Kidnapings

Marjorie Miller reports that “the U.S. government said it would no longer kidnap Mexican citizens but refused to back up its pledge with any legal guarantees” (July 2). U.S. officials seem to be unaware that Mexico and other countries already have a new and plain-spoken legal safeguard against future kidnapings.

On Nov. 11, 1990, the United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs came into force. In text blunt enough for all to understand, the convention enjoins that a treaty party “shall not undertake in the territory of another Party the exercise of jurisdiction and performance of functions which are exclusively reserved for the authorities of that other Party by its domestic law.”

The language was introduced by delegates from Canada and Mexico, reacting to the 1986 kidnaping of defendant Rene Martin Verdugo-Urquidez from Mexico and the 1981 abduction of businessman Sidney Jaffe from Canada. The United States ratified the U.N. Narcotics Convention in early 1990, as did Mexico and Canada.

If the United States wishes to retain credibility as a treaty signatory, Atty. Gen. William Barr must instruct the Drug Enforcement Administration and other U.S. law enforcement agencies to cease and desist from cross-border kidnapings in narcotics cases.

Otherwise we will offend the new guarantees given under United Nations auspices, and weaken the international narcotics control regime.

RUTH WEDGWOOD

Associate Professor of Law, Yale Law School, New Haven, Conn.