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Treaties And The Eleventh Amendment, Carlos Manuel Vázquez
Treaties And The Eleventh Amendment, Carlos Manuel Vázquez
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
The Supreme Court's recent invigoration of federalism doctrine has revived a question that had long lain dormant in constitutional law: whether and to what extent federalism limits apply to exercises of the Treaty Power. In the days before the famous switch in time that saved nine, the Court in Missouri v. Holland upheld a statute passed by Congress to implement a treaty even though it assumed that the statute would exceed Congress's legislative power under Article I in the absence of the treaty. The significance of this holding abated considerably when the Court embraced a broader interpretation of the Commerce …
Night And Day: Coeur D’Alene, Breard, And The Unraveling Of The Prospective-Retrospective Distinction In Eleventh Amendment Doctrine, Carlos Manuel Vázquez
Night And Day: Coeur D’Alene, Breard, And The Unraveling Of The Prospective-Retrospective Distinction In Eleventh Amendment Doctrine, Carlos Manuel Vázquez
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
The Supreme Court's decision in Edelman v. Jordan has been read to establish a distinction between suits seeking prospective relief from a state official's violation of federal law (which are not barred by the Eleventh Amendment under Ex parte Young) and suits seeking retrospective relief from the state (which are barred by the Eleventh Amendment, even if the officer is the defendant). Commentators and the lower courts have long had difficulty understanding and applying the distinction. Until recently, the principal effect of the Edelman line of cases has been to bar suits seeking damages and similar monetary relief from …
What Is Eleventh Amendment Immunity?, Carlos Manuel Vázquez
What Is Eleventh Amendment Immunity?, Carlos Manuel Vázquez
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
The Supreme Court's Eleventh Amendment decisions give conflicting signals about what the Amendment does. On one view, the Amendment functions as a forum-allocation principle--immunizing states from liability in suits filed in federal court, but leaving open the possibility that states may be compelled to entertain suits against themselves in their own courts. A separate line of cases, however, implies that state courts enjoy an immunity from suit in their own courts and that nothing in the Constitution withdraws such immunity; on this view, the Eleventh Amendment, by protecting the states from suit in the federal courts, effectively immunizes the states …
The Four Doctrines Of Self-Executing Treaties, Carlos Manuel Vázquez
The Four Doctrines Of Self-Executing Treaties, Carlos Manuel Vázquez
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
A distinction has become entrenched in United States law between treaties that are "self-executing" and those that are not. The precise nature of this distinction--indeed, its very existence--is a matter of some controversy and much confusion. More than one lower federal court has pronounced the distinction to be the "most confounding" in the United States law of treaties. A tremendous amount of scholarship has sought to clarify this distinction, but the honest observer cannot but agree with John Jackson's observation that " [t]he substantial volume of scholarly writing on this issue has not yet resolved the confusion" surrounding it. The …
The “Self-Executing” Character Of The Refugee Protocol’S Nonrefoulement Obligation, Carlos Manuel Vázquez
The “Self-Executing” Character Of The Refugee Protocol’S Nonrefoulement Obligation, Carlos Manuel Vázquez
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
When the United States ratified the 1967 U.N. Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees (Protocol), it undertook not to "expel or return (refouler) a refugee in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of territories where his life or freedom would be threatened" on specified grounds. On May 24, 1992, President Bush issued an executive order, known as the Kennebunkport Order, authorizing the United States Coast Guard to interdict vessels on the high seas suspected of containing Haitians destined for U.S. shores and to return such persons to Haiti without regard to whether their lives or freedom would …
Treaty-Based Rights And Remedies Of Individuals, Carlos Manuel Vázquez
Treaty-Based Rights And Remedies Of Individuals, Carlos Manuel Vázquez
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
Treaties are frequently described as contracts between nations. As instruments of international law, they establish obligations with which international law requires the parties to comply. In the United States, treaties also have the status of law in the domestic legal system. The Supremacy Clause declares treaties to be the "supreme Law of the Land" and instructs the courts to give them effect. The status of treaties as law in two distinct legal orders has given rise to unusual conceptual problems. In recent years, it has produced confusion among the courts regarding the enforceability of treaties in the courts by individuals. …