A new report by Reprieve, a non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tion based in London that pro­vides legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion and human­i­tar­i­an assis­tance to for­eign nation­als on death row in the U.S., found that many U.S. states were not in com­pli­ance with the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (VCCR). This treaty, which the U.S. has signed and rat­i­fied, requires par­tic­i­pat­ing coun­tries to give arrest­ed indi­vid­u­als from oth­er coun­tries time­ly notice of their right to con­tact their con­sular offi­cials. In 95% of the U.S. death penal­ty cas­es involv­ing for­eign nation­als reviewed by Reprieve, the require­ments of the treaty had not been met. The report stat­ed, ​“It is wide­ly accept­ed that for­eign nation­als are at a sig­nif­i­cant dis­ad­van­tage when con­front­ed with the intri­ca­cies of the US crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem — par­tic­u­lar­ly when fac­ing cap­i­tal charges. They are like­ly to encounter var­i­ous cul­tur­al and lin­guis­tic bar­ri­ers that ham­per their abil­i­ty effec­tive­ly to engage in the judi­cial process.” The report not­ed that none of the 37 death penal­ty states sat­is­fac­to­ri­ly met their oblig­a­tions under the VCCR, and even the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment failed in 75% of their cas­es for which there was data. The report con­clud­ed with a series of rec­om­men­da­tions for oth­er coun­tries to fol­low to effect full U.S. imple­men­ta­tion of this treaty.

(“Honored in the Breach,” Reprieve, November 2012). See Foreign Nationals and Studies.

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