The Supreme Court of the United States struck a blow for national sovereignty recently—and along with it, a blow for the separation of powers. Medellín v. Texas is a decision that deals with some weighty issues of domestic and international law, but I think the Court made the right decision; I appreciate that they stood up to an attempt by the Bush administration to overreach the authority of the executive branch, and even more that in doing so they didn’t claim more authority for themselves, but rather upheld the proper sovereignty of the legislative branch. Most of all, I think they were right to say that while the US must honor its treaty obligations, it’s the principles of our own Constitution rather than the diktat of international organizations which determine how we do so.
A further point of interest to this decision, noted by the article to which I’ve linked here, is that it deals a body blow to the efforts of pro-abortion activists to use international organizations and treaties to overrule pro-life laws here in the US; this too is a good thing. In general, I’m not a believer in surrendering any part of our sovereignty to international organizations which all too often don’t have our best interests at heart; I particularly oppose allowing the opinions of folks in other countries to determine important issues like abortion policy.