Arizona going to the World Court for violating the Vienna Convention

Tucson Daily Star, Nov. 6 2000

More than a year after Arizona executed 2 German brothers, state officials are going to the World Court for an international battle over the death penalty.
Germany asked the U.N. court for compensation in the case of Walter and Karl LaGrand, whose executions touched off complaints across Germany, and is asking for a guarantee that the United will abide by international law in future cases.
Arizona authorities acknowledged they violated international conventions but said state laws took precedence and that the brothers were given the same rights as U.S. citizens.
Attorney General Janet Napolitano and other officials from her office will argue on the state's behalf before the court in The Hague on Monday.
Napolitano has declined to comment on the case. Her office said she needed clearance from the State Department before talking.
Carla Ryan, a Tucson attorney who represented Karl LaGrand and is a consultant on the World Court case, said U.S. authorities routinely violate the law when dealing with foreign nationals.
"Germany wants us to abide by the rules," said Ryan. "Just because we are still a world power doesn't give us the right to be that arrogant."
The brothers were executed despite appeals by Germany that they had been denied assistance by the German consulate in violation of international law.
Germany, which abolished its death penalty, filed the case at the court, formally known as the International Court of Justice, after Karl LaGrand, 353, was executed Feb. 24, 1999. He was the 1st German to be executed in the United States since World War II.
The court asked for a delay in the proceedings against Walter LaGrand, 37, until the case could be heard, but the request was ignored by state authorities; he was executed March 3, 1999.
The brothers were sentenced to death for fatally stabbing a bank manager to death during a botched 1982 robbery in Marana, a town near Tucson. The LaGrands were born in Augsburg, Germany, and moved to southern Arizona as children after their mother married an American serviceman.
Germany got involved 10 years after the crime, and by that time it was too late to help the LaGrand brothers. Court records indicate U.S. authorities knew the brothers were German citizens at the time of their arrest or shortly thereafter.

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27 September 2000

LaGrand Case (Germany v. United States of America)

The Court will hold public hearings from Monday 13 to Friday 17 November 2000

THE HAGUE, 27 September 2000. The International Court of Justice (ICJ), the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, will hold public hearings in the LaGrand Case (Germany v. United States of America) from Monday 13 to Friday 17 November 2000 at the Peace Palace in The Hague, seat of the Court.

The program of the hearings is as follows:

First round of oral arguments
Monday 13 November 2000 : Germany
Tuesday 14 November 2000 :
United States of America
The hearings will be held from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and from 3 to 6 p.m.

Second round of oral arguments Thursday 16 November 2000 : Germany
Friday 17 November 2000 : United States of America
Thursday's hearing will take place from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.; Friday's
will be held in the afternoon at a time to be set at a later stage.

History of the proceedings

On 2 March 1999 Germany filed in the Registry an Application instituting proceedings for violations of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations of 24 April 1963 allegedly committed by the United States of America with respect to the case of Karl and Walter LaGrand, 2 German nationals sentenced to death by the authorities of the State of Arizona for the murder of a bank manager in 1982. Karl LaGrand, 35, had been executed on 24 February 1999.

In its Application Germany maintained that the two brothers had been arrested, tried and sentenced to death without being advised of their rights to consular assistance, as required by the Vienna Convention. It contended that it was only in 1992, when all legal avenues had been exhausted, that the German consular officers were made aware, not by the authorities of the State of Arizona, but by the detainees themselves, of the case in question. Germany added that the failure to provide the required notification precluded it from protecting its nationals' interest in the United States.
Accordingly, Germany asked the Court to adjudge and declare that the United States had violated its international legal obligations under the Vienna Convention, that the United States should provide reparation, in the form of compensation and satisfaction, for the execution of Karl LaGrand and that it should restore the status quo ante in the case of Walter LaGrand, that is re-establish the situation that existed before his detention and sentencing in violation of the United States' international legal obligations. Germany also requested the Court to declare that the United States should provide Germany a guarantee of the non-repetition of the illegal acts.
As a basis for the Court's jurisdiction, Germany invoked Article I of the Vienna Convention's Optional Protocol Concerning the Compulsory Settlement of Disputes.

On the same day Germany also filed a request for provisional measures in order to obtain a postponement of the execution of Walter LaGrand, aged 37. In an Order dated 3 March 1999, which was adopted unanimously, the Court, ruling ex officio in view of the urgency of the case, called on the United States to "take all measures at its disposal" to ensure that Walter LaGrand was not executed pending a final decision in the proceedings instituted by Germany. The Court also requested the Government of the United States to inform it of all the measures taken in implementation thereof.
By a letter of 8 March 1999, the Legal Counsellor of the Embassy of the United States in The Hague informed the Court that on 3 March 1999, the Department of State had transmitted to the Governor of Arizona a copy of the Court's Order. On the same day and after the Supreme Court of the United States had issued orders disposing of the various motions and petitions before it related to the case of Mr. Walter LaGrand, he was executed.

By Order of 5 March 1999, the Court fixed 16 September 1999 as the time-limit for the filing of a Memorial by Germany and 27 March 2000 as the time-limit for the filing of a Counter-Memorial by the United States. Those pleadings were filed within the prescribed time-limits.