[DOWNLOAD] "Enforcing the Avena Decision in U.S. Courts (International Rule of Law)" by Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy # eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Enforcing the Avena Decision in U.S. Courts (International Rule of Law)
- Author : Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy
- Release Date : January 22, 2006
- Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 251 KB
Description
The Avena decision (1) concerned Article 36 of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, a treaty that the United States ratified in 1969. (2) Article 36 provides that a party country that arrests a national from another party country is required to advise the national that he can communicate with and seek assistance from his consulate. (3) An Optional Protocol to this Convention, which the United States also ratified in 1969 but recently withdrew from, provides that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague has jurisdiction to hear disputes "arising out of the interpretation or application of the Convention." (4) The ICJ has heard several cases involving violations of Article 36 by the United States: the Breard case brought by Paraguay, (5) the LaGrand case brought by Germany, (6) and most recently the Avena case brought by Mexico. (7) In its Avena decision, the ICJ held that Article 36 confers individual rights, that the United States violated those rights with respect to fifty-one Mexican nationals, and that, as a remedy for these violations, in cases involving severe penalties, the United States was required to provide the Mexican nationals with review and reconsideration of their convictions and sentences, notwithstanding any rules of procedural default that might otherwise bar such review and reconsideration. (8) The domestic effect of this decision is currently being litigated, both in cases involving the Mexican nationals directly discussed in the Avena decision, and in cases involving foreign nationals not directly covered by the decision but with respect to whom the Vienna Convention was violated. (9)