1.Does the Supreme Court find that Avena is not self-executing, or that
the Optional Protocol or Article 94 of the UN Charter is not self-executing?
Does the majority provide a coherent approach to determining when treaties
are self-executing? How persuasive is Justice Breyer’s argument that,
because states adopt very different approaches to the domestic effect of
treaties, it is unrealistic to expect them to address the domestic effect of
treaties in a treaty’s text?
2. In what sense do non-self-executing treaties constitute domestic law?
Does the judicial creation of the self-execution doctrine undermine the
intent of the Framers who drafted the Supremacy Clause?
3. Cases involving Vienna Convention claims continue to work their
way through the courts. Edgar Arias Tamayo was another Mexican national
convicted of murder and sentenced to death. An execution date of January
22, 2014, was set. Secretary of State John Kerry wrote to Texas Governor
