Gitmo isn't the only place that foreign prisoners are being denied their rights.
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The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is scheduled to hear a contentious case filed by Mexico against the U.S.A., challenging the legitimacy of the death penalty in this country, from December 15 to 19. Judges from the so-called “World Court,” the top-level legal body of the United Nations that is based in The Hague, will hear Mexico’s legal team argue that 54 Mexican citizens who were found culpable and who are now on death row in a number of states were denied their right to pretrial counsel and trial assistance by Mexican consular officials. As such, the pleadings will call for cancellation of all 54 executions.
In what is viewed as the unacceptable intervention by Mexico in U.S.A. domestic affairs, U.S. government attorneys will argue that over and above the improprieties in Mexico’s petition, the granting of such a request would violate this nation’s sovereignty.
During the recent debate in the Mexican senate with respect to last month’s foreign ministry (SRE) decision to replace a number of diplomats worldwide, some interesting insights into Mexican opinions and plans on the death penalty matter also surfaced. Per se, opposition party senators mainly based their comments and criticism on the November 7 announced decision to remove Santiago Oñate Laborde as ambassador to the Low Countries.
Silvia Hernández, a member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) who chairs the senate’s North America Foreign Affairs Committee, charged that the arbitrary decision of the SRE to relieve Oñate — an attorney and onetime president of the PRI — of his post at this time weakens Mexico’s chance of winning the case against the U.S.A. This is a “life and death” matter, and as such all the work that Oñate has done since the case was filed last January — including his positive rapport with ICJ judges, could be damaged or lost the ex-tourism secretary said.
http://www.mexidata.info/id105.html