Mexico urges court to stop US executing Mexicans

Mexico today appealed to the world court to prevent the execution of 51 Mexican citizens currently sitting on death row in the US.

Mexico had initially sought to spare 54 citizens, however three were spared the death penalty earlier this month when the governor of Illinois, George Ryan, commuted the sentences of 167 inmates, mostly to life in prison.

The Mexican government is first seeking a court order to postpone executions until a 15-member panel of judges can hear its arguments that the US has violated international conventions by not informing detainees of their right to assistance from the Mexican consulate.

Although its judgments are binding under international law, the world court has no independent means to enforce compliance.

In opening remarks in the courtroom at the ornate Peace Palace, Mexico's lead attorney, Juan Gomez Robledo, said "the United States should not be allowed to set any execution dates until the court has heard the merits of the case".

Six Mexican nationals could face death in the first half of this year, he said, two of them as early as next month. Citing the urgency of those cases, he asked the court for a swift decision.

The US disagreed, saying Mexico was infringing on its sovereign system of justice by questioning the use of capital punishment.

The suit covers cases in California, Texas, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma and Oregon. It could take several days for the judges to reach a verdict on the request for "preliminary measures" to immediately halt the execution process.

In a 48-page brief filed in the Hague, Mexico asked the court to order the US to dismiss or retry each case. It also alleges that the US violated its international obligations under the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, to which both countries are party. Mexico did not contest the US right to impose the death penalty.

"Mexico and the United States have irreconcilable views about" the application of the treaty, Mr Robledo said. After years of fighting the issue in US courts, he said Mexico had been left with no other choice but to take its case to the highest international court under the United Nations.

The death penalty has been a source of ongoing tension between the neighbouring countries. Last August the Mexican president, Vicente Fox, cancelled a meeting with US president George Bush over his refusal to stay the execution of one prisoner, Javier Suarez Medina.

Mexico says it has unsuccessfully intervened in at least 20 capital punishment cases involving Mexicans in the US over the past six years, and that the US has systematically violated the rights of its nationals.

The hearings come a week before a two-day trip by Mr Fox to the Netherlands, during which he is scheduled to visit the UN court.

World Court precedent does not bode well for the Mexicans on death row. In a similar case in 1999, Germany filed suit against the US over the planned execution of two German brothers.

The state of Arizona ignored the world court's stay of execution order, however, and killed Karl LaGrand by lethal injection. His brother Walter was executed in a state gas chamber a week later. They had stabbed to death a 63-year-old bank manager in the town of Marana during a botched robbery in 1982.

It was more than two years after their deaths that the court ruled in Germany's favour, agreeing that the US had violated the rights of Germany and of the men by failing to inform them of the possibility of consular assistance.