U.S. Says It Has Withdrawn From World Judicial Body

Prompted by an international tribunal's decision last year ordering new hearings for 51 Mexicans on death rows in the United States, the State Department said yesterday that the United States had withdrawn from the protocol that gave the tribunal jurisdiction to hear such disputes.

The withdrawal followed a Feb. 28 memorandum from President Bush to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales directing state courts to abide by the decision of the tribunal, the International Court of Justice in The Hague. The decision required American courts to grant "review and reconsideration" to claims that the inmates' cases had been hurt by the failure of local authorities to allow them to contact consular officials.

The memorandum, issued in connection with a case the United States Supreme Court is scheduled to hear this month, puzzled state prosecutors, who said it seemed inconsistent with the administration's general hostility to international institutions and its support for the death penalty.

The withdrawal announced yesterday helps explains the administration's position.

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Blue Hobgoblin said:

It seems to me that Bush wants to run the world, but not abide by its rules.

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Blue Hobgoblin said:

It seems to me that Bush wants to run the world, but not abide by its rules.

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Batman said:

If you were going to run the world, why would you abide by it's rules?

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26 X World Champs said:

When China becomes the world's #1 economic power later this century it will be quite interesting to see how our government complains about their impending economic dominance?

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26 X World Champs said:

We're to the world in the 21st Century what the Brits were in the late 19th & 1st half of the 20th century. It's called imperialism, and it sucks. It was wrong back then, and it's just as wrong today.

As a government, our nation is a global embarrassment. Not everything they do is wrong, but most things they do are. They have no concept of diplomacy, and they have no sense of a global community.

When China becomes the world's #1 economic power later this century it will be quite interesting to see how our government complains about their impending economic dominance?

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