That's the title of a Reuters dispatch from the Hague. LINK
The U.N. human rights office voiced concern on Friday for the fate of 50 Mexican nationals on death row in the United States after Texas defied a World Court order and executed one of their compatriots earlier this week.
The United States has an international legal duty to comply with a ruling by the International Court of Justice in March 2004 that it had violated its obligations under the Vienna Convention in the cases of 51 Mexican nationals, the U.N. said.
Jose Medellin, executed by lethal injection on Tuesday in Texas for the 1993 rape and murder of 16-year-old Elizabeth Pena, was among the 51 named by the ICJ as having been deprived of their right to consular services after their arrests.
The Mexican government had brought the case against the United States to the Hague court.
The ICJ ordered that the United States ensure that Medellin not be executed unless and until he received a review of his case to determine whether the breach of the Vienna Convention prejudiced his defence, U.N. human rights spokesman Rupert Colville told a news briefing in Geneva.
"The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights notes that the ICJ orders remain valid for another 50 Mexican nationals on death row in the United States whose situation is similar to that of Mr. Medellin," he said.
The U.N. human rights office has long opposed the death penalty, saying it should be imposed only for the worst crimes after a fair trial that meets international standards.
"The finality of the death penalty makes it essential that it is applied with scrupulous attention to safeguards set down in international law," Colville said.
"One of those safeguards is that foreign nationals should have access to consular services. That is crucial for the protection of all individuals who travel abroad," he said, referring to the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations.
AFP has, "Medellin execution highlights flaw in international law: experts," via Google News.
The execution of a Mexican citizen by the United States against the orders of the UN's highest court highlights a flaw in international law that enables countries to snub rulings without repercussions, experts say.
While the International Court of Justice's (ICJ) orders are binding, their execution are left up to states who consent voluntarily to the court's jurisdiction, they told AFP.
And while such a system theoretically enables states to act with impunity, it could never be altered for the risk of encroaching upon state sovereignty.
"International law cannot bind a state against its will, simply because we don't have a world government, a world legislature, or a world judicial system," said Jann Kleffner, international law professor at the University of Amsterdam.
"The will of the international community cannot be imposed on states just like that."
The US state of Texas on Tuesday put to death a Mexican convicted of murder in defiance of an order of the ICJ and ignoring a last-minute appeal from UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
And:
Annemarieke Vermeer, international law lecturer at the University of Leiden, said the ICJ would continue finding itself in difficult terrain in matters so close to the essence of state sovereignty as domestic justice.
"The court cannot order a state to change its systems," she said.
Analysts agreed that Medellin's execution was a blow to the ICJ as it brought its relevance into question.
And it may lead other states to emulate the United States when it suited them.
But while the tribunal has no enforcement powers of its own, states that ignore its judgments risk their international reputation and endanger reciprocal agreements with other states.
In another famous snub of the ICJ, Israel ignored a 2004 ruling that parts of a barrier it had built on Palestinian land were illegal and should be torn down.
"If for no other reason, governments need to respect the judgments of the ICJ out of long-term self-interest," said David Fathi, director of the US programme of lobby group Human Rights Watch.
"Even if a state does not like a ruling of the ICJ, it is in everybody's long-term interest that we have an international system governed by the rule of law."
The ICJ was by no means a worthless institution, argued Kleffner, as illustrated by the fact that most of its rulings were complied with -- even unpopular ones.
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