The case involved the death penalty conviction of a Mexican national in a Texas court. The World Court in The Hague, Netherlands ruled that a UN treaty trumped Texas law. Ed Whelan of the Ethics and Public Policy Center says the Supreme Court ruled Texas doesn’t have to pay attention to the order.

“Basically it says that there will be a presumption that treaty obligations don’t apply of their own force domestically.”

While the ruling limits the effect of foreign treaties, court watchers remain concerned about the influence foreign courts have on domestic cases. Mike Johnson of the Alliance Defense Fund says the most recent example is the Lawrence v Texas sodomy ruling.

“This is a trend that has caused some alarm to us where our courts as high as some of the justices on the United States Supreme Court have begun to look overseas at international precedents to decide our issues.”

Issues such as gay marriage, assaults on religious liberty, the right of conscience, the right to share your religion in public, even from a pulpit have been hot topics of late in foreign courts.

“Our freedom depends upon adherence to and respect for our Constitution and not the capricious adoption of convenient precedents and laws and ideas from other countries.”

He says if we fail to remember that, it’s going to be a death sentence to our democracy.