US withdraws partly from the vienna protocol.

Hobbes

What this basically means if you go to Jail in the US you can no longer ask to speak to someone from your embassay. It also means that your home country cannot intervene in the event you are put on death row.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21981-2005Mar9.html

I wonder if the US will still want it enforced in the instances where US civilians are jailed in other countries?

bonkey

At least the US is remaining consistent with their stated policy of not actually breaching conventions but rather withdrawing from them when they no longer intend to openly support them any more.

I'm sure there's a good, valid reason for this....no doubt connected to the overriding need to protect the security of the state against the EEVIL TURRESTS.

jc

bonkey

Hobbes wrote:

What this basically means if you go to Jail in the US you can no longer ask to speak to someone from your embassay. It also means that your home country cannot intervene in the event you are put on death row.

Umm...having read a bit further....what Hobbes is describing here is the effect of the Vienna Convention. However, the US has not withdrawn from the convention. It has merely withdrawn from an optional protocol which makes the ICJ the arbiter in the case of alleged violations

It seems to be a case where the ICJ told the US to reexamine the cases of a number of Mexicans on death row, which the US is doing despite disagreeing with the decision. However, because it disagrees with the decision (like the British - the US seems to be of the attitude that international courts of any description only serve a useful purpose if they uphold decisions made by them, and have no right to do anything else), the US has now decided its no longer willing to accept the ICJ being the arbiter over what they describe as domestic criminal law.

As an aside...exactly what is domestic law these days? In the US, that would seem to cover:

- US people breaking US laws in the US
- non-US people breaking US laws in teh US
- US or non-US people breaking US laws outside the US
- anything you want to do to EEVIL TURRESTS

jc

Slutmonkey57b

More bad news for civil liberties in the states then. In fairness though, any International Court has no inherent legitimacy - only that conferred on it by the nations that subscribe to it.