Dobbs, glass houses and international law

The United States Supreme Court’s decision last week to overturn Roe v Wade and eliminate the right to an abortion was one of the most consequential constitutional opinions in its history – even for a court that has already done violence to settled precedent in areas like gun control, religion and immigration.

But conspicuously absent from the constitutional analysis in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health was any acknowledgement of Article VI of the Constitution, which provides that treaties are “the supreme law of the land.”

Two such treaties – the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) – recognise the human rights to life, privacy, and non-discrimination. Taken together, these treaties, and the rights they safeguard, require access to safe and lawful abortion services as a matter of law.

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