Posted on 02/05/2003 11:13:39 AM PST by jjm2111
The United States must temporarily stay the executions of three Mexican citizens on death rows in Texas and Oklahoma, the World Court ruled Wednesday.
The ruling — which the court cannot enforce and the United States could ignore — said the delay was needed while the court investigated whether the men and 48 other Mexicans on death row in the United States were given their right to legal help from the Mexican government.
The 15-judge World Court, officially called the International Court of Justice, is the United Nation's body for resolving disputes between nations.
The United States has disregarded rulings in the past.
Reading Wednesday's unanimous decision, Presiding Judge Gilbert Guillaume said the court supported Mexico's argument that executing the men would cause "irreparable" damage to their rights if the court later finds in Mexico's favor.
"The United States shall take all measures necessary to ensure that (the men) are not executed pending final judgment in these proceedings," he said.
After Mexico filed the suit last month, the United States said a ruling in Mexico's favor would be an unwarranted intrusion on the U.S. criminal justice system and would infringe on U.S. sovereignty.
The U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands, Clifford Sobel, said the U.S. Justice Department (news - web sites) was "studying the decision" and would comment on it as soon as possible.
"It's important to note that this is not a ruling on the merits of the case," he said Wednesday, adding that it would be "premature" to say whether the United States would abide by the decision.
If the United States does not, the World Court could complain to the U.N. Security Council, which could impose sanctions, court spokeswoman Laurence Blairon said.
Elihu Lauterpacht, a lawyer for the United States, has labeled the Mexican case a publicity stunt, and said that staying executions in state prisons might be unenforceable for the U.S. federal government.
Mexico's ambassador to the Netherlands, Santiago Onate, called the decision "a confirmation of international law."
The men affected by the ruling are Cesar Fierro and Roberto Ramos, in prison in Texas, and Osvaldo Torres Aguilera, in prison in Oklahoma. All men had exhausted their U.S. appeals and their execution dates were to be scheduled.
Mexico had asked the court to stay the execution of all 51 Mexicans on death row, but the court concerned itself only with the three most urgent cases.
Other Mexicans on death row are imprisoned in California, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Nevada, Ohio and Oregon.
The court has yet to set a date to hear oral arguments in the case and consider whether the prisoners' rights were indeed violated under the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Rights.
The decision followed a high-profile World Court ruling that the United States had violated international law by not informing a German citizen of his right to consular assistance in 1999.
Walter LaGrand was executed in Arizona despite the U.N. court's order to postpone his punishment until it had heard Germany's case. He had been convicted along with his brother Karl LaGrand for murdering a bank manager during a 1982 robbery.
In 1999, the court criticized the U.S. government, saying it had an obligation to enforce the ruling. In Wednesday's decision, the court ordered the United States to "inform the court of all measures taken in implementation of this order."
The death penalty has long been a source of tension between the United States and countries that oppose capital punishment. Mexico's case is the third the United States has faced in five years.
At least 97 foreigners currently await execution in the United States, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Since 1976, at least 15 have been executed; three were freed after appeals or retrials and eight had their death sentences overturned on appeal, according to Amnesty International.
The President has no say in the death penalty in Texas. Governor Rick Perry does, and all he can do is postpone the execution for 30 days.
This is nothing but political grandstanding by Vicente Fox.
I thought Vincente Fox was supposed to be a conservative who was going to reverse the last century of oppression in Mexico. All I can see that he has done is expedite the process of flushing out Native Americans from their ancestral homelands and helping Mexican Marxists to whip up a cockamamie notion that the southwest United States is the ancestral homeland to this new Diaspora. Hang the criminals. Charge Vincinte Fox as a world class criminal who is ethnically cleansing his country. He is on par with all the Arabs who drove out Palestinians from their lands. Fox is a terrorist.
I thought Vincente Fox was supposed to be a conservative who was going to reverse the last century of oppression in Mexico. All I can see that he has done is expedite the process of flushing out Native Americans from their ancestral homelands and helping Mexican Marxists to whip up a cockamamie notion that the southwest United States is the ancestral homeland to this new Diaspora. Hang the criminals. Charge Vincinte Fox as a world class criminal who is ethnically cleansing his country. He is on par with all the Arabs who drove out Palestinians from their lands. Fox is a terrorist.
Must? I don't think so.
He should also tell his good "amigo" Fox to shove it too!
It threw the case out, arguing that it could not rule against nations which did not recognize the court's jurisdiction - particularly the United States and Spain, although both are full members of the United Nations, and therefore party to the International Court of Justic.
This is blather anyhow. The US recognizes international institutions only when they rule in its favor.
I can understand your confusion. I assume from your post that you actually intended to vote for "One World Gore." Was it a chad-punching thing? (grin)
However, you are correct 2 of the 19 aggressor states chose to opt out of the case. That is provided for in the ICJ treaty. It was not the ICJ Judges which threw out the case against the 2 states. Rather it was the 2 states which they themselves chose to opt out.
The mere fact that these 2 aggressor states chose to opt out of the ICJ case points to how worried they were about losing. The rest of the 19 aggessor states at least had the honor to face justice.
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