The United Nations general assembly has on Thursday, called upon the United States to allow consular access to Mexicans who are sentenced to death by the US courts and to allow reviewing dozens of Mexican’s cases, through implementing a 2004 international court ruling.
The UN general assembly has barely adopted the Mexican-drafted resolution with a votes of 69 in favour and four votes against the resolution and with 66 abstentions, despite what diplomats called it as strong influencing by the US.
Drafted-resolution also urged the UN secretary general Antonio Guterres to make use of his good offices in order to push for the implementation of the resolution. The general assembly resolutions are much non-binding but could carry a political weight.
US ambassador for economic and social affairs at the UN, Kelley Curries said, “The United States believes that it is inappropriate that Mexico has brought this bilateral matter to the U.N. General Assembly.”
Recently US President Donald Trump has announced that the US was about to build a border betweent the United States and Mexico, with this Trump’s decision it has escalated the differences between the US and Mexico, as it was at very low earlier.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague has in 2004 ruled out that the US had violated the international law after failing to inform about 51 Mexicans who were sentenced on the death row despite their right of consular access and assistance, and further said the case needed to be reviewed.
According to the UN drafted-resolution, six out of those Mexicans have been since executed.
Mexico’s UN ambassador Juan Jose Gomez Camacho said, “Under these circumstances, having exhausted all efforts … the Mexican Government has decided to appeal to the General Assembly.”
Camacho said it was not a bilateral issue as “it violates the international law and has a profound impact on the system of the United Nations as a whole”.
Kelly Currie said the US has always continued to take major such steps regarding the international court judgment and connected extensively with Mexico. Currie further said the US Supreme Court has said that ICJ’s decision “does not constitute directly enforceable federal law”.