International Courts and American Courts

This article seeks to deal systematically with a number of issues necessarily raised in any consideration of the relationships between American courts and international tribunals. The first section sets out the facts of Breard. The next discusses the scope of the obligations imposed by the Statute of the ICJ. The third section considers the constitutional questions at least implicit in Breard; in particular, it seeks to address the tantalizing question left open by Holmes in Missouri v. Holland: what is the different way in which qualifications to the treaty-making power are to be determined? The final substantive section seeks to identify the costs and benefits that would be created if the courts in the United States deferred to the ICJ or to other international tribunals to a greater extent than took place in Breard