"...nationhood as we know it will be obsolete; all states will recognize a single, global authority." - Strobe Talbott Deputy Secretary of State, 1994-2001
Posted on 02/05/2003 1:14:48 PM PST by kattracks
THE HAGUE (Reuters) - The World Court ordered the United States Wednesday to stay executions of three Mexicans -- two on death row in President Bush's state of Texas -- and reserved the right to intervene in dozens more cases.
Mexico took Washington to the International Court of Justice at the Hague last month, saying more than 50 of its nationals on death row should get retrials because U.S. authorities breached an international treaty by failing to tell them of their rights to consular help after their arrests.
With the whole case likely to be lengthy, Mexico asked the highest U.N. court to instruct urgent stays of execution for 51 men. Judges ruled that just three were at imminent risk, though said it might order similar stays for others "if appropriate" before issuing its final judgment in the proceedings.
Mexico's court action reflects deep disquiet among some of Washington's closest allies over capital punishment, which has led to protests from leading European states and Pope John Paul.
The United States and Japan are the only rich industrialized nations to execute convicted criminals. The last person executed in the European Union was guillotined in France in 1977.
The case is the highest level bout of a long-running fight between the United States and its poorer southern neighbor over the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations.
The international treaty obliges local authorities to inform an arrested person without delay of his right to speak to consular officials from his country.
"I wouldn't look at it as a defeat or a victory," U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands Clifford Sobel told Reuters after the decision. "The order clearly does not address the merits of the case."
TWO DECADES ON DEATH ROW
Mexico wants retrials for all its 54 nationals -- four of them mentally ill or retarded -- who were sentenced to death in 10 states in the United States. Three of the 54 were condemned in Illinois, however, where the state governor last month commuted all death sentences in his state.
"The United States of America must take all measures necessary to ensure Mr. Cesar Roberto Fierro Reyna, Mr. Roberto Moreno Ramos and Mr. Osvaldo Torres Aguilera are not executed pending final judgment in these proceedings," Court President Gilbert Guillaume said in the binding order Wednesday.
The three men -- two of whom were being held in Texas and the third in Oklahoma -- "are at risk of execution in the coming months or possibly even weeks," Guillaume said.
Fierro Reyna has been on death row since 1980.
"The decision is welcome, certainly. It comes in the line we have asked for and it certainly reinforces international law," said Santiago Onate, Mexico's ambassador to the Netherlands.
"We are looking for full redress. That we haven't had now. What we have now is...an order from the court that will prevent any execution until the court decides on the merits," Onate told reporters after the sitting.
The United States argued that Mexico neither proved its rights under the Vienna Convention were harmed nor that there was an urgent need for the emergency injunction.
Such an injunction would interfere with the United States' sovereign right to administer its criminal justice system and would mark an unwarranted intrusion by the court into U.S. affairs, it argued at a World Court hearing on January 21.
You don't have to be psychic, just connected enough to get the midnight E-Mails from the center. Some of us lead, the rest of you will follow one way or the other.
The Hegemon has no teeth.
Ask Saddam about that on March 7.
So9
Perhaps not, but I think you can announce that you are "withdrawing" from a treaty, and then do so. But you would have to make the decision that it was worth it to do so. In this case I would not do so without careful consideration. Notifying a consulate isn't such a pain as to warrant withdrawel. An "order" to stop an execution might be.
We would certainly like for our embassy to be notified if we were arrested for murder in Mexico, though I don't believe it actually happens. It usually falls to the arrestee himself to get word out. And of course, our embassy is of no help whatever. I think they will pass your name to a local lawyer, if you don't have one. If you have no money to pay him, too bad for you. But otherwise you are on your own, unless your case takes on any higher political significance. Someone arrested for espionage in Russia gets their attention, but someone arrested for a crime in Mexico does not. This is a misconception many people have when they travel overseas, that the embassy will help you if you're in trouble. They frankly have bigger fish to fry, and they don't want your trouble.
No, a public defender might not be aware that he should notify the consulate, the arrestee himself might not think of it, likewise the prosecutor may not have either in the past. No one ever made an issue of it until recently. I find it difficult to believe it would have made any difference in the outcome of the trial.
But if its an issue, then we should direct our prosecutors to ascertain the citizenship of the arrestee, and notify the relevant embassy in the future. But I wouldn't retry anyone already convicted. There is a pretty rigorous appeal process before these guys go to the chair, anyway. And Mexico's treatment of US prisoners is nothing to brag about, and they resist criticism on the basis that their justice system is sovereign.
The answer to this is obvious. That is presently the law. That is not affected one way or the other by any treaty, that is our system. If someone can prove that the evidence is tainted, the guy gets a new trial. But thats not what we are talking about here. We are talking about a new trial just because someone failed to call the embassy.
I think the burden of proof should be on the convicted, and upon the Mexican embassy, to show that notifying them would have changed the outcome of the trial. If it would have, then he gets a new trial. But the burden of proof is on them, not on the prosecutor.
If this can be demostrated convincingly in any of the cases, then people may be more inclined to take the issue seriously. I would say that, if they are serious, they should get busy looking for a good test case.
As for personal responsibility, these criminals apparently didn't act very responsibly when they got here. Nor did they consult their own gov't or ours before they crossed the border. They're invaders...infiltrators. You are suggesting we release them or commute their sentences on a technicality that their lawyers apparently made no issue of at the time of trial. Maybe because they are here illegally, they don't have the right to consular representation anyway. And how do you know these lawyers were public defenders?
Where in the constitution does the UN have jurisdiction over any US court?
They back their assumed authority with all the military might of.... well, er, the US army who does nearly all the UN's fighting.
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