Convention” shall be
submitted to the “compulsory jurisdiction of the Interna
tional Court of Justice.” Art. I, ibid. It authorizes any
party that has consented to the ICJ’s jurisdiction (by signing
the Optional Protocol) to bring another such party before
that Court. Ibid.
The third treaty, the United Nations Charter, says that
every signatory nation “undertakes to comply with the deci
sion of the International Court of Justice in any case to

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540 MEDELLIN v. TEXAS
Breyer, J., dissenting
which it is a party.” Art. 94(1), 59 Stat. 1051. In an annex
to the Charter, the Statute of the International Court of Jus
tice (ICJ Statute) states that an ICJ judgment has “binding
force . . . between the parties and in respect of that particular
case.” Art. 59, id., at 1062. See also Art. 60, id., at 1063
(ICJ “judgment is final and without appeal”).
The judgment at issue is the ICJ’s judgment in Avena, a
case that Mexico brought against the United States on behalf
of 52 nationals arrested in different States on different crimi
nal charges. 2004 I. C. J., at 39. Mexico claimed that state
authorities within the United States had failed to notify the
arrested persons of their Vienna Convention rights and, by
applying state procedural law in a manner which did not give
full effect to the Vienna Convention rights, had deprived
them of an appropriate remedy. Ibid. The ICJ judgment
in Avena requires that the United States reexamine “by
means of its own choosing” certain aspects of the relevant
state criminal proceedings of 51 of these individual Mexican
nationals. Id., at 62, ¶ 129 (internal quotation marks omit
ted). The President has determined that this should be
done. See President’s Memorandum.
The critical question here is whether the Supremacy
Clause requires Texas to follow, i. e., to enforce, this ICJ
judgment. The Court says “no.” And it reaches its nega
tive answer by interpreting the labyrinth of treaty provi
sions as creating a legal obligation that binds the United
States internationally, but which, for Supremacy Clause pur
poses, is not automatically enforceable as domestic law. In
the majority’s view, the Optional Protocol simply sends the
dispute to the ICJ; the ICJ Statute says that the ICJ will
subsequently reach a judgment; and the U. N. Charter con
tains no more than a promise to “ ‘undertak[e] to comply’ ”
with that judgment. Ante, at 500. Such a promise, the ma
jority says, does not as a domestic-law matter (in Chief Jus
tice Marshall’s words) “operat[e] of itself without the aid of
any legislative provision.” Foster, supra, at 314. Rather,

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Breyer, J., dissenting
here (and presumably in any other ICJ judgment rendered
pursuant to any of the approximately 70 U. S. treaties in
force that contain similar provisions for submitting treaty
based disputes to the ICJ for decisions that bind the parties)
Congress must enact specific legislation before ICJ judg
ments entered pursuant to our consent to compulsory ICJ
jurisdiction can become domestic law. See Brief for Inter
national Court of Justice Experts as Amici Curiae 18 (“Ap
proximately 70 U. S. treaties now in force contain obligations
comparable to those in the Optional Protocol for submission
of treaty-based disputes to the ICJ”); see also id., at 18, n. 25.
In my view, the President has correctly determined that
Congress need not enact additional legislation. The major
ity places too much weight upon treaty language that says
little about the matter. The words “ ‘undertak[e] to com
ply,’ ” for example, do not tell us whether an ICJ judgment
rendered pursuant to the parties’ consent to compulsory ICJ
jurisdiction does, or does not, automatically become part of
our domestic law. To answer that question we must look
instead to our own domestic law, in particular, to the many
treaty-related cases interpreting the Supremacy Clause.
Those cases, including some written by Justices well aware
of the Founders’ original intent, lead to the conclusion that
the ICJ judgment before us is enforceable as a matter of
domestic law without further legislation.
A
Supreme Court case law stretching back more than 200
years helps explain what, for present purposes, the Founders
meant when they wrote that “all Treaties . . . shall be the
supreme Law of the Land.” Art. VI, cl. 2. In 1796, for
example, the Court decided the case of Ware v. Hylton, 3
Dall. 199. A British creditor sought payment of an Ameri
can’s Revolutionary War debt. The debtor argued that he
had, under Virginia law, repaid the debt by complying with
a state statute enacted during the Revolutionary War that

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Breyer, J., dissenting
required debtors to repay money owed to British creditors
into a Virginia state fund. Id., at 220–221 (opinion of Chase,
J.). The creditor, however, claimed that this state
sanctioned repayment did not count because a provision of
the 1783 Paris Peace Treaty between Britain and the United
States said that “ ‘the creditors of either side should meet
with no lawful impediment to the recovery of the full
value . . . of all bona fide debts, theretofore contracted’ ”; and
that provision, the creditor argued, effectively nullified the
state law. Id., at 203–204 (Reporter’s Summary). The
Court, with each Justice writing separately, agreed with the
British creditor, held the Virginia statute invalid, and found
that the American debtor remained liable for the debt.
Id., at 285.
The key fact relevant here is that Congress had not
enacted a specific statute enforcing the treaty provision at
issue. Hence the Court had to decide whether the provision
was (to put the matter in present terms) “self-executing.”
Justice Iredell, a member of North Carolina’s Ratifying Con
vention, addressed the matter specifically, setting forth
views on which Justice Story later relied to explain the
Founders’ reasons for drafting the Supremacy Clause. 3 J.
Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United
States 696–697 (1833) (hereinafter Story). See Va´ zquez,
The Four Doctrines of Self-Executing Treaties, 89 Am. J.
Int’l L. 695, 697–700 (1995) (hereinafter Va´ zquez) (describing
the history and purpose of the Supremacy Clause). See also
Flaherty, History Right?: Historical Scholarship, Original
Understanding, and Treaties as “Supreme Law of the Land,”
99 Colum. L. Rev. 2095 (1999) (contending that the Founders
crafted the Supremacy Clause to make ratified treaties self
executing). But see Yoo, Globalism and the Constitution:
Treaties, Non-Self-Execution, and the Original Understand
ing, 99 Colum. L. Rev. 1955 (1999).
Justice Iredell pointed out that some treaty provisions,
those, for example, declaring the United States an independ

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Breyer, J., dissenting
ent Nation or acknowledging its right to navigate the Missis
sippi River, were “executed,” taking effect automatically
upon ratification. 3 Dall., at 272. Other provisions were
“executory,” in the sense that they were “to be carried into
execution” by each signatory nation “in the manner which
the Constitution of that nation prescribes.” Ibid. Before
adoption of the U. S. Constitution, all such provisions would
have taken effect as domestic law only if Congress on the
American side, or Parliament on the British side, had written
them into domestic law. Id., at 274–277.
But, Justice Iredell adds, after the Constitution’s adoption,
while further parliamentary action remained necessary in
Britain (where the “practice” of the need for an “act of parlia
ment” in respect to “any thing of a legislative nature” had
“been constantly observed,” id., at 275–276), further legisla
tive action in respect to the treaty’s debt-collection provision
was no longer necessary in the United States. Id., at 276–
277. The ratification of the Constitution with its Supremacy
Clause means that treaty provisions that bind the United
States may (and in this instance did) also enter domestic law
without further congressional action and automatically bind
the States and courts as well. Id., at 277.
“Under this Constitution,” Justice Iredell concluded, “so
far as a treaty constitutionally is binding, upon principles of
moral obligation, it is also by the vigour of its own authority
to be executed in fact. It would not otherwise be the Su
preme law in the new sense provided for.” Ibid.; see also
Story, § 1833, at 697 (noting that the Supremacy Clause’s lan
guage was crafted to make the Clause’s “obligation more
strongly felt by the state judges” and to “remov[e] every
pretense” by which they could “escape from [its] controlling
power”); see also The Federalist No. 42, p. 264 (C. Rossiter
ed. 1961) (J. Madison) (Supremacy Clause “disembarrassed”
the Convention of the problem presented by the Articles
of Confederation where “treaties might be substan
tially frustrated by regulations of the States”). Justice Ire

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dell gave examples of provisions that would no longer re
quire further legislative action, such as those requiring the
release of prisoners, those forbidding war-related “ ‘future
confiscations’ ” and “ ‘prosecutions,’ ” and, of course, the spe
cific debt-collection provision at issue in the Ware case itself.
3 Dall., at 273, 277.
Some 30 years later, the Court returned to the “self
execution” problem. In Foster, 2 Pet. 253, the Court exam
ined a provision in an 1819 treaty with Spain ceding Florida
to the United States; the provision said that “ ‘grants of land
made’ ” by Spain before January 24, 1818, “ ‘shall be ratified
and confirmed’ ” to the grantee. Id., at 310. Chief Justice
Marshall, writing for the Court, noted that, as a general mat
ter, one might expect a signatory nation to execute a treaty
through a formal exercise of its domestic sovereign authority
(e. g., through an act of the legislature). Id., at 314. But
in the United States “a different principle” applies. Ibid.
(emphasis added). The Supremacy Clause means that, here,
a treaty is “the law of the land . . . to be regarded in Courts
of justice as equivalent to an act of the legislature” and “op
erates of itself without the aid of any legislative provision”
unless it specifically contemplates execution by the legisla
ture and thereby “addresses itself to the political, not the
judicial department.” Ibid. (emphasis added). The Court
decided that the treaty provision in question was not self
executing; in its view, the words “shall be ratified” demon
strated that the provision foresaw further legislative action.
Id., at 315.
The Court, however, changed its mind about the result in
Foster four years later, after being shown a less legislatively
oriented, less tentative, but equally authentic Spanish
language version of the treaty. See United States v. Perche
man, 7 Pet. 51, 88–89 (1833). And by 1840, instances in
which treaty provisions automatically became part of domes
tic law were common enough for one Justice to write that “it
would be a bold proposition” to assert “that an act of Con

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gress must be first passed” in order to give a treaty effect
as “a supreme law of the land.” Lessee of Pollard’s Heirs
v. Kibbe, 14 Pet. 353, 388 (1840) (Baldwin, J., concurring).
Since Foster and Pollard, this Court has frequently held or
assumed that particular treaty provisions are self-executing,
automatically binding the States without more. See Appen
dix A, infra (listing, as examples, 29 such cases, including
12 concluding that the treaty provision invalidates state or
territorial law or policy as a consequence). See also Wu,
Treaties’ Domains, 93 Va. L. Rev. 571, 583–584 (2007) (con
cluding “enforcement against States is the primary and his
torically most significant type of treaty enforcement in the
United States”). As far as I can tell, the Court has held to
the contrary only in two cases: Foster, supra, which was later
reversed, and Cameron Septic Tank Co. v. Knoxville, 227
U. S. 39 (1913), where specific congressional actions indicated
that Congress thought further legislation necessary. See
also Va´ zquez 716. The Court has found “self-executing”
provisions in multilateral treaties as well as bilateral trea
ties. See, e. g., Trans World Airlines, Inc. v. Franklin Mint
Corp., 466 U. S. 243, 252 (1984); Bacardi Corp. of America v.
Domenech, 311 U. S. 150, 160, and n. 9, 161 (1940). And the
subject matter of such provisions has varied widely, from
extradition, see, e. g., United States v. Rauscher, 119 U. S.
407, 411–412 (1886), to criminal trial jurisdiction, see Wilden
hus’s Case, 120 U. S. 1, 11, 17–18 (1887), to civil liability, see,
e. g., El Al Israel Airlines, Ltd. v. Tsui Yuan Tseng, 525 U. S.
155, 161–163 (1999), to trademark infringement, see Bacardi,
supra, at 160, and n. 9, 161, to an alien’s freedom to engage
in trade, see, e. g., Jordan v. Tashiro, 278 U. S. 123, 126, n. 1
(1928), to immunity from state taxation, see Nielsen v. John
son, 279 U. S. 47, 50, 58 (1929), to land ownership, Perche
man, supra, at 88–89, and to inheritance, see, e. g., Kolovrat
v. Oregon, 366 U. S. 187, 191, n. 6, 198 (1961).
Of particular relevance to the present case, the Court has
held that the United States may be obligated by treaty to

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comply with the judgment of an international tribunal inter
preting that treaty, despite the absence of any congressional
enactment specifically requiring such compliance. See Com
egys v. Vasse, 1 Pet. 193, 211–212 (1828) (holding that decision
of tribunal rendered pursuant to a United States-Spain
treaty, which obliged the parties to “undertake to make sat
isfaction” of treaty-based rights, was “conclusive and final”
and “not re-examinable” in American courts); see also Meade
v. United States, 9 Wall. 691, 725 (1870) (holding that decision
of tribunal adjudicating claims arising under United States-
Spain treaty “was final and conclusive, and bar[red] a recov
ery upon the merits” in American court).
All of these cases make clear that self-executing treaty
provisions are not uncommon or peculiar creatures of our
domestic law; that they cover a wide range of subjects; that
the Supremacy Clause itself answers the self-execution ques
tion by applying many, but not all, treaty provisions directly
to the States; and that the Clause answers the self-execution
question differently than does the law in many other nations.
See supra, at 541–545 and this page. The cases also provide
criteria that help determine which provisions automatically
so apply—a matter to which I now turn.
B
1
The case law provides no simple magic answer to the ques
tion whether a particular treaty provision is self-executing.
But the case law does make clear that, insofar as today’s
majority looks for language about “self-execution” in the
treaty itself and insofar as it erects “clear statement”
presumptions designed to help find an answer, it is mis
guided. See, e. g., ante, at 517 (expecting “clea[r] state
[ment]” of parties’ intent where treaty obligation “may inter
fere with state procedural rules”); ante, at 526 (for treaty
to be self-executing, Executive should at drafting “ensur[e]
that it contains language plainly providing for domestic
enforceability”).

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The many treaty provisions that this Court has found self
executing contain no textual language on the point (see Ap
pendix A, infra). Few, if any, of these provisions are clear.
See, e. g., Ware, 3 Dall., at 273 (opinion of Iredell, J.). Those
that displace state law in respect to such quintessential state
matters as, say, property, inheritance, or debt repayment,
lack the “clea[r] state[ment]” that the Court today apparently
requires. Compare ante, at 517 (majority expects “clea[r]
state[ment]” of parties’ intent where treaty obligation “may
interfere with state procedural rules”). This is also true of
those cases that deal with state rules roughly comparable to
the sort that the majority suggests require special accommo
dation. See, e. g., Hopkirk v. Bell, 3 Cranch 454, 457–458
(1806) (treaty pre-empts Virginia state statute of limita
tions). Cf. ante, at 517 (setting forth majority’s reliance on
case law that is apparently inapposite). These many Su
preme Court cases finding treaty provisions to be self
executing cannot be reconciled with the majority’s demand
for textual clarity.
Indeed, the majority does not point to a single ratified
United States treaty that contains the kind of “clea[r]” or
“plai[n]” textual indication for which the majority searches.
Ante, at 517, 526. Justice Stevens’ reliance upon one rati
fied and one un-ratified treaty to make the point that a
treaty could speak clearly on the matter of self-execution,
see ante, at 533–534, and n. 1 (opinion concurring in judg
ment), does suggest that there are a few such treaties. But
that simply highlights how few of them actually do speak
clearly on the matter. And that is not because the United
States never, or hardly ever, has entered into a treaty with
self-executing provisions. The case law belies any such con
clusion. Rather, it is because the issue whether further leg
islative action is required before a treaty provision takes
domestic effect in a signatory nation is often a matter of
how that nation’s domestic law regards the provision’s legal
status. And that domestic status-determining law differs
markedly from one nation to another. See generally Hollis,

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Comparative Approach to Treaty Law and Practice, in
National Treaty Law and Practice 1, 9–50 (D. Hollis,
M. Blakeslee, & L. Ederington eds. 2005) (hereinafter Hollis).
As Justice Iredell pointed out 200 years ago, Britain, for ex
ample, taking the view that the British Crown makes trea
ties but Parliament makes domestic law, virtually always
requires parliamentary legislation. See Ware, supra, at
274–277; Sinclair, Dickson, & Maciver, United Kingdom, in
National Treaty Law and Practice, supra, at 727, 733, and
n. 9 (in Britain, “ ‘treaties are not self-executing’ ” (citing
Queen v. Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth
Affairs, ex parte Lord Rees-Mogg, [1994] Q. B. 552 (1993))).
See also Torruella, The Insular Cases: The Establishment of
a Regime of Political Apartheid, 29 U. Pa. J. Int’l L. 283,
337 (2007). On the other hand, the United States, with its
Supremacy Clause, does not take Britain’s view. See, e. g.,
Ware, supra, at 277 (opinion of Iredell, J.). And the law of
other nations, the Netherlands for example, directly incor
porates many treaties concluded by the executive into its
domestic law even without explicit parliamentary approval
of the treaty. See Brouwer, The Netherlands, in National
Treaty Law and Practice, supra, at 483, 483–502.
The majority correctly notes that the treaties do not ex
plicitly state that the relevant obligations are self-executing.
But given the differences among nations, why would drafters
write treaty language stating that a provision about, say,
alien property inheritance, is self-executing? How could
those drafters achieve agreement when one signatory nation
follows one tradition and a second follows another? Why
would such a difference matter sufficiently for drafters to try
to secure language that would prevent, for example, Britain’s
following treaty ratification with a further law while (per
haps unnecessarily) insisting that the United States apply
a treaty provision without further domestic legislation?
Above all, what does the absence of specific language about

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“self-execution” prove? It may reflect the drafters’ aware
ness of national differences. It may reflect the practical fact
that drafters, favoring speedy, effective implementation, con
clude they should best leave national legal practices alone.
It may reflect the fact that achieving international agree
ment on this point is simply a game not worth the candle.
In a word, for present purposes, the absence or presence of
language in a treaty about a provision’s self-execution proves
nothing at all. At best the Court is hunting the snark. At
worst it erects legalistic hurdles that can threaten the appli
cation of provisions in many existing commercial and other
treaties and make it more difficult to negotiate new ones.
(For examples, see Appendix B, infra.)
2
The case law also suggests practical, context-specific crite
ria that this Court has previously used to help determine
whether, for Supremacy Clause purposes, a treaty provision
is self-executing. The provision’s text matters very much.
Cf. ante, at 514–516. But that is not because it contains lan
guage that explicitly refers to self-execution. For reasons I
have already explained, Part I–B–1, supra, one should not
expect that kind of textual statement. Drafting history is
also relevant. But, again, that is not because it will explic
itly address the relevant question. Instead text and history,
along with subject matter and related characteristics, will
help our courts determine whether, as Chief Justice Mar
shall put it, the treaty provision “addresses itself to the
political . . . department[s]” for further action or to “the judi
cial department” for direct enforcement. Foster, 2 Pet., at
314; see also Ware, 3 Dall., at 244 (opinion of Chase, J.) (“No
one can doubt that a treaty may stipulate, that certain acts
shall be done by the Legislature; that other acts shall be
done by the Executive; and others by the Judiciary”).
In making this determination, this Court has found the
provision’s subject matter of particular importance. Does

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the treaty provision declare peace? Does it promise not to
engage in hostilities? If so, it addresses itself to the political
branches. See id., at 259–262 (opinion of Iredell, J.). Al
ternatively, does it concern the adjudication of traditional
private legal rights such as rights to own property, to con
duct a business, or to obtain civil tort recovery? If so, it
may well address itself to the judiciary. Enforcing such
rights and setting their boundaries is the bread-and-butter
work of the courts. See, e. g., Clark v. Allen, 331 U. S. 503
(1947) (treating provision with such subject matter as self
executing); Asakura v. Seattle, 265 U. S. 332 (1924) (same).
One might also ask whether the treaty provision confers
specific, detailed individual legal rights. Does it set forth
definite standards that judges can readily enforce? Other
things being equal, where rights are specific and readily en
forceable, the treaty provision more likely “addresses” the
judiciary. See, e. g., Olympic Airways v. Husain, 540 U. S.
644 (2004) (specific conditions for air-carrier civil liability);
Geofroy v. Riggs, 133 U. S. 258 (1890) (French citizens’ inher
itance rights). Cf. Foster, supra, at 314–315 (treaty provi
sion stating that landholders’ titles “shall be ratified and con
firmed” foresees legislative action).
Alternatively, would direct enforcement require the courts
to create a new cause of action? Would such enforcement
engender constitutional controversy? Would it create con
stitutionally undesirable conflict with the other branches?
In such circumstances, it is not likely that the provision con
templates direct judicial enforcement. See, e. g., Asakura,
supra, at 341 (although “not limited by any express provision
of the Constitution,” the treaty-making power of the United
States “does not extend ‘so far as to authorize what the Con
stitution forbids’ ”).
Such questions, drawn from case law stretching back 200
years, do not create a simple test, let alone a magic formula.
But they do help to constitute a practical, context-specific
judicial approach, seeking to separate run-of-the-mill judicial

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matters from other matters, sometimes more politically
charged, sometimes more clearly the responsibility of other
branches, sometimes lacking those attributes that would per
mit courts to act on their own without more ado. And such
an approach is all that we need to find an answer to the legal
question now before us.
C
Applying the approach just described, I would find the rel
evant treaty provisions self-executing as applied to the ICJ
judgment before us (giving that judgment domestic legal ef
fect) for the following reasons, taken together.
First, the language of the relevant treaties strongly sup
ports direct judicial enforceability, at least of judgments of
the kind at issue here. The Optional Protocol bears the title
“Compulsory Settlement of Disputes,” thereby emphasizing
the mandatory and binding nature of the procedures it sets
forth. 21 U. S. T., at 326. The body of the Protocol says
specifically that “any party” that has consented to the ICJ’s
“compulsory jurisdiction” may bring a “dispute” before the
court against any other such party. Art. I, ibid. And the
Protocol contrasts proceedings of the compulsory kind with
an alternative “conciliation procedure,” the recommenda
tions of which a party may decide “not” to “accep[t].”
Art. III, id., at 327. Thus, the Optional Protocol’s basic ob
jective is not just to provide a forum for settlement but to
provide a forum for compulsory settlement.
Moreover, in accepting Article 94(1) of the Charter, “[e]ach
Member . . . undertakes to comply with the decision” of the
ICJ “in any case to which it is a party.” 59 Stat. 1051. And
the ICJ Statute (part of the U. N. Charter) makes clear that
a decision of the ICJ between parties that have consented to
the ICJ’s compulsory jurisdiction has “binding force . . . be
tween the parties and in respect of that particular case.”
Art. 59, id., at 1062 (emphasis added). Enforcement of a
court’s judgment that has “binding force” involves quintes
sential judicial activity.

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True, neither the Protocol nor the Charter explicitly states
that the obligation to comply with an ICJ judgment automat
ically binds a party as a matter of domestic law without
further domestic legislation. But how could the language
of those documents do otherwise? The treaties are multilat
eral. And, as I have explained, some signatories follow
British further-legislation-always-needed principles, others
follow United States Supremacy Clause principles, and still
others, e. g., the Netherlands, can directly incorporate treaty
provisions into their domestic law in particular circum
stances. See Hollis 9–50. Why, given national differences,
would drafters, seeking as strong a legal obligation as is
practically attainable, use treaty language that requires all
signatories to adopt uniform domestic-law treatment in this
respect?
The absence of that likely unobtainable language can make
no difference. We are considering the language for pur
poses of applying the Supremacy Clause. And for that pur
pose, this Court has found to be self-executing multilateral
treaty language that is far less direct or forceful (on the rele
vant point) than the language set forth in the present trea
ties. See, e. g., Trans World Airlines, 466 U. S., at 247, 252;
Bacardi, 311 U. S., at 160, and n. 9, 161. The language here
in effect tells signatory nations to make an ICJ compulsory
jurisdiction judgment “as binding as you can.” Thus, as
suming other factors favor self-execution, the language adds,
rather than subtracts, support.
Indeed, as I have said, supra, at 540–541, the United
States has ratified approximately 70 treaties with ICJ dis
pute resolution provisions roughly similar to those contained
in the Optional Protocol; many of those treaties contemplate
ICJ adjudication of the sort of substantive matters (prop
erty, commercial dealings, and the like) that the Court has
found self-executing, or otherwise appear addressed to the
judicial branch. See Appendix B, infra. None of the ICJ
provisions in these treaties contains stronger language about

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self-execution than the language at issue here. See, e. g.,
Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation between
the United States of America and the Kingdom of Denmark,
Art. XXIV(2), Oct. 1, 1951, [1961] 12 U. S. T. 935, T. I. A. S.
No. 4797 (“Any dispute between the Parties as to the in
terpretation or application of the present Treaty, not satis
factorily adjusted by diplomacy, shall be submitted to the
International Court of Justice, unless the Parties agree to
settlement by some other pacific means”). In signing these
treaties (in respect to, say, alien land ownership provisions)
was the United States engaging in a near useless act? Does
the majority believe the drafters expected Congress to enact
further legislation about, say, an alien’s inheritance rights,
decision by decision?
I recognize, as the majority emphasizes, that the U. N.
Charter uses the words “undertakes to comply,” rather than,
say, “shall comply” or “must comply.” But what is inade
quate about the word “undertak[e]”? A leading contempo
rary dictionary defined it in terms of “lay[ing] oneself under
obligation . . . to perform or to execute.” Webster’s New
International Dictionary 2770 (2d ed. 1939). And that defi
nition is just what the equally authoritative Spanish version
of the provision (familiar to Mexico) says directly: The words
“compromete a cumplir” indicate a present obligation to exe
cute, without any tentativeness of the sort the majority finds
in the English word “undertakes.” See Carta de las Naci
ones Unidas, Art. 94(1), 59 Stat. 1175 (1945); Spanish and
English Legal and Commercial Dictionary 44 (1945) (defining
“comprometer” as “become liable”); id., at 59 (defining “cum
plir” as “to perform, discharge, carry out, execute”); see also
Art. 111, 59 Stat. 1054 (Spanish-language version equally
valid); Percheman, 7 Pet., at 88–89 (looking to Spanish ver
sion of a treaty to clear up ambiguity in English version).
Cf. Todok v. Union State Bank of Harvard, 281 U. S.
449, 453 (1930) (treating a treaty provision as self-executing
even though it expressly stated what the majority says the

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word “undertakes” implicitly provides: that “ ‘[t]he United
States . . . shall be at liberty to make respecting this matter,
such laws as they think proper’ ”).
And even if I agreed with Justice Stevens that the lan
guage is perfectly ambiguous (which I do not), I could not
agree that “the best reading . . . is . . . one that contemplates
future action by the political branches.” Ante, at 534. The
consequence of such a reading is to place the fate of an inter
national promise made by the United States in the hands of
a single State. See ante, at 536–537. And that is precisely
the situation that the Framers sought to prevent by enacting
the Supremacy Clause. See 3 Story 696 (purpose of Su
premacy Clause “was probably to obviate” the “difficulty” of
a system where treaties were “dependent upon the good will
of the states for their execution”); see also Ware, 3 Dall., at
277–278 (opinion of Iredell, J.).
I also recognize, as the majority emphasizes, ante, at 509–
511, that the U. N. Charter says that “[i]f any party to a case
fails to perform the obligations incumbent upon it under a
judgment rendered by the International Court of Justice, the
other party may have recourse to the Security Council.”
Art. 94(2), 59 Stat. 1051. And when the Senate ratified the
charter, it took comfort in the fact that the United States
has a veto in the Security Council. See 92 Cong. Rec.
10694–10695 (1946) (statements of Sens. Pepper and Connally).
But what has that to do with the matter? To begin with,
the Senate would have been contemplating politically sig
nificant ICJ decisions, not, e. g., the bread-and-butter com
mercial and other matters that are the typical subjects of
self-executing treaty provisions. And in any event, both the
Senate debate and U. N. Charter provision discuss and de
scribe what happens (or does not happen) when a nation de
cides not to carry out an ICJ decision. See Charter of the
United Nations for the Maintenance of International Peace
and Security: Hearings before the Senate Committee on For
eign Relations, 79th Cong., 1st Sess., 286 (1945) (statement

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of Leo Pasvolsky, Special Assistant to the Secretary of
State for International Organization and Security Affairs)
(“[W]hen the Court has rendered a judgment and one of the
parties refuses to accept it, then the dispute becomes politi
cal rather than legal”). The debates refer to remedies for a
breach of our promise to carry out an ICJ decision. The
Senate understood, for example, that Congress (unlike leg
islatures in other nations that do not permit domestic
legislation to trump treaty obligations, Hollis 47–49) can
block through legislation self-executing, as well as non-self
executing determinations. The debates nowhere refer to
the method we use for affirmatively carrying out an ICJ obli
gation that no political branch has decided to dishonor, still
less to a decision that the President (without congressional
dissent) seeks to enforce. For that reason, these aspects
of the ratification debates are here beside the point. See
infra, at 560.
The upshot is that treaty language says that an ICJ deci
sion is legally binding, but it leaves the implementation of
that binding legal obligation to the domestic law of each sig
natory nation. In this Nation, the Supremacy Clause, as
long and consistently interpreted, indicates that ICJ deci
sions rendered pursuant to provisions for binding adjudica
tion must be domestically legally binding and enforceable in
domestic courts at least sometimes. And for purposes of
this argument, that conclusion is all that I need. The re
mainder of the discussion will explain why, if ICJ judgments
sometimes bind domestic courts, then they have that effect
here.
Second, the Optional Protocol here applies to a dispute
about the meaning of a Vienna Convention provision that is
itself self-executing and judicially enforceable. The Conven
tion provision is about an individual’s “rights,” namely, his
right upon being arrested to be informed of his separate
right to contact his nation’s consul. See Art. 36(1)(b), 21
U. S. T., at 101. The provision language is precise. The dis

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pute arises at the intersection of an individual right with
ordinary rules of criminal procedure; it consequently con
cerns the kind of matter with which judges are familiar.
The provisions contain judicially enforceable standards.
See Art. 36(2), ibid. (providing for exercise of rights “in con
formity with the laws and regulations” of the arresting na
tion provided that the “laws and regulations . . . enable full
effect to be given to the purposes for which the rights ac
corded under this Article are intended”). And the judgment
itself requires a further hearing of a sort that is typically
judicial. See infra, at 562–564.
This Court has found similar treaty provisions self
executing. See, e. g., Rauscher, 119 U. S., at 410–411, 429–
430 (violation of extradition treaty could be raised as defense
in criminal trial); Johnson v. Browne, 205 U. S. 309, 317–322
(1907) (extradition treaty required grant of writ of habeas
corpus); Wildenhus’s Case, 120 U. S., at 11, 17–18 (treaty de
fined scope of state jurisdiction in a criminal case). It is
consequently not surprising that, when Congress ratified the
Convention, the State Department reported that the “Con
vention is considered entirely self-executive and does not
require any implementing or complementing legislation.”
S. Exec. Rep. No. 91–9, p. 5 (1969); see also id., at 18 (“To
the extent that there are conflicts with Federal legislation or
State laws the Vienna Convention, after ratification, would
govern”). And the Executive Branch has said in this Court
that other, indistinguishable Vienna Convention provisions
are self-executing. See Brief for United States as Amicus
Curiae in Sanchez-Llamas v. Oregon, O. T. 2005, Nos. 05–51
and 04–10566, p. 14, n. 2; cf. ante, at 506, n. 4 (majority leaves
question open).
Third, logic suggests that a treaty provision providing for
“final” and “binding” judgments that “settl[e]” treaty-based
disputes is self-executing insofar as the judgment in question
concerns the meaning of an underlying treaty provision that
is itself self-executing. Imagine that two parties to a con

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tract agree to binding arbitration about whether a contract
provision’s word “grain” includes rye. They would expect
that, if the arbitrator decides that the word “grain” does in
clude rye, the arbitrator will then simply read the relevant
provision as if it said “grain including rye.” They would
also expect the arbitrator to issue a binding award that em
bodies whatever relief would be appropriate under that
circumstance.
Why treat differently the parties’ agreement to binding
ICJ determination about, e. g., the proper interpretation of
the Vienna Convention clauses containing the rights here at
issue? Why not simply read the relevant Vienna Conven
tion provisions as if (between the parties and in respect to
the 51 individuals at issue) they contain words that encap
sulate the ICJ’s decision? See Art. 59, 59 Stat. 1062 (ICJ
decision has “binding force . . . between the parties and in
respect of [the] particular case”). Why would the ICJ
judgment not bind in precisely the same way those words
would bind if they appeared in the relevant Vienna Conven
tion provisions—just as the ICJ says, for purposes of this
case, that they do?
To put the same point differently: What sense would it
make (1) to make a self-executing promise and (2) to promise
to accept as final an ICJ judgment interpreting that self
executing promise, yet (3) to insist that the judgment itself
is not self-executing (i. e., that Congress must enact specific
legislation to enforce it)?
I am not aware of any satisfactory answer to these ques
tions. It is no answer to point to the fact that in Sanchez-
Llamas v. Oregon, 548 U. S. 331 (2006), this Court inter
preted the relevant Convention provisions differently from
the ICJ in Avena. This Court’s Sanchez-Llamas interpre
tation binds our courts with respect to individuals whose
rights were not espoused by a state party in Avena. More
over, as the Court itself recognizes, see ante, at 497–499, and
as the President recognizes, see President’s Memorandum,

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the question here is the very different question of applying
the ICJ’s Avena judgment to the very parties whose inter
ests Mexico and the United States espoused in the ICJ
Avena proceeding. It is in respect to these individuals that
the United States has promised the ICJ decision will have
binding force. Art. 59, 59 Stat. 1062. See 1 Restatement
(Second) of Conflict of Laws § 98 (1969); 1 Restatement
(Third) of Foreign Relations § 481 (1986); 1 Restatement
(Second) of Judgments § 17 (1980) (all calling for recognition
of judgment rendered after fair hearing in a contested pro
ceeding before a court with adjudicatory authority over the
case). See also 1 Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws
§ 106 (“A judgment will be recognized and enforced in other
states even though an error of fact or of law was made in
the proceedings before judgment . . . ”); id., § 106, Comment
a (“Th[is] rule is . . . applicable to judgments rendered in
foreign nations . . . ”); Reese, The Status in This Country of
Judgments Rendered Abroad, 50 Colum. L. Rev. 783, 789
(1950) (“[Foreign] judgments will not be denied effect merely
because the original court made an error either of fact or
of law”).
Contrary to the majority’s suggestion, see ante, at 511–
512, that binding force does not disappear by virtue of the
fact that Mexico, rather than Medellı´n himself, presented his
claims to the ICJ. Mexico brought the Avena case in part
in “the exercise of its right of diplomatic protection of its
nationals,” e. g., 2004 I. C. J., at 20–21, ¶¶ 13(1), (3), including
Medellı´n, see id., at 25, ¶ 16. Such derivative claims are a
well-established feature of international law, and the United
States has several times asserted them on behalf of its own
citizens. See 2 Restatement (Third) of Foreign Relations,
supra, § 713, Comments a, b, at 217–218; Case Concerning
Elettronic Sicula S. p. A. (U. S. v. Italy), 1989 I. C. J. 15,
20 (Judgment of July 20); Case Concerning United States
Diplomatic and Consular Staff in Tehran (U. S. v. Iran),
1979 I. C. J. 7, 8 (Judgment of Dec. 15); Case Concerning

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Rights of Nationals of the United States of America in Mo
rocco (Fr. v. U. S.), 1952 I. C. J. 176, 180–181 (Judgment of
Aug. 27). They are treated in relevant respects as the
claims of the represented individuals themselves. See 2 Re
statement (Third) of Foreign Relations, § 713, Com
ments a, b. In particular, they can give rise to remedies,
tailored to the individual, that bind the nation against whom
the claims are brought (here, the United States). See ibid.;
see also, e. g., Frelinghuysen v. Key, 110 U. S. 63, 71–72
(1884).
Nor does recognition of the ICJ judgment as binding with
respect to the individuals whose claims were espoused by
Mexico in any way derogate from the Court’s holding in
Sanchez-Llamas, supra. See ante, at 512–513, n. 8. This
case does not implicate the general interpretive question an
swered in Sanchez-Llamas: whether the Vienna Convention
displaces state procedural rules. We are instead confronted
with the discrete question of Texas’ obligation to comply
with a binding judgment issued by a tribunal with undis
puted jurisdiction to adjudicate the rights of the individuals
named therein. “It is inherent in international adjudication
that an international tribunal may reject one country’s legal
position in favor of another’s—and the United States explic
itly accepted this possibility when it ratified the Optional
Protocol.” Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 22.
Fourth, the majority’s very different approach has seri
ously negative practical implications. The United States
has entered into at least 70 treaties that contain provisions
for ICJ dispute settlement similar to the Protocol before us.
Many of these treaties contain provisions similar to those
this Court has previously found self-executing—provisions
that involve, for example, property rights, contract and com
mercial rights, trademarks, civil liability for personal injury,
rights of foreign diplomats, taxation, domestic-court jurisdic
tion, and so forth. Compare Appendix A, infra, with Ap
pendix B, infra. If the Optional Protocol here, taken to

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560 MEDELLIN v. TEXAS
Breyer, J., dissenting
gether with the U. N. Charter and its annexed ICJ Statute,
is insufficient to warrant enforcement of the ICJ judgment
before us, it is difficult to see how one could reach a different
conclusion in any of these other instances. And the conse
quence is to undermine longstanding efforts in those treaties
to create an effective international system for interpreting
and applying many, often commercial, self-executing treaty
provisions. I thus doubt that the majority is right when it
says, “We do not suggest that treaties can never afford bind
ing domestic effect to international tribunal judgments.”
Ante, at 519. In respect to the 70 treaties that currently
refer disputes to the ICJ’s binding adjudicatory authority,
some multilateral, some bilateral, that is just what the ma
jority has done.
Nor can the majority look to congressional legislation for
a quick fix. Congress is unlikely to authorize automatic ju
dicial enforceability of all ICJ judgments, for that could in
clude some politically sensitive judgments and others better
suited for enforcement by other branches: for example, those
touching upon military hostilities, naval activity, handling of
nuclear material, and so forth. Nor is Congress likely to
have the time available, let alone the will, to legislate
judgment-by-judgment enforcement of, say, the ICJ’s (or
other international tribunals’) resolution of non-politically
sensitive commercial disputes. And as this Court’s prior
case law has avoided laying down bright-line rules but in
stead has adopted a more complex approach, it seems un
likely that Congress will find it easy to develop legislative
bright lines that pick out those provisions (addressed to the
Judicial Branch) where self-execution seems warranted.
But, of course, it is not necessary for Congress to do so—at
least not if one believes that this Court’s Supremacy Clause
cases already embody criteria likely to work reasonably well.
It is those criteria that I would apply here.
Fifth, other factors, related to the particular judgment
here at issue, make that judgment well suited to direct judi

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cial enforcement. The specific issue before the ICJ con
cerned “ ‘review and reconsideration’ ” of the “possible preju
dice” caused in each of the 51 affected cases by an arresting
State’s failure to provide the defendant with rights guaran
teed by the Vienna Convention. Avena, 2004 I. C. J., at 65,
¶ 138. This review will call for an understanding of how
criminal procedure works, including whether, and how, a no
tification failure may work prejudice. Id., at 56–57. As the
ICJ itself recognized, “it is the judicial process that is suited
to this task.” Id., at 66, ¶ 140. Courts frequently work
with criminal procedure and related prejudice. Legisla
tures do not. Judicial standards are readily available for
working in this technical area. Legislative standards are
not readily available. Judges typically determine such mat
ters, deciding, for example, whether further hearings are
necessary, after reviewing a record in an individual case.
Congress does not normally legislate in respect to individual
cases. Indeed, to repeat what I said above, what kind of
special legislation does the majority believe Congress ought
to consider?
Sixth, to find the United States’ treaty obligations self
executing as applied to the ICJ judgment (and consequently
to find that judgment enforceable) does not threaten consti
tutional conflict with other branches; it does not require us
to engage in nonjudicial activity; and it does not require us
to create a new cause of action. The only question before
us concerns the application of the ICJ judgment as binding
law applicable to the parties in a particular criminal proceed
ing that Texas law creates independently of the treaty.
I repeat that the question before us does not involve the
creation of a private right of action (and the majority’s reli
ance on authority regarding such a circumstance is mis
placed, see ante, at 506, n. 3).
Seventh, neither the President nor Congress has expressed
concern about direct judicial enforcement of the ICJ decision.
To the contrary, the President favors enforcement of this

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judgment. Thus, insofar as foreign policy impact, the inter
relation of treaty provisions, or any other matter within the
President’s special treaty, military, and foreign affairs re
sponsibilities might prove relevant, such factors favor, rather
than militate against, enforcement of the judgment before
us. See, e. g., Jama v. Immigration and Customs Enforce
ment, 543 U. S. 335, 348 (2005) (noting Court’s “customary
policy of deference to the President in matters of foreign
affairs”).
For these seven reasons, I would find that the United
States’ treaty obligation to comply with the ICJ judgment
in Avena is enforceable in court in this case without further
congressional action beyond Senate ratification of the rele
vant treaties. The majority reaches a different conclusion
because it looks for the wrong thing (explicit textual expres
sion about self-execution) using the wrong standard (clarity)
in the wrong place (the treaty language). Hunting for what
the text cannot contain, it takes a wrong turn. It threatens
to deprive individuals, including businesses, property own
ers, testamentary beneficiaries, consular officials, and others,
of the workable dispute resolution procedures that many
treaties, including commercially oriented treaties, provide.
In a world where commerce, trade, and travel have become
ever more international, that is a step in the wrong direction.
Were the Court for a moment to shift the direction of its
legal gaze, looking instead to the Supremacy Clause and to
the extensive case law interpreting that Clause as applied to
treaties, I believe it would reach a better supported, more
felicitous conclusion. That approach, well embedded in
Court case law, leads to the conclusion that the ICJ judg
ment before us is judicially enforceable without further legis
lative action.
II
A determination that the ICJ judgment is enforceable
does not quite end the matter, for the judgment itself re
quires us to make one further decision. It directs the

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United States to provide further judicial review of the 51
cases of Mexican nationals “by means of its own choosing.”
Avena, 2004 I. C. J., at 72, ¶ 153(9). As I have explained,
I believe the judgment addresses itself to the Judicial
Branch. This Court consequently must “choose” the means.
And rather than, say, conducting the further review in this
Court, or requiring Medellı´n to seek the review in another
federal court, I believe that the proper forum for review
would be the Texas-court proceedings that would follow a
remand of this case.
Beyond the fact that a remand would be the normal course
upon reversing a lower court judgment, there are additional
reasons why further state-court review would be particu
larly appropriate here. The crime took place in Texas, and
the prosecution at issue is a Texas prosecution. The Presi
dent has specifically endorsed further Texas-court review.
See President’s Memorandum. The ICJ judgment requires
further hearings as to whether the police failure to in
form Medellı´n of his Vienna Convention rights prejudiced
Medellı´n, even if such hearings would not otherwise be avail
able under Texas’ procedural default rules. While Texas
has already considered that matter, it did not consider fully,
for example, whether appointed counsel’s coterminous 6
month suspension from the practice of the law “caused actual
prejudice to the defendant”—prejudice that would not have
existed had Medellı´n known he could contact his consul and
thereby find a different lawyer. Id., at 60, ¶ 121.
Finally, Texas law authorizes a criminal defendant to seek
postjudgment review. See Tex. Code Crim. Proc. Ann., Art.
11.071, § 5(a)(1) (Vernon Supp. 2006). And Texas law pro
vides for further review where American law provides a
“ ‘legal basis’ ” that was previously “ ‘unavailable.’ ” See
Ex parte Medellı´n, 223 S. W. 3d 315, 352 (Tex. Crim. App.
2006). Thus, I would send this case back to the Texas
courts, which must then apply the Avena judgment as bind
ing law. See U. S. Const., Art. VI, cl. 2; see also, e. g.,

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Breyer, J., dissenting
Dominguez v. State, 90 Tex. Crim. 92, 99, 234 S. W. 79, 83
(1921) (recognizing that treaties are “part of the supreme
law of the land” and that “it is the duty of the courts of the
state to take cognizance of, construe and give effect” to them
(internal quotation marks omitted)).
III
Because the majority concludes that the Nation’s interna
tional legal obligation to enforce the ICJ’s decision is not
automatically a domestic legal obligation, it must then deter
mine whether the President has the constitutional authority
to enforce it. And the majority finds that he does not. See
Part III, ante.
In my view, that second conclusion has broader implica
tions than the majority suggests. The President here seeks
to implement treaty provisions in which the United States
agrees that the ICJ judgment is binding with respect to the
Avena parties. Consequently, his actions draw upon his
constitutional authority in the area of foreign affairs. In
this case, his exercise of that power falls within that middle
range of Presidential authority where Congress has neither
specifically authorized nor specifically forbidden the Presi
dential action in question. See Youngstown Sheet & Tube
Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U. S. 579, 637 (1952) (Jackson, J., concur
ring). At the same time, if the President were to have the
authority he asserts here, it would require setting aside a
state procedural law.
It is difficult to believe that in the exercise of his Article
II powers pursuant to a ratified treaty, the President can
never take action that would result in setting aside state law.
Cf. United States v. Pink, 315 U. S. 203, 233 (1942) (“No State
can rewrite our foreign policy to conform to its own domestic
policies”). Suppose that the President believes it necessary
that he implement a treaty provision requiring a prisoner
exchange involving someone in state custody in order to
avoid a proven military threat. Cf. Ware, 3 Dall., at 205.

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Or suppose he believes it necessary to secure a foreign con
sul’s treaty-based rights to move freely or to contact an ar
rested foreign national. Cf. Vienna Convention, Art. 34, 21
U. S. T., at 98. Does the Constitution require the President
in each and every such instance to obtain a special statute
authorizing his action? On the other hand, the Constitution
must impose significant restrictions upon the President’s
ability, by invoking Article II treaty-implementation author
ity, to circumvent ordinary legislative processes and to pre
empt state law as he does so.
Previously this Court has said little about this question.
It has held that the President has a fair amount of authority
to make and to implement executive agreements, at least in
respect to international claims settlement, and that this au
thority can require contrary state law to be set aside. See,
e. g., Pink, supra, at 223, 230–231, 233–234; United States v.
Belmont, 301 U. S. 324, 326–327 (1937). It has made clear
that principles of foreign sovereign immunity trump state
law and that the Executive, operating without explicit legis
lative authority, can assert those principles in state court.
See Ex parte Peru, 318 U. S. 578, 588 (1943). It has also
made clear that the Executive has inherent power to bring
a lawsuit “to carry out treaty obligations.” Sanitary Dist.
of Chicago v. United States, 266 U. S. 405, 425, 426 (1925).
But it has reserved judgment as to “the scope of the Presi
dent’s power to preempt state law pursuant to authority del
egated by . . . a ratified treaty”—a fact that helps to explain
the majority’s inability to find support in precedent for its
own conclusions. Barclays Bank PLC v. Franchise Tax Bd.
of Cal., 512 U. S. 298, 329 (1994).
Given the Court’s comparative lack of expertise in foreign
affairs; given the importance of the Nation’s foreign rela
tions; given the difficulty of finding the proper constitutional
balance among state and federal, executive and legislative,
powers in such matters; and given the likely future impor
tance of this Court’s efforts to do so, I would very much

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hesitate before concluding that the Constitution implicitly
sets forth broad prohibitions (or permissions) in this area.
Cf. ante, at 523, n. 13 (stating that the Court’s holding is
“limited” by the facts that (1) this treaty is non-self
executing and (2) the judgment of an international tribunal
is involved).
I would thus be content to leave the matter in the constitu
tional shade from which it has emerged. Given my view of
this case, I need not answer the question. And I shall not
try to do so. That silence, however, cannot be taken as
agreement with the majority’s Part III conclusion.
IV
The majority’s two holdings taken together produce practi
cal anomalies. They unnecessarily complicate the Presi
dent’s foreign affairs task insofar as, for example, they in
crease the likelihood of Security Council Avena enforcement
proceedings, of worsening relations with our neighbor Mex
ico, of precipitating actions by other nations putting at risk
American citizens who have the misfortune to be arrested
while traveling abroad, or of diminishing our Nation’s repu
tation abroad as a result of our failure to follow the “rule of
law” principles that we preach. The holdings also encumber
Congress with a task (postratification legislation) that, in re
spect to many decisions of international tribunals, it may not
want and which it may find difficult to execute. See supra,
at 560 (discussing the problems with case-by-case legisla
tion). At the same time, insofar as today’s holdings make
it more difficult to enforce the judgments of international
tribunals, including technical non-politically-controversial
judgments, those holdings weaken that rule of law for which
our Constitution stands. Cf. Hughes Defends Foreign Poli
cies in Plea for Lodge, N. Y. Times, Oct. 31, 1922, p. 1, col. 1,
p. 4, col. 1 (then-Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes
stating that “we favor, and always have favored, an inter

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national court of justice for the determination according to
judicial standards of justiciable international disputes”);
Mr. Root Discusses International Problems, N. Y. Times,
July 9, 1916, section 6, book review p. 276 (former Secretary
of State and U. S. Senator Elihu Root stating that “ ‘a court
of international justice with a general obligation to submit
all justiciable questions to its jurisdiction and to abide by its
judgment is a primary requisite to any real restraint of
law’ ”); Mills, The Obligation of the United States Toward
the World Court, 114 Annals of the American Academy of
Political and Social Science 128 (1924) (Congressman Ogden
Mills describing the efforts of then-Secretary of State John
Hay, and others, to establish a world court, and the support
therefor).
These institutional considerations make it difficult to rec
oncile the majority’s holdings with the workable Constitution
that the Founders envisaged. They reinforce the impor
tance, in practice and in principle, of asking Chief Justice
Marshall’s question: Does a treaty provision address the
“Judicial” Branch rather than the “Political Branches” of
Government. See Foster, 2 Pet., at 314. And they show
the wisdom of the well-established precedent that indicates
that the answer to the question here is “yes.” See Parts I
and II, supra.
V
In sum, a strong line of precedent, likely reflecting the
views of the Founders, indicates that the treaty provisions
before us and the judgment of the International Court of
Justice address themselves to the Judicial Branch and conse
quently are self-executing. In reaching a contrary conclu
sion, the Court has failed to take proper account of that prec
edent and, as a result, the Nation may well break its word
even though the President seeks to live up to that word and
Congress has done nothing to suggest the contrary.
For the reasons set forth, I respectfully dissent.

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568 MEDELLIN v. TEXAS
Appendix A to opinion of Breyer, J.
APPENDIXES
A
Examples of Supreme Court decisions considering a treaty
provision to be self-executing. Parentheticals indicate the
subject matter; an asterisk indicates that the Court applied
the provision to invalidate a contrary state or territorial law
or policy.
1. Olympic Airways v. Husain, 540 U. S. 644, 649, 657
(2004) (air-carrier liability)
2. El Al Israel Airlines, Ltd. v. Tsui Yuan Tseng, 525
U. S. 155, 161–163, 176 (1999) (same)*
3. Zicherman v. Korean Air Lines Co., 516 U. S. 217,
221, 231 (1996) (same)
4. Socie´ te´ Nationale Industr ielle Ae´ rospatiale v.
United States Dist. Court for Southern Dist. of
Iowa, 482 U. S. 522, 524, 533 (1987) (international
discovery rules)
5. Sumitomo Shoji America, Inc. v. Avagliano, 457
U. S. 176, 181, 189–190 (1982) (employment practices)
6. Trans World Airlines, Inc. v. Franklin Mint Corp.,
466 U. S. 243, 245, 252 (1984) (air-carrier liability)
7. Kolovrat v. Oregon, 366 U. S. 187, 191, n. 6, 198
(1961) (property rights and inheritance)*
8. Clark v. Allen, 331 U. S. 503, 507–508, 517–518
(1947) (same)*
9. Bacardi Corp. of America v. Domenech, 311 U. S.
150, 160, and n. 9, 161 (1940) (trademark)*
10. Todok v. Union State Bank of Harvard, 281 U. S.
449, 453, 455 (1930) (property rights and inheritance)
11. Nielsen v. Johnson, 279 U. S. 47, 50, 58 (1929)
(taxation)*
12. Jordan v. Tashiro, 278 U. S. 123, 126–127, n. 1, 128–
129 (1928) (trade and commerce)
13. Asakura v. Seattle, 265 U. S. 332, 340, 343–344
(1924) (same)*

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Appendix B to opinion of Breyer, J.
14. Maiorano v. Baltimore & Ohio R. Co., 213 U. S. 268,
273–274 (1909) (travel, trade, access to courts)
15. Johnson v. Browne, 205 U. S. 309, 317–322 (1907)
(extradition)
16. Geofroy v. Riggs, 133 U. S. 258, 267–268, 273 (1890)
(inheritance)*
17. Wildenhus’s Case, 120 U. S. 1, 11, 17–18 (1887) (crim
inal jurisdiction)
18. United States v. Rauscher, 119 U. S. 407, 410–411,
429–430 (1886) (extradition)
19. Hauenstein v. Lynham, 100 U. S. 483, 485–486, 490–
491 (1880) (property rights and inheritance)*
20. American Ins. Co. v. 356 Bales of Cotton, 1 Pet. 511,
542 (1828) (property)
21. United States v. Percheman, 7 Pet. 51, 88–89 (1833)
(land ownership)
22. United States v. Arredondo, 6 Pet. 691, 697, 749
(1832) (same)
23. Orr v. Hodgson, 4 Wheat. 453, 462–465 (1819)
(same)*
24. Chirac v. Lessee of Chirac, 2 Wheat. 259, 270–271,
274, 275 (1817) (land ownership and inheritance)*
25. Fairfax’s Devisee v. Hunter’s Lessee, 7 Cranch 603,
626–627 (1813) (land ownership)
26. Hannay v. Eve, 3 Cranch 242, 248 (1806) (monetary
debts)
27. Hopkirk v. Bell, 3 Cranch 454, 457–458 (1806)
(same)*
28. Ware v. Hylton, 3 Dall. 199, 203–204, 285 (1796)
(same)*
29. Georgia v. Brailsford, 3 Dall. 1, 4 (1794) (same)
B
United States treaties in force containing provisions for
the submission of treaty-based disputes to the International
Court of Justice. Parentheticals indicate subject matters

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570 MEDELLIN v. TEXAS
Appendix B to opinion of Breyer, J.
that can be the subject of ICJ adjudication that are of the
sort that this Court has found self-executing.
Economic Cooperation Agreements
1. Economic Aid Agreement Between the United
States of America and Spain, Sept. 26, 1953, [1953]
4 U. S. T. 1903, 1920–1921, T. I. A. S. No. 2851 (prop
erty and contract)
2. Agreement for Economic Assistance Between the
Government of the United States of America and the
Government of Israel Pursuant to the General
Agreement for Technical Cooperation, May 9, 1952,
[1952] 3 U. S. T. 4174, 4177, T. I. A. S. No. 2561
(same)
3. Economic Cooperation Agreement Between the
United States of America and Portugal, 62 Stat.
2861–2862 (1948) (same)
4. Economic Cooperation Agreement Between the
United States of America and the United Kingdom,
62 Stat. 2604 (1948) (same)
5. Economic Cooperation Agreement Between the
United States of America and the Republic of Tur
key, 62 Stat. 2572 (1948) (same)
6. Economic Cooperation Agreement Between the
United States of America and Sweden, 62 Stat. 2557
(1948) (same)
7. Economic Cooperation Agreement Between the
United States of America and Norway, 62 Stat. 2531
(1948) (same)
8. Economic Cooperation Agreement Between the
Governments of the United States of America and
the Kingdom of the Netherlands, 62 Stat. 2500
(1948) (same)
9. Economic Cooperation Agreement Between the
United States of America and the Grand Duchy of
Luxembourg, 62 Stat. 2468 (1948) (same)

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10. Economic Cooperation Agreement Between the
United States of America and Italy, 62 Stat. 2440
(1948) (same)
11. Economic Cooperation Agreement Between the
United States of America and Iceland, 62 Stat. 2390
(1948) (same)
12. Economic Cooperation Agreement Between the
United States of America and Greece, 62 Stat. 2344
(1948) (same)
13. Economic Cooperation Agreement Between the
United States of America and France, 62 Stat. 2232,
2233 (1948) (same)
14. Economic Cooperation Agreement Between the
United States of America and Denmark, 62 Stat.
2214 (1948) (same)
15. Economic Cooperation Agreement Between the
United States of America and the Kingdom of Bel
gium, 62 Stat. 2190 (1948) (same)
16. Economic Cooperation Agreement Between the
United States of America and Austria, 62 Stat. 2144
(1948) (same)
Bilateral Consular Conventions
1. Consular Convention Between the United States of
America and the Kingdom of Belgium, Sept. 2, 1969,
[1974] 25 U. S. T. 41, 47–49, 56–57, 60–61, 75,
T. I. A. S. No. 7775 (domestic-court jurisdiction and
authority over consular officers, taxation of consular
officers, consular notification)
2. Consular Convention Between the United States of
America and the Republic of Korea, Jan. 8, 1963,
[1963] 14 U. S. T. 1637, 1641, 1644–1648, T. I. A. S.
No. 5469 (same)
Friendship, Commerce, and Navigation Treaties
1. Treaty of Amity and Economic Relations Between
the United States of America and the Togolese Re

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public, Feb. 8, 1966, [1967] 18 U. S. T. 1, 3–4, 10,
T. I. A. S. No. 6193 (contracts and property)
2. Treaty of Friendship, Establishment and Navigation
Between the United States of America and the
Kingdom of Belgium, Feb. 21, 1961, [1963] 14 U. S. T.
1284, 1290–1291, 1307, T. I. A. S. No. 5432 (same)
3. Treaty of Friendship, Establishment and Navigation
Between the United States of America and the
Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, Feb. 23, 1962, [1963]
14 U. S. T. 251, 254–255, 262, T. I. A. S. No. 5306 (con
sular notification; contracts and property)
4. Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation
Between the United States of America and the
Kingdom of Denmark, Oct. 1, 1951, [1961] 12 U. S. T.
908, 912–913, 935, T. I. A. S. No. 4797 (contracts
and property)
5. Treaty of Friendship and Commerce Between the
United States of America and Pakistan, Nov. 12,
1959, [1961] 12 U. S. T. 110, 113, 123, T. I. A. S.
No. 4683 (same)
6. Convention of Establishment Between the United
States of America and France, Nov. 25, 1959, [1960]
11 U. S. T. 2398, 2401–2403, 2417, T. I. A. S. No. 4625
(same)
7. Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation
Between the United States of America and the Re
public of Korea, Nov. 28, 1956, [1957] 8 U. S. T. 2217,
2221–2222, 2233, T. I. A. S. No. 3947 (same)
8. Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation
Between the United States of America and the
Kingdom of the Netherlands, Mar. 27, 1956, [1957] 8
U. S. T. 2043, 2047–2050, 2082–2083, T. I. A. S.
No. 3942 (freedom to travel, consular notification,
contracts and property)
9. Treaty of Amity, Economic Relations, and Consular
Rights Between the United States of America and
Iran, Aug. 15, 1955, [1957] 8 U. S. T. 899, 903, 907,

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913, T. I. A. S. No. 3853 (property and freedom of
commerce)
10. Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation
Between the United States of America and the Fed
eral Republic of Germany, Oct. 29, 1954, [1956] 7
U. S. T. 1839, 1844–1846, 1867, T. I. A. S. No. 3593
(property and contract)
11. Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation
Between the United States of America and Greece,
Aug. 3, 1951, [1954] 5 U. S. T. 1829, 1841–1847, 1913–
1915, T. I. A. S. No. 3057 (same)
12. Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation
Between the United States of America and Israel,
Aug. 23, 1951, [1954] 5 U. S. T. 550, 555–556, 575,
T. I. A. S. No. 2948 (same)
13. Treaty of Amity and Economic Relations Between
the United States of America and Ethiopia, Sept. 7,
1951, [1953] 4 U. S. T. 2134, 2141, 2145, 2147,
T. I. A. S. No. 2864 (property and freedom of
commerce)
14. Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation
Between the United States of America and Japan,
Apr. 2, 1953, [1953] 4 U. S. T. 2063, 2067–2069, 2080,
T. I. A. S. No. 2863 (property and contract)
15. Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation
Between the United States of America and Ireland,
Jan. 21, 1950, [1950] 1 U. S. T. 785, 792–794, 801,
T. I. A. S. No. 2155 (same)
16. Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation
Between the United States of America and the Ital
ian Republic, 63 Stat. 2262, 2284, 2294 (1948) (prop
erty and freedom of commerce)
Multilateral Conventions
1. Patent Cooperation Treaty, June 19, 1970, [1976–77]
28 U. S. T. 7645, 7652–7676, 7708, T. I. A. S. No. 8733
(patents)

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2. Universal Copyright Convention, July 24, 1971,
[1974] 25 U. S. T. 1341, 1345, 1366, T. I. A. S.
No. 7868 (copyright)
3. Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and the
Optional Protocol Concerning the Compulsory Set
tlement of Disputes, Apr. 18, 1961, [1972] 23 U. S. T.
3227, 3240–3243, 3375, T. I. A. S. No. 7502 (rights of
diplomats in foreign nations)
4. Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial
Property, July 14, 1967, [1970] 21 U. S. T. 1583, 1631–
1639, 1665–1666, T. I. A. S. No. 6923 (patents)
5. Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the
United Nations, Feb. 13, 1946, [1970] 21 U. S. T. 1418,
1426–1428, 1430–1432, 1438–1440, T. I. A. S. No. 6900
(rights of U. N. diplomats and officials)
6. Convention on Offences and Certain Other Acts
Committed on Board Aircraft, Sept. 14, 1963, [1969]
20 U. S. T. 2941, 2943–2947, 2952, T. I. A. S. No. 6768
(airlines’ treatment of passengers)
7. Agreement for Facilitating the International Circu
lation of Visual and Auditory Materials of an Educa
tional, Scientific and Cultural Character, July 15,
1949, [1966] 17 U. S. T. 1578, 1581, 1586, T. I. A. S.
No. 6116 (customs duties on importation of films
and recordings)
8. Universal Copyright Convention, Sept. 6, 1952,
[1955] 6 U. S. T. 2731, 2733–2739, 2743, T. I. A. S.
No. 3324 (copyright)
9. Treaty of Peace With Japan, Sept. 8, 1951, [1952] 3
U. S. T. 3169, 3181–3183, 3188, T. I. A. S. No. 2490
(property)
10. Convention on Road Traffic, Sept. 19, 1949, [1952]
3 U. S. T. 3008, 3012–3017, 3020, T. I. A. S. No. 2487
(rights and obligations of drivers)

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11. Convention on International Civil Aviation, 61 Stat.
1204 (1944) (seizure of aircraft to satisfy patent
claims)