Covenant shall extend to all parts of federal States without anyrnlimitations or exceptions.”rnIt was the clear intent of the drafters of the ICCPR and thernOptional Protocol to ensure injunctive relief against humanrnrights violations through domestic courts first and foremost,rnleaving open the option of international remedies if domesticrnlegal systems were to fail. In 1985, this intent was formalized byrnthe U.N. General Assembly, when it adopted the Basic Principlesrnon the Independence of the Judiciary, thereby stipulatingrnthatrnWhereas the International Covenants on Economic, Socialrnand Cultural Rights and on Civil and Political Rightsrnboth guarantee the exercise of those rights… Whereasrnfrequently there still exists a gap between the vision underlyingrnthose principles and the actual situation,rnWhereas the organization and administration of justicernin every country should be inspired by those principles,rnand efforts should be undertaken to translate them fullyrninto reality. Whereas rules concerning the exercise of judicialrnoffice should aim at enabling judges to act in accordancernwith those principles, Whereas judges arerncharged with the ultimate decision over life, freedoms,rnrights, duties and property of citizens…rnAlthough for the time being they may be coincidentally compatible,rnit is not only possible, but highly probable, that as thern”gap between the vision underlying those principles and the actualrnsituation” closes, the remaining remnants of popular controlrnover American law will be gradually displaced by U.N.-rnsanctioned rights. The displacement will be subtle, butrneffective, and it will have a significant impact on the capacity,rnand indeed the right, to be self-governing. Secretary-Generalrnof the U.N. Boutros Boutros-Ghali sees the heightened role ofrnnationally based judiciaries as not only as essential, but an inevitablernpart of the “historical synthesis resulting from a longrnhistorical process.” For “to move from identifying inequality tornrebelling against injustice is only possible in the context of arnuniversal affirmation of the idea of human rights. Ultimately,rnit is this idea which allows us to move from ethical to legal considerations,rnand to impose value judgments and juridical constraintsrnon human activity.”rnIt may at first appear farfetched to link the idealistic languagernof the United Nations to American public policy, but thernjurisprudential groundwork has already been set. The first significantrnprecedent legitimizing supranational supremacy was arn1920 test ease, Missouri v. Holland. At issue was the constitutionalityrnof the 1916 treaty between the United States andrnGreat Britain and of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918,rnwhich executed the terms of the treaty. The state of Missourirnmaintained that the treaty and the statute were repugnant tornrights reserved to the states by the 10th Amendment. The primaryrnlegal issue was: Can a treaty validate an otherwise unconstitutionalrncongressional statute? For the Supreme Court, JusticernHolmes provided an emphatic yes. He maintained that inrnthose instances when the national interests are at stake, and inrnthose matters that require national action, the power to securernthose interests and execute the necessary action must residernsomewhere. Because the states are incompetent to secure nationalrninterests individually, the power must be conferred uponrnthe national government, and not necessarily by the Constitution,rnbut by the Supreme Court. He wrote:rnThe case before us must be considered in the light of ourrnwhole experience, and not merely in that of what wasrnsaid a hundred years ago. The treaty in question doesrnnot contravene any prohibitory words to be found in thernConstitution. The only question is whether it is forbiddenrnby some invisible radiation from the general terms ofrnthe 10th Amendment. We must consider what thisrncountry has become in deciding what that amendmentrnhas reserved.rnThese few lines represent a paradigm shift in American jurisprudencernthat shakes the foundation of American federalism.rnThe tenets of that jurisprudence are that statutory andrnfundamental laws are organic in nature, not static; that thernmeaning of statutory and fundamental laws may change as circumstancesrnchange, a type of legal environmental determinism;rnthat the 10th Amendment is subject to a juridical slidingrnscale, whereby the reserved powers of the states are circumstantiallyrncontracted and those of the national government are expanded;rnand that the U.S. Supreme Court is empowered tornkeep the organism, i.e., the U.S. Constitution, healthy in its ever-rnchanging environment. According to Justice Holmes, therndemarcation between reserved and unreserved state powers isrnarbitrary, or, in other words, political. Thus, the sovereignty ofrnthe states over their purely internal affairs is not contingent uponrnthe rule of law as expounded in the United States and staternconstitutions, but upon the rule of political expediency, especiallyrnwhen “a national interest of very nearly the first magnitudernis involved,” as presumably was the case in protecting thernmigration of Canadian wild birds.rnThe logic of Missouri v. Holland was expanded in U.S. v.rnCurtiss-Wright (1936), when the court outlined differences betweenrnthe powers of the national government in respect to internalrnand external affairs. According to the Court, the differencesrnare “fundamental” and the constitutional limitations arernapplicable only in respect to internal affairs. At issue was thernconstitutionality of the congressional delegation of law-makingrnpowers to the President. If the delegation falls within the categoryrnof internal affairs, it would be constitutionally invalid, repugnantrnto the constitutional separation of powers. However,rnif it falls within the category of external affairs, the delegation ofrnlaw-making powers is not open to constitutional challenge.rnGrounding the court’s opinion not in the “provisions of thernConstitution, but in the law of nations,” Justice Sutherlandrnmaintained that “the investment of the federal governmentrnwith the powers of external sovereignty did not depend uponrnthe affirmative grants of the Constitution.” The powers of externalrnsovereignty passed from the Crown, that is King GeorgernIII, to the government of the United States, and then on to thernPresident of the United States. Drawing on a twisted interpretationrnof the last paragraph of the Declaration of Independence,rnSuthedand concluded that the states never were free orrnindependent. To make the United States completely sovereign,rnJustice Sutherland read into this last paragraph of the Declarationrnprinciples that are clearly inconsistent with the languagernand history of the document.rnBut this was precisely the point: the United States was notrndesigned to be completely sovereign; nor was it designed tornconfer King George-like powers on the President of the UnitedrnStates. Nevertheless, Missouri v. Holland and U.S. v. Curtiss-rnWright constitutionally sanction the overthrow of the statebasedrnfederal system of government. One year after Curtiss-rn22/CHRONICLESrnrnrn