The Foreign Service Journal, October 2003

out the possibility of parole. In Virginia or anywhere else in the United States, the attitudes of foreigners have never registered as a significant factor in surveys of why people oppose (or favor) capital punishment. Consular Notification: Double Standards In this era of American hyper- nationalism, it is perhaps not sur- prising that Americans seem blasé about arousing the disre- spect, if not also the outrage, of foreigners when it comes to the death penalty. They, of course, take their lead from our national leaders, who are even willing to brush off harsh criticism from the Mexican government, which in January 2003 filed a complaint in the International Court of Justice against the United States for violating the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations in the cases of all 54 Mexicans on death rows in the United States. U.S. embassies and consulates are quick to insist on consular access to Americans arrested in foreign coun- tries, as is called for by the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. However, despite efforts by State’s Bureau of Consular Affairs to get the word out, foreign- ers in our prisons too often are unaware of their own right to consular notification. And judges and governors throughout America have shown themselves oblivious to appeals from foreign countries that their nationals be spared the death penalty. For example, Angel Breard, a Paraguayan citizen, was executed in Virginia in 1998 despite efforts by his government both to intervene in the appeals process and to secure a ruling from the International Court of Justice on the grounds that Breard was denied timely consular access and advice. Do other countries treat us the way we treat them in these matters? No, of course not. We wouldn’t stand for it. None of the four death penalty countries I served in has executed an American citizen in recent decades. Nor, for that matter, has any other country that I know of. How many Americans are even on the death rows of other countries? Possibly a few dual nationals, at most. For that matter, when was the last time you heard that we were denied consular access to an American accused of murder in a foreign peniten- tiary? Even in countries that are hostile to our values and our inter- ests, and which have substandard prisons, our government aggres- sively — and properly — has been able to insist that U.S. citizens be afforded full legal rights and spared execution. By contrast, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, the United States has executed 20 foreigners since 1988, and 116 for- eign prisoners were on our death rows as of April 15, 2003. A Decent Respect Though we usually seem not to care what the rest of the world thinks about this issue, there are occasional bright spots. For example, in its June 2002 ruling ( Atkins v. Virginia ) that execution of the mentally retarded is cruel and unusual punishment, the Supreme Court noted that within the world community such exe- cutions are “overwhelmingly disapproved.” Encouraged by such glimmers of progress, I believe that we will eventually join the growing international consensus on banning executions of juveniles, of the mentally disturbed, and, one day, even of reprehensible perpetrators of violent crimes. For if we do not, our nation will become increasingly hamstrung in promot- ing basic human rights and democracy, as well as coop- eration in law enforcement. On the other hand, just as the European Union pro- vides a strong incentive for candidate members like Turkey to abandon the death penalty, an America free of capital punishment would, by example and by exhor- tation, help effect such changes — not only in the nations of Asia that are closely bound to the United States and where I spent so many years as an FSO, but ultimately throughout the globe. Toward that end, in my modest public advocacy work in northern Virginia I am motivated by a fond hope that, in not too many years to come, those charged with telling America’s story to foreigners will be able to speak with pride of how our nation managed finally to consign capital punishment to the rubbish heap of our history. ■ F O C U S 48 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / O C T O B E R 2 0 0 3 In this era of American hypernationalism, it is perhaps not surprising that Americans seem blasé about arousing the disrespect of foreigners when it comes to the death penalty.