Normative reasoning borrowed from international human rights sources will not necessarily prevail in the process of constitutional interpretation. Other normative considerations omitted there may be relevant, and consensual and institutional factors may also come into play. The Court may conclude that the normatively compelling interpretation of a right cannot be adopted at the constitutional level but, rather, should await political implementation. I emphasize again that the international human rights regime does not call for implementation at the constitutional level, only compliance. Thus, the Supreme Court has reason to examine international human rights norms and decisions interpreting them for the normative and functional insights that they may provide on analogous issues of constitutional right. They certainly cannot control constitutional interpretation, but they may inform it. The use of human rights treaties as an aid in construing constitutional rights might seem superficially in tension with the Supreme Court's reassurance in Reid v. Covert that the treaty power cannot be employed to violate constitutional rights. 31 That appearance should dissolve on closer examination. The treaty makers cannot override constitutional norms, and they cannot order the Supreme Court to alter its interpretation of a constitutional provision. 32 But treaties, like legislation, can contribute to a shift in the factual, institutional, and normative environment within which the Court carries on its task of constitutional interpretation. The resulting doctrinal evolution is unavoidable in any candid account of U.S. constitutional history. Nothing in Reid v. Covert and its progeny precludes this indirect influence of treaty making on constitutional law. Treaties and the case law arising under them thus become data available for the Court's consideration in elaborating the contemporary meaning of constitutional norms. The political branches can neither require the Court to follow international or foreign law in interpreting the Constitution nor prohibit the Court from considering international or foreign law. Under current circumstances, the Supreme Court correctly does not engage in the practice, pursued by some other constitutional courts, of construing constitutional rights for the purpose of judicially implementing the positive international obligations of the nation under human rights treaties. The positive effect of treaty norms differs from the moral or functional insight that they may provide. Human rights treaties do not require implementation at the constitutional level, and in the U.S. legal system Congress retains ultimate control over the means of implementing--or breaching--a treaty. Entrenching positive human rights standards as  [*89]  constitutional interpretation, for the purpose of ensuring compliance with the treaty as such, would deprive the political branches of their authority to choose methods of treaty implementation, and would not be consistent with current constitutional understandings. 33
institutional factors may come into play. The Court may conclude that the compelling interpretation cannot be adopted but, rather, should await political implementation 31 32 Under current circumstances, the Supreme Court correctly does not engage in the practice of construing rights for the purpose of judicially implementing positive obligations under treaties Congress retains ultimate control over the means of implementing a treaty. Entrenching positive standards as constitutional interpretation, for the purpose of ensuring compliance with the treaty would deprive the political branches of their authority to choose methods of treaty implementation