LaGrand Case Research Articles

Notes on the International Court of Justice (Part 6)—The Fourth Use of Travaux Préparatoires in the LaGrand Case: To Prove the Non-preclusion of an Interpretation

Notes on the International Court of Justice (Part 6)—The Fourth Use of Travaux Préparatoires in the LaGrand Case: To Prove the Non-preclusion of an Interpretation

Provisional Measures before the International Court of Justice

Abstract The topic of provisional measures before the International Court of Justice has been relatively little explored in literature compared to other aspects of the Court’s procedure. It gained momentum particularly after its judgment in the LaGrand case where the Court clarified that its orders on interim protection are binding. This provoked renewed interest in the characteristics and effects of provisional measures. The present article discusses the traditional requirements for the indication of provisional measures, while also paying attention to one new requirement – that of plausibility of the protected rights – spelled out by the Court for the first time in the Belgium v. Senegal case.

LaGrand Case (Germany v. United States of America)

This note assesses the Court's landmakr ruling in the LaGrand case. It generally applauds the decision, which had found the United States responsible for breaches of Art. 36 of the Consular Convention. It identifies weaknesses in the Court's treatment of remedies for breaches of consular law (which would later come to haunt the Court in the Avena decision). Beyond issues of consular law proper, it analyses the Court's crucial holding that interim orders under Art 41 of the ICJ Statute can impose binding legal obligations on litigants.

The Right to Consular Assistance: Is the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations Self-Executing?

Recently, the right to consular assistance has gained prominence in the discussion among international lawyers, especially since the La Grand Case has been brought by Germany against the United States and the meanwhile withdrawn Bread Case by Paraguay against the U.S. The question which arises in cases as La Grand and Bread is whether Art. 36 VCCR does confer rights on individuals or only benefits the latter while the legal right is solely with the state the individual in question is a citizen of. In this paper the author discusses the situation prior to the International Court of Justice's decision in La Grand.

LaGrand Case (Germany v. United States of America)

1Consular relations — Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, 1963, Article 36 — Requirement that consulate be informed of detention of one of its nationals — Whether conferring rights upon individuals — Consequences of non-compliance — Whether evidence obtained during detention not notified to consulate must be suppressed — Extent to which complaint of non-compliance may be excluded because not raised at earlier point in proceedings — Relationship between Articles 36(1) and (2) — Remedies for non-compliance — Optional Protocol — Extent of jurisdictionInternational Court of Justice — Jurisdiction — Optional Protocol to the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, 1963 — Extent of jurisdiction conferred by Optional Protocol — Whether extending to claim for breach of provisional measures — Whether extending to claim based on customary law concept of diplomatic protection — Admissibility of claimsInternational Court of Justice — Provisional measures of protection — Statute of the International Court of Justice, Article 41 — Whether order indicating provisional measures legally binding — Differences between English and French texts of Article 41 — Object and purpose of the Statute and of Article 41 — Court ordering stay of execution — State carrying out executionTreaties — Interpretation — Treaty authentic in more than one language — Differences between authentic texts — Means of resolution — Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, 1969, Articles 31–3

Post-Avena Application of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations by United States Courts

Following the judgment of the International Court of Justice in the Avena case, US courts have had a mixed record in applying the decision domestically. In this article, I examine the treatment by US courts of claims by criminal defendants alleging Vienna Convention violations, subsequent to the Avena judgment. First, I discuss the two limited decisions so far taken by the US Supreme Court regarding the Vienna Convention, and briefly explain several of the judicially-created rules that have prevented most US courts from reaching the merits of Vienna Convention claims. Next, I analyse the ICJ judgment in the LaGrand case, and provide an overview of the reception of that case by the US courts. After a summary of the Avena decision, I turn to the latest cases in which Vienna Convention claims based on Avena have been raised in US courts, focusing on the two most important decisions, and examining their contradictory rulings. As the US Supreme Court has now decided to hear an appeal in one of these cases, I conclude by arguing that the Supreme Court should take the opportunity to elucidate the role of the International Court of Justice in US law when the United States has consented to binding treaty interpretation by that court.

The Binding Nature of Provisional Measures of the International Court of Justice: the ‘Settlement’ of the Issue in the LaGrand Case

In the LaGrand case, the International Court of Justice seems to have created a clear precedent in favour of the binding force of provisional measures. This essay surveys the main lines of argument for and against the binding nature of provisional measures in the relevant literature, and discusses how the LaGrand case was argued in this context. The elation to be found in recent literature with regard to the ‘settlement’ of the issue of the binding force will be questioned by a discussion of the apparent adoption in international law of a system of precedents and stare decisis.

Consular Assistance: Rights, Remedies and Responsibility: Comments on the ICJ's Judgment in the LaGrand Case

The International Court of Justice, in a landmark ruling in the LaGrand case, 1 held that interim orders under Article 41 of its Statute impose binding legal obligations upon the parties to the dispute. Quite apart from this controversial conclusion, the judgment is remarkable in a number of other respects. In the circumstances of the case, Germany had asked the Court to declare that the United States' treatment of two German nationals, Karl and Walter LaGrand, was in violation of the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (VCCR). The two brothers had been arrested in 1982 for various crimes, including murder, and were subsequently tried and sentenced to death by US courts. In the course of the proceedings, they had not been informed of their right, as guaranteed by Article 36 of the VCCR, to seek consular assistance. In its first claim (see paras 65-78), Germany contended that this omission not only violated its own rights as a state party to the Convention — a violation that the US conceded — but also the individual rights of the two brothers. The Court granted this claim, thereby recognizing that Article 36 of the Convention protects individual rights. Its decision affirms the view that under modern international law, individual rights need not necessarily derive from classical human rights treaties, but are a pervasive phenomenon — a view that was recently also held by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR). 2 While the IACHR however went on to discuss the relation between individual rights to consular assistance and procedural human rights, the ICJ stopped short of recognizing that Article 36 of the VCCR was a human right, thereby prudently avoiding a politicization of the dispute. In its second claim (paras 79-91), Germany alleged that the United States had violated its duty to effectively implement the right to consular assistance. Under the

I. Lagrand Case (Germany v United States of America)

In the LaGrand case, the United States found themselves for the second time within three years before the International Court of Justice dealing with the death penalty imposed on foreign nationals in the United States.1 In contrast to the earlier case filed by Paraguay, the German-sponsored LaGrand case survived the provisional measures phase and went on to the merits stage. In its judgment of 27 June 2001, the Court largely affirmed all four German submissions and ruled that the United States had violated international law.

Diplomatic Protection and the LaGrand Case

While the most important feature of the judgment given by the International Court of Justice in the LaGrand case is probably the conclusion that provisional measures indicated by the Court are binding, the decision is not without significance in the field of diplomatic protection.

The ILC's Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts: Completion of the Second Reading

In 2001 the International Law Commission finally adopted on second reading the Draft Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts with commentaries, bringing to an end nearly 50 years of ILC work on the subject. This article reviews the final group of changes to the text, focusing on the definitions of ‘injury’ and ‘damage’, assurances of non‐repetition in the light of the LaGrand case, procedural aspects of countermeasures and the controversy over measures taken in response to a breach by states which are not individually injured. The focus of debate now turns to the UNGA Sixth Committee, which will have to decide what to make of the Draft Articles. The ILC itself recommended an initial resolution taking note of the Articles, with subsequent consideration (after a period of years) of a possible diplomatic conference with a view to concluding a convention. This modest proposal allows for further reflection on the text and may help to avoid possibly divisive and inconclusive debate in the Sixth Committee. At the same time it allows time for better understanding of the many changes made as compared with the first reading text (1996).

THOU SHALT NOT VIOLATE PROVISIONAL MEASURES

In its judgment in the LaGrand case (Germany v. United States of America), delivered on 27 June 2001, the International Court of Justice found, for the first time in its history, that its orders indicating provisional measures were legally binding. This has long been the subject of extensive controversy, but the Court has traditionally refrained from stating its views on this point, even though such orders are frequently disregarded (e.g., in Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. (1951), Fisheries Jurisdiction (1972), Diplomatic Staff in Tehran (1979) and Genocide Convention (1993)). In LaGrand the Court adopted a positive stand on provisional measures and displayed full readiness to draw serious consequences from non-compliance therewith. One can expect that the important ruling in this case will have a far-reaching impact on future attitudes toward the Court’s provisional measures.

International Court of Justice (ICJ): LaGrand Case (Germany v. United States)

International Court of Justice (ICJ): LaGrand Case (Germany v. United States)

Due Process and the Right to Life in the Context of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations: Arguing the LaGrand Case

The LaGrand case, currently under deliberation at the International Court of Justice, encapsulates a number of problems cutting across key areas of international law. The dispute, which arose out of the United States' failure of consular notification in violation of the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, originated within a context that compelled Germany and the Court itself to act in an unprecedented manner. The life of a man in imminent danger prompted Germany 'to sue its close ally, the United States' and the Court to act within hours after it had been seised on 2 March 1999, issuing for the first time an Order on provisional measures proprio motu and without having held a hearing. 1 Indeed, although the case has at its core the interpretation and application of Article 36 of the Vienna Convention, it involves legal proceedings that led to the deprivation of life of two German nationals: Karl and Walter LaGrand. The first died executed by lethal injection and the second in the gas chamber of the state of Arizona. As a result, the parties met in relation to a dispute which, although it '(did) not concern the international legality vel non of the death penalty as such', was surrounded by facts that made it impossible to insulate the provision at stake from its possible bearing on individual rights: namely on the right to due process and, ultimately, on the right to life in the context of the death penalty. Two opposite views of international law appeared from the arguments of the parties. For the United States international law consists of a myriad of watertight compartments: at the level of sources, treaty law and customary international law have separate existences and thus one excludes the application of the other; at the level of rights and

International Court of Justice Rules in Favor of Germany and Against the United States in the LaGrand Case

In its judgement from June 27, 2001, in the LaGrand Case (Germany v. United States of America), the International Court of Justice made a number of watershed rulings: (a) The Court established that Article 36(1) of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations creates individual rights for foreign nationals abroad, and not just rights protecting the interests of states that are a party to the Convention; (b) The Court ruled that, beyond the undisputed failure on the part of the U.S. to take the measures required by the Convention, the application of an American provision of criminal procedure in the LaGrand brothers' cases (a provision that prevented the domestic courts from reviewing the implications of the Convention violation admitted by the Americans) itself constituted a violation of Article 36(2) of the Convention; (c) The Court, as a remedy in the case of future violations of the Convention, ordered the United States to provide a procedure for the review and reconsideration of convictions secured in circumstances in which the obligations of the Convention had not been observed; and (d) as a separate matter the Court ruled that its provisional orders, issued pursuant to Article 41 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice, have binding effect.

El incumplimiento de las ordenanzas sobre medidas provisionales de la Corte Internacional de Justicia: el caso LaGrand

Numero 98 Mayo - Agosto 2000 Nueva Serie Ano XXXIII ISSN 0041 8633 EL INCUMPLIMIENTO DE LAS ORDENANZAS SOBRE MEDIDAS PROVISIONALES DE LA CORTE INTERNACIONAL DE JUSTICIA: EL CASO LAGRAND Soledad TORRECUADRADA GARCIA-LOZANO In this work, the author analyses from a legal-international perspective, problems related to the Viena Convention on consular relations. In order to do so, the author studies the LaGrand case. She refers to the facts that originated the sentence of the LaGrand brothers, who were executed in Arizona during the first quarter of 1999, infringing an order of the International Court of Justice. The study also refers to the procee-dings before the Court, and to the content of the resolution issued by it. Finally, the article makes some considerations about the provisional measures issued by the Court, and the legal effects of the Courts orders. * Nota: Debido que la traduccion es automatica podra ser inexacta o contener errores.