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| World Court to Rule on Mexicans' U.S. Executions |
| By Reuters |
| Published: 02/05/2003 |
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The World Court at The Hague will rule Wednesday whether the United States must stay the executions of 51 condemned Mexicans whose rights to consular help Mexico says were violated. Mexico last month took the U.S. to the International Court of Justice, arguing that state and municipal officials breached an international treaty by failing to inform the Mexicans of their right to consular assistance after their arrests. Mexico, which has long fought with the United States over the treaty, says the men should be retried because their rights were denied. But it could take the United Nations' highest court years to consider the merits of the case. With that in mind, Mexico is requesting an urgent injunction forbidding the United States from putting to death any Mexicans or fixing execution dates for them -- and that is what the court will rule upon Wednesday. Mexico argues that its rights and those of its nationals under the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations were systematically breached by U.S. authorities. The Vienna Convention obliges local authorities to inform an arrested person without delay of his right to speak to consular officials from his country. 'It is Mexico's experience that the involvement of consular officers can make the difference between life and death for a Mexican national facing capital charges,' Mexico said in its written application to the Hague-based World Court. The overall case concerns 54 Mexicans held in 10 states. But three of them are in Illinois whose governor last month took the unprecedented step of commuting the sentences of everyone on the state's death row, declaring the execution system 'broken.' Mexico wants stays of execution for the other 51 inmates, saying at least one of the prisoners could be executed within weeks if the World Court did not intervene. The United States, for its part, says Mexico has neither proved its rights under the Vienna Convention have been harmed nor that there is 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. The 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. A similar case came before the court in 2001 when the United States was found to have breached the Convention in the case of two German-born brothers executed in Arizona in 1999. |
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