Human Rights

Last week, Oklahoma judges considered a fundamental question - the status of international law in state courts in the U.S. And they made a paradigm-shifting decision. Not only did they properly treat a U.S. treaty as binding law, they also relied on a March decision of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague. (The ICJ, the U.N.'s highest tribunal, is also often referred to as the World Court.) The result was to halt an execution that would have taken place May 18--the execution of Mexican national Osbaldo Torres, whose right to assistance from the Mexican consulate was not honored by the U.S.