World Court Tells U.S. to Freeze Mexican Executions

Reuters ^ | 2/05/03 | Abigail Levene

[usnret99]

How about the U.S. telling Mexico "Keep your lawbreakers at home or they will be Incarcerated and even put to death"

[Boot Hill]

"World Court Tells U.S. to Freeze Mexican Executions"

--Boot Hill

[archy]

Freeze them? Well, that's a little unorthodox, but if they insist...

Can't do it. It would be cool and unusual punishment.

-archy-/-

[germanicus]

Really. This from a country where cops are probably involved in as many gangland style executions as drug taffickers.

[hgro]

The world court is on display in the UN. All of the crazies on the planet are falling all over themselves to flog the United States where equal justice prevails.

[Enterprise]

I'm shocked I tell you, simply shocked. The U.S. can't just simply ignore the United World Constitution. It plainly states in Amendment 12 - uh, wait a sec till I find my copy. I know it was around here a minute ago. I'll have to get back with this later.

[henderson field]

Time to get out of the U.N. and away from the "World Court."

[Buckeye Bomber]

I believe the governor of Texas answers to a few people other than God, such as the voters of Texas and the President of the United States of America. But that's a mior disagreement I suppose.

The United States chose to sign a treaty. What good is a treaty if we can break it whenever we feel like it? If we informed the convicted murderers of their right to contact the Mexican consul, then we're good to go. If not, we violated a treaty that we signed. That's not an issue of sovereignty. It's an issue of keeping our word.

[henderson field]

Since when does the government of Mexico care about its citizens? It usually doesn't, except if they've snuck into the U.S. Then they can send money back to Mexico. This aspect of their "economy" totalled $10 billion last year. Well, if you electrocute 3 Mexican criminals, that's so much less that gets shipped back to Mexico. Follow the money.

[xfmrman]

To the best of my recollection...I'm sure I heard the L.E.O. apprise those guys of their right to have help from the Mexican Consulate. Yup! I pretty darn sure.

[philman_36]

Is Ashcroft gonna ask the Supremes for a Stay?
I have no idea what Ashcroft might do. I'm not part of the psychic Network. That is why I said let's follow this case.

(We are the Hegemon. We can do anything we damned well please.)
As long as the UN and the liberals okay it.
The Hegemon has no teeth.

[TheBattman]

Exactly what authority (or Jurisdiction for that matter) does the world court have in these cases?

[iopscusa]

Somewhat Conservative??? Let's fry them and that's the Law of the Land and It's people...be careful in Ohio it is a border line case of Rat-dumb!

[marron]

. If not, we violated a treaty that we signed. That's not an issue of sovereignty. It's an issue of keeping our word.

I'm going to grant you that one, but it seems that if it were important, the defense attorney could have brought it up. In fact, the defense attorney could have made the phone call to the consulate himself.

I do wonder if the treaty in question was ever ratified... or if similar to Kyoto and the International Criminal Court it was simply signed by the (previous) president, but then tabled by the Senate, leaving it null and void. It was not necessary to "withdraw" from Kyoto and ICC, for example, because they never went into effect.

If this one is in effect, we should look at the other clauses, to see if and in what way our sovereignty is limited, and if it goes beyond what is reasonable and in our interest, it should certainly be abrogated.

And finally, the whole purpose of a murder trial is to determine guilt, and to deliver justice on behalf of the victim. The step of notifying the consulate would allow the Mexicans to assure themselves that the accused had adequate counsel. I'm not opposed to this. But we should not allow them to politicize the process. If Mexico wants to represent the accused, are they also prepared to make the victims whole?

[Happy2BMe]

Mexico wants this to cover illegal immigrants from the threat of the death penalty - a huge psychological detterent to murder.

Fox proves once again his disdain for Bush - the timing is perfect - right before we go to war.

[Bogolyubski]

Laugh all you want, folks. Here's the bad news:

US Constitution. Article VI, sentence 2:

"The Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in the Persuance thereof; and all Treaties made, and 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, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding."

Since the US foolishly signed away its sovereignty to the World Court by means of a treaty, the WC's ruling trumps any state law and the Judges in TX and OK are bound by the treaty. This precisely why some of us are against signing treaties in general: they undermine our constitutional freedoms. Sadly, since the majority of the population has been indoctrinated in government-run schools for the past 35 years or so, many folks have no idea of what has actually taken place. The only ways the stays could be stopped would be for the Bush State Dept. to defy the treaty (unlikely in the extreme) or for Congress to repeal the treaty (even less likely).

[marron]

Was it ratified?

[Dark Wing]

The Hague Court picked the wrong time to be pulling such foolishness.

[Buckeye Bomber]

You can only abrogate a treaty in advance. You can't abrogate a treaty after the fact. At that point, I believe it would be know as "breaking" a treaty.

Do you honestly think a public defender with too many cases to count on his docket has any understanding of international law or knows about a 40 year old treaty? Yes, 40 years old. This wasn't Clinton's doing, although if it was I'd be highly suspicious of it from the start. The 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Rights was signed and ratified by these United States.

[virgil]

The article doesn't mention what crimes these criminals committed. Whatever they did wrong, the victims or their families should sue Mexico. The US should also sue Mexico for all the illegal immigrants coming over their border. I'm sure we can prove a financial harm what with all the costs of arresting them, trying them, housing them, processing costs. Plus the costs to the INS to capture them and send them back. I'm sure there's more. I bet it all adds up to a lot of money.