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.
Well, as to that, see my post #43. I provide a link to the text of the VIENNA CONVENTION ON CONSULAR RELATIONS AND OPTIONAL PROTOCOLS of 1963. So what? Where in article 5 does is say anything about US law enforcement personnel being required to contact an alien's consul either before or immediately after arresting them? Nowhere. We are merely required to permit them to have such communication if they request it. None of which is really the point.
The point is -- what treaty did we sign that gives the "World Court" authority over us? The Vienna Treaty does not.
In other words, the order should have been addressed to Texas instead of the US. Of course, I'm willing to bet that Texas never signed the Convention on Consular Relations.
Yep. And the Japanese don't even announce it in advance. One day the hangman comes, the next day the relatives are told to pick up the corpse and the belongings. Of course, every newpaper article announcing the execuations are careful to point out their years of appeals and generally multiple and always vicious crimes. Public opinion in favor of keeping the hangings generally run in the mid 80 percentages.
Well, you could read the federalist papers. As well, you could cut the silly sarcasm.
ROTFLOL!
I have no problem with freezing Mexican murderers, although lethal injection is faster.
What i want to say to them is censored what i would do to them is censored as well.....BUMSEN IT the WELTCGericht.
As I understand it, none.
But sometimes law gets made by default. If some US judge or other authority starts following up on this, then it could set a bad precedent. And politics can enter in as well. For example, the State Department has a bad habit of placating other countries and worrying about foreign public opinion.
Ratified? Who cares! Income tax was never ratified but they bleed it out of you anyway.
If the Governor wishes to wait for the decision of the ICJ, that is his prerogative. But nothing in our existing case law allows us to make that choice for him.
The decision raises an important question - in any event the ICC doesn't have the jurisdiction to overturn a conviction in the United States so what exactly is the point of all of this anyway?
hahahhaha,, now you're talking,, Hey,, ole sparky is available,,
even the enviro whackos should be happy with the savings on electricity
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