Today's Tampa Bay (FL) Tribune carries an editorial, "Limiting Foreign Intrusion In Our Courts," in response to last week's Supreme Court ruling in Medellin v. Texas.
The court concluded, correctly in our view, that if Congress would subject states to international norms and conventions, then lawmakers better say so explicitly.
International bodies, it said, cannot confer individual rights on people facing an American court.
The court also said that President Bush could not order Texas to hold new hearings, even to avoid a diplomatic confrontation, unless Congress gave him that power.
The Supreme Court is the final arbiter of American law, not the international court. That is how it should be.
Earlier coverage of Medellin v. Texas is here.
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