Foreigners on US death row no longer have right to make international appe

[emad]

IndependentBy Rupert Cornwell in Washington
11 March 2005


Showing its impatience with outside interference in the US system of capital punishment, the Bush administration has pulled out of an international protocol that allowed foreigners on death row to take their cases to the World Court.

In a two-paragraph letter to Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general, Condoleezza Rice, the Secretary of State told him that the US "hereby withdraws" from the optional protocol, part of the 1969 Vienna Convention on consular relations. It stipulates that signatories must allow the International Court of Justice ((ICJ) in the Hague - the World Court - to have the final say in cases where foreign citizens say they have been denied access to their own consular officials when jailed abroad.

The letter, dated 7 March, came three weeks before the US Supreme Court was due to hear the case of Ernesto Medellin, a Mexican on death row in Texas, who is asking for a World Court ruling made last year in favour of Mexico to be enforced. But the appeal may now be moot.

Just 10 days ago the Bush administration, not known for its friendliness to international institution - astounded many observers by agreeing that the Mr Medellin and 50 other Mexicans on US state death rows should be granted new court hearings, in line with the ICJ demand. But those hearings will be the last. The withdrawal, a State Department spokesman said, would ensure that in future the ICJ would not be able to interfere in cases involving foreigners, and thus "supervise or disrupt our domestic criminal system".

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=618837

[Rainbowreflect]

1. Well we damn well better plan on being treated the same way

by other countries.
Oh, I forgot we're Americans we are better than everyone else.
This crap really pisses me off. :mad:

[RuleofLaw]

2. I will need to look into this further

But I am curious as to how the Administration can withdraw from an international protocol if it was ratified by Congress. I believe that Only congress can withdraw from a protocol like this. But like I said, I will have to see if Congress ratified the additional protocol.