Document Type

Article

Disciplines

International Law

Abstract

The international law obligations of the United States are seldom the subject of Supreme Court opinions. This is true even though Congress has the constitutional power to "define and punish .. .Offenses against the Law of Nations."' The United States Supreme Court has recently granted certiorari in the case of Finzer v. Barry2 in which the the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals held that an international law obligation on the part of the United States creates an interest sufficient to justify a viewpoint-based statute which would otherwise be found unconstitutional because of its infringement upon the first amendment rights of certain speakers.

This note briefly examines the Supreme Court's treatment of time, place and manner regulations. It outlines both the Finzer majority and dissenting opinions, and focuses on the constitutional standards relied upon in each. The note discusses the several ways the Supreme Court may choose to deal with the law of nations obligation in the face of a first amendment challenge to the statute and suggests that, if the obligation is properly evidenced, the most plausible and justifiable way for the Court to handle it is to simply use the compellingness of the interest at hand in the usual first amendment equation. The note concludes that in Finzer, while the interest in upholding the United States' international law obligation may be compelling, the statute should fall because it is not the alternative least restrictive of speech.

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