Stephen I. Vladeck, Case Comment, Ogbudimkpa v. Ashcroft, Non-Self-Executing Treaties and the
Suspension Clause After St. Cyr, 113 YALE L.J. 2007 (2004).
(Abstract prepared by James Grimmelmann)
In INS v. St. Cyr, the Supreme Court held that Congress must be extraordinarily explicit whenever it
intends for legislation to strip courts of the jurisdiction to hear any class of
habeas petitions, including the deportation-related claims that AEDPA and
IIRIRA sought to restrict. Habeas has traditionally been available to allege violations of not only
the Constitution and statutory law, but also of ratified treaties that are "self-executing"
and statutes implementing ratified treaties that are not. The Third Circuit, in Ogbudimkpa v. Ashcroft, found the jurisdiction-stripping provisions of the Foreign Affairs
Reform and Restructuring Act (FARRA) of 1998 to be materially similar to that which the
St. Cyr Court had held to be insufficiently clear to foreclose habeas. FARRA implemented the United States’s treaty obligations under
the non-self-executing Convention Against Torture. This
Comment argues that after St. Cyr, courts are on shaky
ground in barring the use of habeas to litigate claims under non-self-executing
treaties, and that Ogbudimkpa, though not directly on point,
suggests why.