Iran calls out US on international law violations

Recently Iran has elected to pick up the famously unwieldy sword of reciprocity and shield of adherence to mutually agreed international norms and called for the US to unconditionally release its national Shahrzad Mir-Gholikan, who was convicted in 2009 of attempting to export night-vision goggles to Iran.

A major part of that complaint appears to be that the US deprived Shahrzad of her rights under the VCCR to consular notification and access.

Even now the US is coming under strong criticism from India for the farcical wrongful arrest of an Indian diplomat’s daughter. Leaving aside her position in a diplomat’s household, the US completely failed to uphold the basic rights of notification and consular access that apply to all foreign nationals.

Meanwhile, efforts are underway to prevent the execution of Humberto Leal, who was one of the 54  Mexican nationals receiving the benefit of the International Court of Justice ruling in Avena, a ruling completely ignored by the US who then withdrew from the ICJ’s compulsory jurisdiction in a huff. Leal was convicted and sentenced to death without access to his consulate, and despite a direct request to take heed of the decision from President George W. Bush, the Texas Courts ignored it.

Iran of course is the country that had to face the first VCCR litigation in front of the ICJ. In 1979 was the US who were grandstanding about Iran’s violations of the VCCR and using the power of the international court to enforce the rights of their own consulate. Iran, like the US, has consistently failed to offer nationals of other countries the basic rights afforded to them by the VCCR as they did in the terrible case of Zahra Bahrami, who was executed while Dutch diplomats were being told her trial was continuing.

All that becomes clear from this mess is that the petulant hypocrisy with which countries demand rights that they refuse to enforce themselves harms not only those foreign individuals caught up in their justice systems, but also their own citizens abroad: international agreements do not survive without some expectation that all parties will keep their word.

In the US there is a growing, if belated, realisation of this fact and in recent weeks groups of prominent and respected US politicians, both Republican and Democrat have written to the Governor of Texas asking them to grant a stay of execution to Humberto Leal.

People such as former Director General of the Foreign Service Harry Barnes Jr., John Bellinger, military leaders, judges and lawyers have made clear their concerns that continuing failures by the US put in danger the thousands of US citizens detained abroad each year. Yesterday Senator Patrick Leahy even introduced legislation to ensure state courts’ compliance with the treaty. 

These developments are encouraging, but the lives of Humberto Leal and many others remain in grave danger for as long as this situation remains unresolved.