BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (U-WIRE) — Angel Breard, convicted of murder and attempted rape, sits on Virginia’s death row. Like many death row inmates before him, Breard’s appeals have run out, and his execution has been scheduled. Unlike many other death row inmates, Breard successfully appealed to the International Court of Justice. The court has ordered Virginia to stay Breard’s execution. If the United States has any real claim to world leadership, it must comply with the court’s decision.
Breard’s case is the first time in which the “world court” has ruled unanimously against the United States, as well as the first time it has intervened in a domestic criminal case. Even the American judge on the panel voted in favor of the ruling. Unfortunately, the rulings of the world court can be enforced only through the Security Council of the United Nations. Because the United States holds veto power, our nation’s conscience will most likely be the only enforcement power.
More to the point, Breard does not have time for a U.N. Security Council resolution. If the ruling is not heeded, the state of Virginia will start preparing for his execution today.
The issue in dispute is not whether the death penalty is just. The key issue is whether Breard’s rights under the Vienna Convention on Consular Affairs have been violated. The convention was ratified by the United States in 1969; therefore, as a nation we are bound by international law and national honor to obey the treaty. Under the convention, Breard had the right to seek legal help from the embassy of Paraguay, where he is still a citizen. This right was denied to him. Breard had no understanding of the American legal system.
The convention was written to insure that citizens of one nation accused of a crime in another did not face a strange legal system with no understanding of their rights. This would apply equally to an American citizen accused of a crime in Paraguay, as it now applies to the reverse.
International laws and treaties protect all citizens from unjust arrests and punishment and allow modern man to cross national boundaries in relative ease and safety. These international laws work not because some great enforcer in a black helicopter stands ready to chastise any nation not honoring them. Treaties work only because the nations signing them generally abide by them. Without this sense of honor, duty and respect for rules and procedures, treaties would merely be scraps of paper with complex and confusing language printed on them, rather than the historical and often earth shaking documents they are.
If the United States, often perceived from within and without as the world’s police officer, refuses to honor international law, who will? We used international law to attack Saddam when our interests were at stake. Refusing to comply with the court’s ruling because it does not suit us would cause us to lose what credit the United States has as a law protector in the rest of the world. Refusing to comply now would endanger the rights of all U.S. citizens facing charges abroad. Refusing to obey this ruling would make the United States a nation of oath breakers, a nation without honor.

This staff editorial originally appeared in Monday’s edition of the Indiana University Indiana Daily Student.