In
recent years the news, across the differing mediums of newspapers, magazines,
television shows and websites, has been dominated by various issues such as the
economy, our two undeclared wars, Arab uprisings, WikiLeaks, and the death
penalty. While it may not appear so at
first, all of these news topics are connected by their impact on international
relations. The one which would most
likely draw second glances from the above list is the death penalty, but it
does indeed affect our dealings with other nations.
The death penalty is reserved for
the most extreme cases in the United States, only applicable to mentally stable
adults who have committed a murder—whether or not that murder requires
aggravating circumstances varies by state.
While an “ugly American” may believe that most other nations practice
this form of punishment, the truth is that we are in small company in this
regard, and the company we keep is not good.
The list of nations which practice
the death penalty is only getting smaller as about one or two nations abolish
it each year, as shown by Amnesty International. The remaining nations with which we can be
associated through this common practice includes only one other Western nation,
Japan. Others on the list include such
paragons of human rights as Iran, China, Somalia, Sudan, North Korea, and
Afghanistan. While I am not arguing with
the practice itself, the continuation of the death penalty hinders our ability
to maintain a moral high ground over these nations.
Our government finds itself in a
situation where it must criticize a foreign nation for its human rights abuses,
but more often than not, that nation will share with us what many activists and
organizations believe to be the most egregious human right offense: the death
penalty. This can compromise our ability
to protect the citizens of that nation, regardless of what offense its government
is inflicting upon those citizens.
The
loss of our moral superiority, once openly wielded as a powerful international
weapon, has played a companion role to the weakening economy as factors in our
decreasing ability to act as global hegemon.
This moral vacuum has an impact worldwide, as it creates openings for
nations to behave as children do when the parents are away. China’s posturing in the east Pacific, Iran’s
flaunting of U.N. conventions and sanctions, and even Europe’s increasingly radical
xenophobic response to Muslim immigrants all may have been preventable if we
could position ourselves as a guardian of rights worldwide. This role, however, is impossible for us to
fulfill as long as a current still runs through Old Sparky.
In NATO’s involvement in the Libyan
affair, the United States willingly took a backseat role to France and Great
Britain. While this was undeniably
influenced by the decreased amount of money our military would be obligated to
spend if we were in charge, this shift of responsibility to the old powers of
France and the U.K. could be seen by some as the weakening of America’s moral
ground and our inability to muster support for our plans.
Not only does our moral standing
decay with every dose of execution cocktail coursing through the veins of
condemned inmates, but we also put our own people at risk aboard. A clear example of this comes from the stereotypically
gung-ho state of Texas. Seventeen years
ago Texas authorities arrested Humberto Leal Garcia, Jr. for rape and
murder. He was held, given
court-appointed attorneys, and was later sentenced to death. While this is not strange or uncalled for in
a regular scenario, this was anything but normal. Garcia was a Mexican citizen which entitled
him to legal help from the Mexican consulate under the Vienna Convention on
Consular Relations, signed by one hundred and seventy three nations, including
the U.S. and Mexico. Texas authorities neither
notified nor granted Garcia these rights.
While the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, Amnesty International, and
countless activists protested, Garcia was executed on July 7th,
2011.
Texas’ blatant disregard for the
Vienna Convention creates a dark world of possibilities for U.S. citizens
worldwide. Euna Lee and Laura Ling, the
two American journalists held in North Korea for espionage, have both widely
credited the Vienna Convention as protecting them and providing hope during
their ordeal in the harsh dictatorship of North Korea. Iran has even granted captives rights under
the Vienna Convention, most notably regarding the two American hikers held for
espionage activities. The U.S. itself
has sued to the International Court of Justice for the recognition of its
citizens abroad Vienna Convention rights.
The ICJ was consulted in Garcia’s
case and ruled in favor of Mexico, stating that Texas must give the rights to
Garcia and other similar prisoners, but Texas simply ignored the international
community, an incredibly dangerous move.
Not only does such an action weaken the perception of strength that the
ICJ carries, thus making decisions issued by the Court more likely to be
ignored by other nations, it also will lower the resolve of foreign nations to
ratify treaties with us as they will fear that we will ignore them as Texas has
ignored the Vienna Convention.
Our descent from the supposed peak
of moral responsibility is not the only side effect of our collective refusal
to take capital punishment laws off the books.
Now, as a result of nearly every other nation’s abolishment of the death
penalty, murderers can attempt to flee the borders of the United States and
seek refuge in a foreign nation, often which will refuse to extradite the
criminal. Their unwillingness can be
explained very simply and rationally: They forbid the death penalty in their country and handing over
the fugitive, if he or she is convicted of murder could very likely face the
death penalty, would essentially sign his or her death warrant. Therefore, this nation will either keep the
fugitive within its borders or force the district attorney from where the
fugitive will be tried to take the death penalty off the table, thus ensuring
that there will be no further loss of life in the affair.
This
creates a dangerous precedent as it is essentially allowing a foreign nation to
make judicial decisions for us, a clear infringement of our sovereignty. Americans have never reacted well to the
concept of norming, or following international norms. Gun control is a clear example of this, as the
U.N. has pressured the U.S. to follow international gun norms, which
essentially amount to a wholesale ban on firearm possession, for years to no
avail. Therefore, we are engaged in
another norming battle, this time not with the international community but with
nations that seek to fly in the face of American domestic policy.
Mexico,
for instance, uses a 1978 treaty with the United States as a method to force
what have been termed “death assurances” from U.S. district attorneys. These force the prosecutors to take the death
penalty off the table in order to retrieve the fugitive from Mexican hands. Canada and France are also known to seek
similar assurances when a fleeing criminal reaches their borders.
Involvements
such as these into the domestic affairs of one nation by a different nation
create a difficult precedent to face in the coming decades. If the trend continues as it has, nations
could withhold criminals to extract different political changes from each
other, be it trade policy, immigration policy, or even military policy. The United States is not the only nation that
this could happen to; there are numerous geopolitical rivalries in which such a
ploy could be enacted. Imagine for a
moment that there is a murder of a prominent individual in India and the
culprit flees to Pakistan. Pakistan
could use the prisoner as leverage to get New Delhi to change its policy towards
the Kashmir region. Such an incident
between rival nations, especially nuclear powers such as Pakistan and India, or
Iran and Israel, threaten to destabilize not only the geographic region the
countries reside in, but also the entire international community.
Regardless of one’s political party, there is
no denying the damage that capital punishment can do to a nation’s ability to
project itself across the world and its ability to maintain ultimate authority
within its own borders. While the United
States provides itself as an easy example, this problem can affect any of the
thirty six nations which still practice capital punishment. Sometimes a nation must sacrifice a practice
it finds acceptable for the greater good of its sovereignty and the
international community.
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