Journalist Euna Lee (pic­tured), who was impris­oned in North Korea along with her col­league, Laura Ling, recent­ly wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post on the impor­tance of con­sular access for indi­vid­u­als arrest­ed out­side their home coun­tries. Lee was report­ing for Current TV when she and Ling were arrest­ed, inter­ro­gat­ed, put on tri­al, and sen­tenced to 12 years hard labor. Only when the Swedish ambas­sador, who rep­re­sent­ed U.S. inter­ests in North Korea, remind­ed Korean offi­cials of their respon­si­bilty to uphold the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations was Lee able to com­mu­ni­cate with the U.S. gov­ern­ment. As an exe­cu­tion of a for­eign nation­al approach­es in Texas, Congress is cur­rent­ly con­sid­er­ing leg­is­la­tion that would ensure judi­cial review of death penal­ty cas­es in which for­eign nation­als in the U.S. were denied access to their con­sulates. According to Lee, ​“This leg­is­la­tion is not only a mat­ter of hon­or­ing our oblig­a­tions to such inmates. There are still many American jour­nal­ists, aid work­ers, mis­sion­ar­ies, mem­bers of the mil­i­tary and tourists detained in for­eign coun­tries. For all of them, and for their fear­ful fam­i­lies at home, there is noth­ing more impor­tant than uphold­ing the rec­i­p­ro­cal right to consular protection.” 

The issue of con­sular access is receiv­ing atten­tion in light of the case of Humberto Leal, a Mexican nation­al who is sched­uled for exe­cu­tion in Texas on July 7. Leal was not informed of his right to con­sular access pri­or to his tri­al, and his lawyers argue that, with the assis­tance of the Mexican con­sulate, he would not have been con­vict­ed or sen­tenced to death. Instead, Leal was rep­re­sent­ed by inex­pe­ri­enced and inef­fec­tive court-appoint­ed lawyers, one of whom was sus­pend­ed from the prac­tice of law twice for fail­ing to ade­quate­ly represent clients.

(E. Lee, ​“Consular access: A two-way street on a cru­cial right,” Washington Post (op-ed), June 24, 2011). See also Foreign Nationals and New Voices. See Leal’s Petition for Writ of Certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court.

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