Bush Defends Withdrawal from Vienna Convention Legal Protocol

[TexasLawyer]

From Voice of America, so you know it's got the Bushco spin. Yes, the US is withdrawing, but we MUST! Otherwise foreigners will be stepping in and questioning our fine court cases. First it's the Mexicans, then... pretty soon everyone else in the world will come in to demand fair trials for their nationals.


Bush Administration Defends Decision to Withdraw from International Legal Protocol

By David Gollust
Washington

11 March 2005

The State Department is confirming the United States is pulling out of the Optional Protocol to the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. But it is stressing that it remains committed to the broader convention, which has governed global diplomacy since 1963, and that the United States is not walking away from international commitments.

The administration action stems from a decision by the International Court of Justice in the Hague last year requiring U.S. courts to review the cases of more that 50 Mexican nationals facing execution in Texas and other states. They had claimed their rights were infringed by the failure of U.S. local officials to inform Mexican consular officials of their arrests.
President Bush late last month told Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to direct state courts to abide by the decision of the international tribunal. That presidential decision will stand. But in subsequent action this week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice notified the U.N. of the United States' withdrawal from the Optional Protocol, which allowed the International Court to intervene in U.S. cases.

Speaking to reporters on her trip to Mexico Thursday, Secretary Rice said despite the move, the United States remains committed to the overall Vienna Convention including the principle of consular notification for foreigners accused of U.S. crimes. But she said the Optional Protocol was being interpreted inappropriately as applied to the United States and its federal system dividing legal powers between the central government and the states.

<snip>

"This is a really unexpected and unwelcome precedent, where people who don't like decisions of our state courts can use an international court as a court of appeal," he said. "That doesn't make any sense at all. We've got a system of justice that works in the United States. I don't think you should compare it to other countries, like Iran in 1979. We have a system of justice that works, we have a system of justice that provides people with due process and review of their cases, and it's not appropriate that there be some international court that comes in and can reverse decisions of our national courts."

The issue of consular notification for the Mexican prisoners, due to be taken up soon by the U.S. Supreme Court, has been an irritant in U.S.-Mexican relations and is expected to figure in talks between President Bush and Mexican President Vicente Fox later this month in Crawford, Texas.

<snip>

http://www.voanews.com/english/2005-03-11-voa6.cfm

[sandnsea]

1. Bush already promised a review

On Tuesday they announced Bush was reviewing the 51 cases of Mexican citizens on death row. I suspected something was up then.

http://www.lightupthedarkness.org/blog/default.asp?view=plink&id=490

Then they announced they were pulling out of the treaty.

http://www.lightupthedarkness.org/blog/default.asp?view=plink&id=505

I think they're going to start the terrorist tribunals and they don't want to have to notify any countries that they're doing it.

[peacebird]

2. well of course we withdraw -

bush can't let a bunch of foreigners tell america what it can and can't do... :wtf: He's the War President after all. HE tells the world what to do, not the other way around.
In his weird machoesque view of things it would be emasculating for him to have to be told what to do by the world.


on edit: we are so royally screwed. where are the sane voices, or even the adults? They are surely missing from congress.

[GoBlue]

3. If our courts of justice are so great...

why do the Bushies object to foreigners insistence that those great courts of justice be used?