U.S. Says It Has Withdrawn From World Judicial Body

NY Times ^ | March 10, 2005 | ADAM LIPTAK

[neverdem]

Prompted by an international tribunal's decision last year ordering new hearings for 51 Mexicans on death rows in the United States, the State Department said yesterday that the United States had withdrawn from the protocol that gave the tribunal jurisdiction to hear such disputes.

The withdrawal followed a Feb. 28 memorandum from President Bush to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales directing state courts to abide by the decision of the tribunal, the International Court of Justice in The Hague. The decision required American courts to grant "review and reconsideration" to claims that the inmates' cases had been hurt by the failure of local authorities to allow them to contact consular officials.

The memorandum, issued in connection with a case the United States Supreme Court is scheduled to hear this month, puzzled state prosecutors, who said it seemed inconsistent with the administration's general hostility to international institutions and its support for the death penalty.

The withdrawal announced yesterday helps explains the administration's position.

Darla Jordan, a State Department spokeswoman, said the administration was troubled by foreign interference in the domestic capital justice system but intended to fulfill its obligations under international law.

But Ms. Jordan said, "We are protecting against future International Court of Justice judgments that might similarly interfere in ways we did not anticipate when we joined the optional protocol."

Peter J. Spiro, a law professor at the University of Georgia, said the withdrawal was unbecoming.

"It's a sore-loser kind of move," Professor Spiro said. "If we can't win, we're not going to play."

Ms. Jordan emphasized that the United States was not withdrawing from the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations itself, which gives people arrested abroad the right to contact their home countries' consulates. But the United States is withdrawing, she said, from an optional protocol that gives the International Court of Justice in The Hague, the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, jurisdiction to hear disputes under the convention.

"While roughly 160 countries belong to the consular convention," she said, "less than 30 percent of those countries belong to the optional protocol. By withdrawing from the protocol, the United States has joined the 70 percent of the countries that do not belong. For example, Brazil, Canada, Jordan, Russia and Spain do not belong."

Among the countries that have signed the protocol are Australia, Britain, Germany and Japan.

Ms. Jordan said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice informed Kofi Annan, the secretary general of the United Nations, of the move on Monday.

Harold Hongju Koh, the dean of the Yale Law School and a former State Department official in the Clinton administration, said the Bush administration's strategy was counterproductive.

"International adjudication is an important tool in a post-cold-war, post-9/11 world," Dean Koh said.

For 40 years, from 1946 to 1986, the United States accepted the general jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice in all kinds of cases against other nations that had also agreed to the court's jurisdiction. After an unfavorable ruling from the court in 1986 over the mining of Nicaragua's harbors, the United States withdrew from the court's general jurisdiction.

But it continued to accept its jurisdiction under about 70 specific treaties, including the protocol withdrawn from on Monday, said Lori F. Damrosch, a law professor at Columbia. The other treaties cover subjects like navigation, terrorism, narcotics and copyrights, and they are unaffected.

The United States Supreme Court is scheduled to hear the case of José Ernesto Medellín, a Mexican on death row in Texas, on March 28. Mr. Medellín asks the court to enforce last year's judgment of the international tribunal. Texas opposes the request.

When the federal government filed its supporting brief for Texas in the case at the end of last month, it appended the memorandum from the president to the attorney general.

Before the administration's strategy came into focus, international law professors greeted the memorandum with amazement.

"This is a president who has been openly hostile to international law and international institutions knuckling under, and knuckling under where there are significant federalism concerns," Professor Spiro said.

As it turned out, Dean Koh said, the government had "an integrated strategy."

"Element 1," he continued, "was to take the bat out of the Supreme Court's hand."

Lawyers for Mr. Medellín reacted cautiously. In a motion filed in the Supreme Court yesterday, Donald F. Donovan, a lawyer with the New York law firm Debevoise & Plimpton, asked the court to put off hearing argument until Texas state courts could consider Mr. Medellín's claim.

For their part, Texas prosecutors have not conceded that the president has the power to force courts there to reopen the Medellín case.

In a statement, Jerry Strickland, a spokesman for Attorney General Greg Abbott of Texas, questioned the president's authority.

"The State of Texas believes no international court supersedes the laws of Texas or the laws of the United States," Mr. Strickland said. "We respectfully believe the executive determination exceeds the constitutional bounds for federal authority."

Sandra Babcock, a Minnesota lawyer who represents the government of Mexico, said she had no doubt that the president was authorized to instruct state courts to reopen Mr. Medellín's case and 50 others.

"The law is on our side," Ms. Babcock said. "The president is on our side. I keep having to slap myself."

[New Orleans Slim]

Big deal. The US and every other contry routinely withdraws jurisdiction from the International Court of Justice. The ICJ is something of a joke in legal circles to begin with. It exists mostly for political grandstanding since its decisions cannot be enforced.

"'The State of Texas believes no international court supersedes the laws of Texas or the laws of the United States,' Mr. Strickland said. 'We respectfully believe the executive determination exceeds the constitutional bounds for federal authority.'"

There is this thing called the treaty power in the Constitution. One treaty we entered into specifies that nationals who are arrested have a right to meet with consulate personnel. Texas as a state, is legally bound to go along with federally approved treaties. Unfortunately, Texas seems to be too lazy to comply with legitimate federal law. Texas should follow the law just like everyone else and quit its whining.

If we don't follow the treaty, then the next time an American gets arrested in Mexico, Mexican authorities may very well decline to uphold the American's rights under the treaty. (This is the legal principle of reciprocity - if we breach a treaty with Mexico, they get to breach that same treaty with respect to us). Remember this the next time you visit Mexico and see the policia taking an interest in you.

[prairiebreeze]

Thanks for the ping. It's a start..

[CAluvdubya]

I would love to see France et. al. have no voting power. Kind of looks as if Bush is already rendering them impotent. ADN is a good idea. Let's spend our political capital and put a down payment on democracy!

[MeekOneGOP]

Sounds like good news to me!

[justshutupandtakeit]

Why do people keep posting this falsehood. Kennedy never said that nor did the Court BASE any ruling on international law? Such false statements make this site look looney.

[Happy2BMe]

WORLD COURT TELLING TEXAS THEIR LAW IS THE LAW OF THE LAND - ping.

(Who's in charge of law in America - America or the World Court?)

==================================

Prompted by an international tribunal's decision last year ordering new hearings for 51 Mexicans on death rows in the United States, the State Department said yesterday that the United States had withdrawn from the protocol that gave the tribunal jurisdiction to hear such disputes.

The withdrawal followed a Feb. 28 memorandum from President Bush to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales directing state courts to abide by the decision of the tribunal, the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

The decision required American courts to grant "review and reconsideration" to claims that the inmates' cases had been hurt by the failure of local authorities to allow them to contact consular officials.

"The State of Texas believes no international court supersedes the laws of Texas or the laws of the United States," Mr. Strickland said. "We respectfully believe the executive determination exceeds the constitutional bounds for federal authority."

[NautiNurse]

Fine--change international law to international opinion in Kennedy's opinion.

[teenyelliott]

I have been patient for a very long time. I am not waiting any longer. I have come up with an evil plan to rid the US of the UN, and you are welcome to join me if you can keep in on the down-low.

At midnight, I am going to go to the UN building and I am going to fill the entire place with shaving cream. They will never...be able...to use it...again!!!!BWAAAHHHAAAAHAAAHAAA!WAaaHHAAAHHAAAAHHAAAA!That is my evil laugh

[ApesForEvolution]

The withdrawal followed a Feb. 28 memorandum from President Bush to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales directing state courts to abide by the decision of the tribunal, the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

>>>

How long did it take Alberto??? Good grief. Freaking globalists...WHAT OATH ??? TELL ME, WHAT OATH??????

[Happy2BMe]

The impression here is that special favors are being given to Mexican felons over other foreign murderers (those that have killed American citizens) as a gift to Vincinte Fox.

Not a good impression.

Are these murderers (and that is what they are) worthy of special favors?

===========================================

~ ~ ~

America's Most Dangerous Gang - MS13 - Violent, Vicious, and Spreading Fast.

~ ~ ~

"We have Nicaragua, soon we will have El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica, and Mexico. One day, tomorrow or five years or fifteen years from now, we're going to take 5 to 10 million Mexicans and they are going into Dallas, into El Paso, into Houston, into New Mexico, into San Diego, and each one will have embedded in his mind the idea of killing ten Americans." --Thomas Borge, Nicaragua Interior Minister as quoted in the Washington Times, March 27, 1985

[ApesForEvolution]

BTTT

[ApesForEvolution]

"We have Nicaragua, soon we will have El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica, and Mexico. One day, tomorrow or five years or fifteen years from now, we're going to take 5 to 10 million Mexicans and they are going into Dallas, into El Paso, into Houston, into New Mexico, into San Diego, and each one will have embedded in his mind the idea of killing ten Americans." --Thomas Borge, Nicaragua Interior Minister as quoted in the Washington Times, March 27, 1985

[ApesForEvolution]

sKerry and tomtomharkin's comrade Ortega on the prowl again BTTT

[BayouCoyote]

I long for that day!

[neverdem]

Every Mexican murderer needs to have his execution put on the fast track as of yesterday.

Every Mexican murderer needs to have his execution put on reality broadcast TV shows.

[teenyelliott]

I have a plan. Read post 129. You in?

[kevkrom]

You could simply leave soap and deodorant laying around... it would scare the French off permanently, at least.

[Publius6961]

If we don't follow the treaty, then the next time an American gets arrested in Mexico, Mexican authorities may very well decline to uphold the American's rights under the treaty.

That's what they do now, and have been doing forever. How else can they require relatives of jailed Americans to pay for room & bard(!) while in jail and extract other extortions before releasing their prisoners?

You need to get out more.

[Publius6961]

Because a) it's true; and b) Yes, they did, or said they did.