Citizens of other countries who were sentenced to death in the United States have ben complaining, loud and hard (wouldn't you?), that they were often tried and convicted without access to diplomats from their own countries, as required under the Vienna Conventions.

The World Court - agreed upon as the final arbiter in such cases per the Conventions - ruled against the US, and specifically Texas, last year and ordered that 51 Texas death row inmates receive new hearings because they were denied help from their home countries. The US Supreme Court hears arguments on March 28 from one of them, who has still not been granted a new trial or sentencing hearing.

Earlier this week, the Bush Administration tried to make the decision work by simply telling Texas courts that they had to review all 51 cases in question. Unfortunately, as the administration likely knew, the President (or the executive branch) has no authority to order a state to reverse its position on a criminal defendant, or to order a court to consider something. Or maybe he didn't know, since he's not really good with the "limits on powers" thing:

Bush's nod to international opinion involves a sweeping assertion of executive authority within the United States, in that, without any legislative action by Congress, he is issuing instructions to the courts of a sovereign state as to how to treat defendants. Texas courts, the president says, should review the Mexicans' cases to see if the lack of consular access affected their trials or sentencing.

His approach would also greatly reduce the role of the Supreme Court, which has been asked by attorneys for one of the Mexicans, Jose E. Medellin, to rule that the decision of the World Court is all the authority individual foreigners need to get a new hearing in U.S. state courts.

"It is for the President, not the courts, to determine whether the United States should comply with the decision, and, if so, how," the administration's brief says.

It is unclear whether the Supreme Court, which is protective of its role in interpreting federal treaty obligations, will be willing to go along with Bush's suggestion.

Amazingly, it didn't fly: Bush's home state of Texas continues the enthusiasm for executions that he showed as governor, and refused to give up on the chance of executing 51 people just because the "president" or the "world court" or the "tooth fairy" said they couldn't do it.

That leaves the President with a few options, like commuting all the sentences to life in prison, or ordering the Justice Department to intervene in the courts on federal grounds (like treaty obligations). Those, however, would leave the President on the record as thinking that maybe, just maybe, someone might not be unfairly executed.

He just can't be having that.

The Bush administration has decided to pull out of an international agreement that opponents of the death penalty have used to fight the sentences of foreigners on death row in the United States, officials said yesterday.

In a two-paragraph letter dated March 7, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice informed U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan that the United States "hereby withdraws" from the Optional Protocol to the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. The United States proposed the protocol in 1963 and ratified it -- along with the rest of the Vienna Convention -- in 1969.

The protocol requires signatories to let the International Court of Justice (ICJ) make the final decision when their citizens say they have been illegally denied the right to see a home-country diplomat when jailed abroad.

The United States initially backed the measure as a means to protect its citizens abroad. It was also the first country to invoke the protocol before the ICJ, also known as the World Court, successfully suing Iran for the taking of 52 U.S. hostages in Tehran in 1979.

But in recent years, other countries, with the support of U.S. opponents of capital punishment, successfully complained before the World Court that their citizens were sentenced to death by U.S. states without receiving access to diplomats from their home countries.

Note that the letter withdrawing from the same treaty that we proposed, and successfully used, is dated the same day as the ill-fated attempt to get Texas to solve the problem on its own. Was it a smokescreen?

Bush's decision to enforce the ICJ judgment in the case of the Mexicans "should ensure that our withdrawal is not interpreted as an indication that we will not fulfill our international obligations," said Jordan of the State Department.

Meanwhile, the president's decision has thrown the Supreme Court case regarding the Mexicans into limbo. Some legal analysts suggest the case may now be moot.

Attorneys for Jose Ernesto Medellin, a convicted murderer on death row in Texas who is seeking review of his assertion that a lack of consular access harmed his case at trial, have asked the justices to put the case on hold until after Medellin has had his hearing in Texas state court.

The Texas attorney general's office, meanwhile, issued a statement Tuesday saying, "We respectfully believe" that the president's decision "exceeds constitutional bounds for federal authority."

Like they didn't see that coming.

(Via Demagogue.)

The boycott of Taco Bell is over - and we won!

March 8, 2005 - Through the dedicated work of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, its supporters — including Presbyterians — and Yum Brands executives, an historic agreement has been reached that will enhance the human rights of tomato pickers in Taco Bell's supply chain. For details, see: www.ciw-online.org

“In accord with actions of the General Assembly, and at the request of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), as Stated Clerk of the General Assembly, I call upon all members of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to immediately cease boycotting Taco Bell and to join with the CIW and Yum Brands in advancing the gains for human rights made today throughout fast-food industry,” said Stated Clerk of the General Assembly, Clifton Kirkpatrick.

We've discussed the boycott here before, and although it takes a while to find the news (Presbyterians are always good at burying the lede), it seems like a clear victory:

Taco Bell announced today that it will fund a penny per pound “pass-through” with its suppliers of Florida tomatoes, and will undertake joint efforts with the CIW on several fronts to improve working conditions in Florida’s tomato fields. For its part, the CIW has agreed to end its three-year boycott of Taco Bell, saying that the agreement “sets a new standard of social responsibility for the fast-food industry.”

“As an industry leader, we are pleased to lend our support to and work with the CIW to improve working and pay conditions for farmworkers in the Florida tomato fields,” said Emil Brolick, Taco Bell president. “We recognize that Florida tomato workers do not enjoy the same rights and conditions as employees in other industries, and there is a need for reform. We have indicated that any solution must be industry-wide, as our company simply does not have the clout alone to solve the issues raised by the CIW, but we are willing to play a leadership role within our industry to be part of the solution,” Brolick added.

Taco Bell has recently secured an agreement with several of its tomato-grower suppliers, who employ the farmworkers, to pass-through the company-funded equivalent of one-cent per pound directly to the workers.

“With this agreement, we will be the first in our industry to directly help improve farmworkers’ wages,” added Brolick, “And we pledge to make this commitment real by buying only from Florida growers who pass this penny per pound payment entirely on to the farmworkers, and by working jointly with the CIW and our suppliers to monitor the pass-through for compliance. We hope others in the restaurant industry and supermarket retail trade will follow our leadership.” Yum! Brands and Taco Bell will also work with the CIW to help ensure that Florida tomato pickers enjoy working terms and conditions similar to those that workers in other industries enjoy.

“We are challenging our tomato suppliers to meet those higher standards and will seek to do business with those who do,” said Jonathan Blum, senior vice president, Yum! Brands. “We have already added language to our Supplier Code of Conduct to ensure that indentured servitude by suppliers is strictly forbidden, and we will require strict compliance with all existing laws. Finally, we pledge to aid in efforts at the state level to seek new laws that better protect all Florida tomato farmworkers,” added Blum.

I haven't eaten at the Taco Bell that's less than a mile from here in nearly three years, but I will today. I'll probably continue to eat some at Taco Mayo, too, since they have a few things that I like, but I have no idea what Taco Bell has even added to the menu since May 2002. They're closer and open late, and better than that, they're doing the right thing for hardworking pickers who've had a horrible lot in life for the past 25 years.

Hooray for social justice!

From the new and somewhat mystifyingly-enthusiastic El Reno Blog:

Progressive Farmer magazine recently announced their first list of the best 100 counties to live in rural America. Canadian County, of which of course El Reno is the county seat, was number 70 overall and 3 in the Southwest. The survey page for Canadian County can be found here.

Here's how they made the calls:

We started with 600 counties with rural areas that met our population, population density and income criteria. Then we ranked them by health care (the number of hospitals and clinics in the county); education (student/teacher ratio and number of higher learning institutions); climate (average temperature and rainfall); pollution index (ranked against the national average); crime index (personal and property crime ranked against the national average); and tax burden (county sales tax and state income tax only, since pro p e rty taxes vary too widely between municipalities). [...]

After crunching the numbers, our editorial board looked at the intangibles, such as quality of life, leisure and cultural pursuits, and scenery. Our well-traveled staff made selections that stayed true to the numbers but also reflected our subjective opinions about the counties chosen. We also talked to residents in these counties; numbers can tell us a great deal about a place, but not as much as the people who live there.

The top 10 counties got a nice article and photo gallery. Since we didn't make that cut, we'll just have to do it ourselves. The El Reno Blog web site is as good a place for that as any.

Or here. Here's a picture of some of El Reno today, including a tree with no leaves.

I'm not sure why I took this picture. Maybe I thought there was a bird in the tree, but I don't see a bird. Do you see a bird? Nope, no bird.