Medellin v. Texas case brief summary

Medellin v. Texas case brief
International Law
FACTS
Mexico nationals arrested in US, not notified of their consular rights via Vienna Convention of Consular Relations treaty obligating foreign persons arrested the right to speak to consulate for consule on laws of nation

ANALYSIS and HOLDING 

1.      ICJ judgement against US for these actions, in response President Bush files Memo requiring state courts to reexamine these cases

2.      Medellin files for habeaus corpus

3.      TX ct. upholds decision due to procedural default rules- wasn't raised at trial court level, so can't be raised later. So here, president is asking to put these rules aside and reexamine case

4.      1st Holding & Reasoning: Vienna Conv treaty not meant to be self-executing b/c no authorization given to enforce ICJ judgments, treaty read only to «undertake to comply» reads as only a promite to take additional steps to enforce ICJ judgments (hence, Congressional action), words like «must» or «shall» were not included that would demonstrate self-exectuing evidence

5.      2nd Holding & Reasoning: Presidential Memo amounting to lawmaking by president, Pres. saying ICJ judg equiv to federal law, but he can’t make law only congress can. President can’t convert non self-executing treaty into a self-executing treaties.