[_delirium]

Under the U.S. Constitution's Supremacy Clause [1], it's the other way around: treaties signed by the U.S. government take precedence over state constitutions.

[1] This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.

[nraynaud]

Hum ok, sorry. The doctrine in France is that the Constitution has supremacy. But the trick is that our Constitution is only 55 years old, so somehow we don't have that many "cadavers in our closets", previous treaties (and I guess it's mostly treaties signed 1945 -> 1958) were taken care of explicitly in our Constitution, the rest is recent history.

It's not to say that it doesn't haunt our government, European Court Of Human Rights is just a treaty after all, and it fundamentally changed our criminal procedure a few years ago, but we integrated this treaty inside our Constitution, and allowed it to hit us on top of our laws.