BY ALFONSO CHARDY

 The legal argument that international conventions would be violated if Elian Gonzalez
 is returned to Cuba may not hold up in federal court, legal experts say.

 Their comments came after lawyers acting on behalf of Elian Gonzalez's Miami
 relatives cited two major international conventions -- the 1948 Universal Declaration
 on Human Rights and the 1984 Convention Against Torture -- as grounds for a federal
 judge to bar the boy's return to Cuba.

 In the lawsuit filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., lawyers ask that Elian be
 kept here unless the U.S. government certifies that Fidel Castro's  government has
 stopped violating human rights and will not persecute the child.

 But experts on international law said it may be a long shot for a federal judge to
 issue an order at odds with U.S. immigration law that gives the U.S. Attorney
 General discretion over whether to remove a foreign national from the country.

 Already in Miami, U.S. District Court Judge K. Michael Moore upheld Attorney
 General Janet Reno's power to decide Elian's fate.

 ''Human rights treaties generally don't get you very far in federal court,'' said
 Stephen Schnably, who teaches international human rights law at the University
 of Miami's School of Law.

 In fact, Schnably said, the record suggests that U.S. courts -- including the U.S.
 Supreme Court -- prefer federal over international law.

 He cited a case in April 1998 when the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision,
 ignored a World Court request and refused to block the execution of Angel
 Francisco Breard, a Paraguayan arrested and charged in the 1992 murder of Ruth
 Dickie in Arlington, Va.

 The United Nations tribunal had ruled that Breard's execution should be blocked
 because Virginia authorities failed to notify Paraguay of Breard's arrest as
 required by the Vienna Convention.

 But the U.S. high court said Breard failed to assert his claim in state court that
 the treaty had been violated and, therefore, lost his right to raise that issue in
 federal court.

 Mary Coombs, a family law expert at UM, said state court is not a good place to
 assert international law anyway.

 ''Many state judges can barely recognize federal law let alone international law,''
 Coombs said.

 However, she agreed that courts in general are a bit more sympathetic to at least
 one international treaty: the Hague Convention that seeks to return children who
 have been abducted abroad by one parent.

 Coombs also noted that courts also pay attention to international law when the
 federal executive branch invokes it.

 Except when it's inconvenient. In 1984, for example, the Reagan administration
 refused to accept jurisdiction of the World Court over U.S. actions in Central
 America for two years to protect Central Intelligence Agency covert operations on
 behalf of contra fighters in Nicaragua.

                     Copyright 2000 Miami Herald