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 Americas & Beyond | June 2008 
Mexico Accuses US of Violations in Death Sentence Dispute
 Mariette le Roux - Agence France-Presse
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| | U.S. legal advisor John Bellinger, left, stands behind the lectern as he addresses the World Court as Mexico's delegation is seen, bottom left corner, in The Hague, Netherlands, Thursday June 19, 2008. Mexico made an emergency appeal to the U.N.'s highest court Thursday, to block the execution of its citizens who are on death row in the U.S. until after a 'review and reconsideration', of their trials and sentences. (AP/Peter Dejong) | | |
The Hague - Mexico pleaded in the UN's highest court Thursday the case of 50 of its citizens who face execution in the United States despite having been denied a mandated review of their sentences.
Its lawyers told the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that the United States had breached its international obligations and snubbed the court itself by failing to carry out the reviews.
Five Mexicans among the group were in "imminent danger" of being executed in the US state of Texas without the "review and reconsideration" the court had directed Washington in 2004 to carry out.
"We are confronted with acts which set the United States in breach of its international obligations," Juan Manuel Gomez-Robledo, under-secretary for multilateral affairs in the Mexican foreign ministry, argued before The Hague-based tribunal.
In its 2004 judgment, the UN court held the United States in breach of the Vienna Convention for having failed to inform 51 Mexican nationals of their rights to consular access and assistance during trial.
It directed the state to review and reconsider the convictions and sentences "by means of its own choosing" - but it is this phrase that is at the heart of the current dispute.
Mexico has now approached the court for closer interpretation of the 2004 judgement, saying all but one of the 51 review requests, have been denied.
One of the Mexican convicts, 33-year-old Jose Medellin, has since been scheduled to be executed on August 5 for the rape and murder of two teenaged girls in Texas in 1993.
At least four others were in "imminent danger" of having execution dates set by Texas with notice periods of between three and nine months, said Mexico.
Gomez-Robledo told a panel of 12 judges Thursday that Mexico had made several failed attempts to get its northern neighbour to comply.
"The power of the United States on the international stage is great, exorbitant ... indeed crushing," he said. "The rule of law is the foundation stone on which the US was built."
Contrary to what the United States claimed, he argued, the country had a broad range of measures available to achieve the desired result.
"Five Mexican nationals can be executed without their convictions and sentences having received the review and reconsideration that is their right," said Gomez-Robledo.
Mexico is seeking an additional interim ruling that none of the group be executed pending final judgment.
Also for Mexico, Sandra Babcock, director of the Human Rights Clinic at the Northwestern University Law School in Chicago, told the judges that Texas had executed 407 people since 1982 and planned to put 14 to death this year.
A stay of execution is granted in only one of about 200 cases, "slim hope indeed", she added.
John Bellinger, for the US, said his country had taken a series of actions, to give effect to the court's judgment, despite constraints in domestic law.
This included a memorandum from President George W Bush directing state courts to respect the judgment, and a failed intervention by the federal government in Medellin's appeal before a Texas court.
The US Supreme Court ruled in March this year that "the means chosen by the President of the United States to comply (with the ICJ judgment) were unavailable under the US Constitution."
The two houses of the American parliament would not be able to pass legislation to rectify this in the near future, Bellinger added.
He also argued that the tribunal had no jurisdiction to hear the matter and accused Mexico of abusing court processes merely to bring further pressure to bear on the United States. |
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