Ethics Newsline®

THE HAGUE
In a rebuke from the United Nation’s highest court, the United States was ordered last week to conduct a “review and reconsideration” of the death sentences imposed on 52 Mexicans whose rights, the court claims, were violated.

The U.N.’s International Court of Justice, often known as the World Court, ruled that U.S. authorities repeatedly violated the 1963 Vienna Convention by not alerting the arrested Mexicans of their right to contact their government for help.

Mexico filed a complaint with the United Nations in December 2003, noting that U.S. authorities admitted violating international treaty yet refused to block the death sentences, reported the Reuters news agency.

Last week, the International Court of Justice upheld Mexico’s complaint, ordering the United States to “permit review and reconsideration of these nationals’ cases by the United States courts.”

Declining to rule on the cases themselves, the court decided to give U.S. authorities discretion on how to conduct the required “review and reconsideration … both of the sentence and conviction” in 52 of 53 cited cases.

In the only excluded case, the convicted Mexican had waived his right to government assistance, reported the Agence France-Presse.

U.S. authorities denounced the decision as an intrusion into their national sovereignty, but said they would review the ruling before deciding whether to obey it. While the court’s decision is legally binding under international law, the United Nations has no means of legally enforcing it, noted press reports.

Supporters said the court ruling simply makes clear that the United States, which often invokes the Vienna Convention when its own citizens are arrested abroad, has to play by the same rules as everyone else.

“This sends a message that the United States must practice what it preaches and abide by these basic standards,” Center for Constitutional Rights attorney Jennie Green told the Los Angeles Times. “We should show we are willing to follow the same laws and standards we would impose on others.”

Reed Brody, a lawyer for Human Rights Watch in Brussels, said that “giving defendants access to consular officials means that they can get good defense lawyers as soon as they are arrested — the surest way to prevent miscarriages of justice and avoid the death penalty.”

President Vicente Fox of Mexico, who angrily cancelled a meeting with U.S. president George Bush in 2002 after Texas executed a Mexican, called the decision “a victory for international rights, for human rights.”

Following Germany and Paraguay, Mexico is the third country in five years to sue the United States for allegedly breaching the rights of arrested nationals under the Vienna Convention, reported the New York Times.