The Jose Medellin exception
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This Los Angeles Times editorial revisits the case of Jose Medellin, the Mexican who was executed in Texas a couple of weeks ago for the murder and rape of two teenagers.
The case attracted international attention and the International Court of Justice in The Hague sided in 2004 with the Mexican government’s argument that the United States had violated the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations by failing to inform the arrested Mexican nationals of their right to seek help from the Mexican Consulate.
‘It’s tempting, especially when the focus is on a killer like Medellin, to assume that no harm is done by the court’s misreading of this country’s treaty obligations. But, as former U.S. diplomat Jeffrey Davidow argued in a recent opinion article in The Times, thousands of U.S. citizens are jailed abroad every year and depend on U.S. consular officials to inform them of their rights and act as intermediaries. If U.S. officials don’t feel obliged to honor the treaty, why should foreign jailers?’
Read the whole editorial here.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City