Foreigners on America's Death Rows

John Quigley

may 2018 · Cambridge University Press

Información sobre este eBook

Capital cases involving foreigners as defendants are a serious source of contention between the United States and foreign governments. By treaty, foreigner defendants must be informed upon arrest that they may contact a consul of their home country for assistance, yet police and judges in the United States are lax in complying. Foreigners on America's Death Row investigates the arbitrary way United States police departments, courts, and the Department of State implement well-established rights of foreigners arrested in the US. Foreign governments have taken the United States into international courts, which have ruled that the US must enforce the treaty. The United States has ignored these rulings. As a result, foreigners continue to be executed after a legal process that their home governments justifiably find to be flawed. When one country ignores the treaty rights of another as well as the decisions of international courts, the established order of international relations is threatened.

Acerca del autor

John Quigley represented the European Union before the Supreme Court of the United States in cases relating to foreigners under sentence of death in the United States. He initiated petitions in the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights for such persons, and argued that same issue in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.