Supreme Law of the Land? Debating the Contemporary Effects of Treaties within the United States Legal System

How do treaties function in the American legal system? This book provides a comprehensive analysis of the current status of treaties in American law. Its ten chapters examine major areas of change in treaty law in recent decades, including treaty interpretation, federalism, self-execution, treaty implementing legislation, treaty form, and judicial barriers to treaty enforcement. The book also includes two in-depth case studies: one on the effectiveness of treaties in the regulation of armed conflict and one on the role of a resurgent federalism in complicating US efforts to ratify and implement treaties in private international law. Each chapter asks whether the treaty rules of the 1987 Third Restatement of Foreign Relations Law accurately reflect today's judicial, executive, and legislative practices. This volume is original and provocative, a useful desk companion for judges and practicing lawyers, and an engaging read for the general reader and graduate students.

Introduction Paul R. Dubinsky, Gregory H. Fox and Brad R. Roth; 1. Treaties in US law from the Founding to the Restatement (Third) Mark Janis and Noam Wiener; 2. Treaties and the Third Restatement Gregory H. Fox; 3. Competing models for treaty interpretation: treaty as contract, treaty as statute, treaty as delegation Paul R. Dubinsky; 4. Self-execution Ingrid Wuerth; 5. Treaties, federalisation, and the contested legacy of Missouri v. Holland Margaret McGuinness; 6. Recent trends in US treaty implementation David P. Stewart; 7. The treaty and its rivals: making international agreements in US law and practice Michael D. Ramsey; 8. Judicial barriers to the enforcement of treaties Roger P. Alford; 9. Case study no. 1: exploring US treaty practice through a military lens Geoffrey Corn and Dru Brenner-Beck; 10. Case study no. 2: private law treaties and federalism: can the United States lead? Paul R. Dubinsky; 11. Conclusion Gary B. Born.

Gregory H. Fox is Professor of Law and Director of the Program for International Legal Studies at Wayne State University, Michigan. He is the author of numerous publications, including Humanitarian Occupation (Cambridge, 2008) and Democratic Governance and International Law (with Brad R. Roth, Cambridge, 2000).
Paul R. Dubinsky is Associate Professor of Law at Wayne State University, Michigan, Vice-President of the International Law Association, and book review editor of the American Journal of Comparative Law. His publications have appeared in the American Journal of Comparative Law, the Michigan Law Review, the Stanford Journal of International Law, the Yale Journal of International Law, Civil Litigation in a Globalizing World and International Law in Domestic Legal Systems.
Brad R. Roth is Professor of Political Science and Law at Wayne State University, Michigan. He is the author of Governmental Illegitimacy in International Law (2001), Sovereign Equality and Moral Disagreement (2011), and numerous other publications on sovereignty, constitutionalism, human rights, and democracy, as well as the co-editor of Democratic Governance and International Law (with Gregory H. Fox, Cambridge, 2000).