Taming Globalization International Law, the U.S. Constitution, and the New World Order

In 1997, a Mexican national named José Ernesto Medellin was sentenced to death for raping and murdering two teenage girls in Texas. In 2004, the International Court of Justice ruled that he was entitled to a new trial, since the arresting officers had not informed him of his right to seek assistance from the Mexican consulate prior to trial, as prescribed by a treaty ratified by Congress in 1963. In 2008, amid fierce controversy, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that the international ruling had no weight. Medellin subsequently was executed. As John Yoo and Julian Ku show inTaming Globalization, the Medellin case only hints at the legal complications that will embroil American courts in the twenty-first century. Like Medellin, tens of millions of foreign citizens live in the United States; and like the International Court of Justice, dozens of international institutions cast a legal net across the globe, from border commissions to the World Trade Organization. Yoo and Ku argue that all this presents an unavoidable challenge to American constitutional law, particularly the separation of powers between the branches of federal government and between Washington and the states. To reconcile the demands of globalization with a traditional, formal constitutional structure, they write, we must re-conceptualize the Constitution, as Americans did in the early twentieth century, when faced with nationalization. They identify three "mediating devices" we must embrace: non-self-execution of treaties, recognition of the President's power to terminate international agreements and interpret international law, and a reliance on state implementation of international law and agreements. These devices will help us avoid constitutional difficulties while still gaining the benefits of international cooperation. Written by a leading advocate of executive power and a fellow Constitutional scholar,Taming Globalizationpromises to spark widespread debate.

Julian Ku is Professor of Law at Hofstra University Law School. Before joining the Hofstra faculty in 2002, Professor Ku served as a law clerk to Judge Jerry Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, and as an Olin Fellow and Lecturer in Law at the University of Virginia Law School. Professor Ku has also been a visiting professor at the College of William & Mary Marshall-Wythe School of Law, and was the Fulbright Distinguished Lecturer in Law at East China University of Political Science and Law in Shanghai, China. Professor Ku received his J.D. from Yale Law School.

John Yoo is Professor of Law at the University of California-Berkeley's Boalt Hall Law School. From 2001 to 2003 he served as Assistant Attorney General in the U.S. Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel. He has also served as a Visiting Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute since 2003 and as General Counsel for the U.S. Senate's Judiciary Committee. Professor Yoo received his J.D. from Yale Law School and clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.