Opinion ID: 775224
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Vienna Convention on Consular Relations

Text: 9 Claiming that federal officials violated his rights under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, Apr. 24, 1963, art. 36, 21 U.S.T. 77, 596 U.N.T.S. 261 (1969) (Vienna Convention), which, upon the arrest of a foreign national, requires notification of the diplomatic representatives of the nation of which the individual taken into custody is a citizen, and that this violation prejudiced his defense, Emuegbunem seeks dismissal of the indictment or, in the alternative, reversal of his conviction.
10 Sometime in June 1999, approximately one year after his extradition to the United States, Emuegbunem complained to the district court that prosecutors had not honored his rights under the Vienna Convention. At a hearing on June 8, 1999, the district court allowed the parties additional time to research the matter. Treating Defendant's complaint as a motion for the assistance of Nigerian consular officials, at a hearing on June 18, 1999, the district court directed the prosecutor to contact the Nigerian consulate. Subsequently, both the prosecutor and Emuegbunem did so. The prosecutor sent a letter informing the Nigerian consulate of the crime with which Emuegbunem had been charged, the location at which he was being held, and the name and address of his attorney. For his part, Defendant sought the assistance of Nigerian officials in procuring witnesses and physical evidence from Nigeria. In a letter dated August 13, 1999, the Nigerian Embassy in Washington, D.C., sent Defendant the following letter: 11 I am directed to ackwoledge [sic] the receipt of your letter and other relevant attached documents regarding your case # 98-CR-80299-DT. However, we have not been informed nor have it in our record as a notice of your arrest not until you called and left a message in the voice mail. Also the request for your witnesses who resides [sic] in Nigeria to be at your trial is untimely given the fact your witnesses if contacted would require at least two months to seek and obtain travel documents which include US visa, this is because of their new rule now. 12 Can we now look forward to the August 31st 1999 for the trial and see what is coming out and then we can go from there. My senior officer (A.A. Musa) is not in the country right now. He is to initiate the approval for our coming to be at the trial which I cannot guarantee if we will be coming or not, but at any case we wish you the best. 13 Upon receipt of the letter, Emuegbunem filed a motion to dismiss the indictment pursuant to the Vienna Convention and claimed prejudice from the denial of earlier contact with Nigerian diplomatic representatives. 14 Emuegbunem's claim of prejudice arises from the defense he wanted to make at trial. Under the defense theory of the case, Emuegbunem, an executive with a Nigerian telecommunications company named Intramedia Ltd., attended a trade conference held in Toronto from February 10 to 15, 1997. According to affidavits appended to Defendant's motion to dismiss the indictment, two Nigerian witnesses Emuegbunem wished to present at trial would have testified that on February 5, 1997, Defendant purchased $9,500 worth of American currency before leaving Nigeria for Toronto. At trial Emuegbunem suggested that his arrest stemmed from a case of mistaken identity because an unknown individual named Chuck, most likely Acadak who was also known as Oochie and used approximately twenty aliases, sold the heroin to Player. During pretrial proceedings, defense counsel disclosed this theory of the case to the district court. In his motion to dismiss the indictment, Defendant represented that he wished to call a third Nigerian witness to support this version of events by testifying that an individual named Uche Odinaka Chuck had supplied Player with the heroin. Defendant explained that the documents found on his person and in his hotel room that appeared to corroborate Player's story related to a transaction he was attempting to negotiate at the trade conference. 15 At a hearing on the morning of trial, the district court denied Defendant's motion. Recognizing that the Vienna Convention protects the ability of consular officials to perform their diplomatic functions, the district court posited that allowing a defendant to contact the representatives of his nation constituted the only remedy judicially available for a violation of the treaty. For this reason, the court declined to dismiss the indictment. Although the court conceded that Emuegbunem might suffer some prejudice from not being afforded the opportunity to call the Nigerian witnesses at his trial, it treated the documentary evidence of the currency exchange in Nigeria as mitigating the absence of the oral testimony of the two Nigerian affiants. As for Defendant's claim that there was a third witness who would identify Oochie or Uche as the Chuck who supplied Player with heroin, the court found no connection between lack of notice to Nigerian diplomats under the Vienna Convention and Defendant's inability to obtain the testimony of this witness. In sum, the court found insufficient prejudice to warrant dismissal of the indictment. 16 Nonetheless, the district court offered to delay the trial to enable Emuegbunem to obtain witnesses and evidence from Nigeria. Recognizing that Defendant had throughout the pre-trial proceedings insisted upon his rights under the Speedy Trial Act, 18 U.S.C. 3161, the court advised him that this delay would toll the running of the seventy-day period after indictment within which a criminal trial must occur under the Speedy Trial Act. Defendant elected to proceed to trial without the witnesses, and the trial began that day.
17 Both the United States and Nigeria are parties to the Vienna Convention, a seventy-nine article, multilateral treaty that governs the establishment of consular relations between nations and defines the functions of a consulate. United States v. Alvarado-Torres, 45 F. Supp. 2d 986, 988 (S.D. Cal. 1999), aff'd, No. 99-50597, 2000 WL 1256890 (9th Cir. Sept. 5, 2000). Article 36 appears in Chapter II of the treaty, which is entitled Facilities, Privileges and Immunities Relating to Consular Posts, Career Consular Officers and Other Members of a Consular Post, and provides in its entirety: 18 Communication and contact with nationals of the sending State 3 19 1. With a view to facilitating the exercise of consular functions relating to nationals of the sending State: 20 (a) consular officers shall be free to communicate with nationals of the sending State and to have access to them. Nationals of the sending State shall have the same freedom with respect to communication with and access to consular officers of the sending State; 21 (b) if he so requests, the competent authorities of the receiving State shall, without delay, inform the consular post of the sending State if, within its consular district, a national of that State is arrested or committed to prison or to custody pending trial or is detained in any other manner. Any communication addressed to the consular post by the person arrested, in prison, custody or detention shall also be forwarded by the said authorities without delay. The said authorities shall inform the person concerned without delay of his rights under this sub-paragraph; 22 (c) consular officers shall have the right to visit a national of the sending State who is in prison, custody or detention, to converse and correspond with him and to arrange for his legal representation. They shall also have the right to visit any national of the sending State who is in prison, custody or detention in their district in pursuance of a judgment. Nevertheless, consular officers shall refrain from taking action on behalf of a national who is in prison, custody or detention if he expressly opposes such action. 23 2. The rights referred to in paragraph 1 of this Article shall be exercised in conformity with the laws and regulations of the receiving State, subject to the proviso, however, that the said laws and regulations must enable full effect to be given to the purposes for which the rights accorded under this Article are intended. 24 Vienna Convention, 21 U.S.T. at 100-01, 596 U.N.T.S. at 292-94 (emphasis added). 25 Proper interpretation of a treaty presents a question of law that this court reviews de novo. United States v. Page, 232 F.3d 536, 540 (6th Cir. 2000) (citing United States v. Morgan, 216 F.3d 557, 561 (6th Cir. 2000)), cert. denied, 121 S. Ct. 1389 (2001). Under the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution, all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land. U.S. Const. art. VI, cl. 2. Under federal law treaties have the same legal effect as statutes. See, e.g., Whitney v. Robertson, 124 U.S. 190, 194 (1888); Page, 232 F.3d at 540 (citing Breard v. Greene, 523 U.S. 371, 378 (1998) (per curiam)). As a general rule, however, international treaties do not create rights that are privately enforceable in the federal courts. 26 A treaty is primarily a compact between independent nations. It depends for the enforcement of its provisions on the interest and honor of the governments which are parties to it. If these fail, its infraction becomes the subject of international negotiations and reclamation, so far as the injured parties choose to seek redress, which may in the end be enforced by actual war. It is obvious that with all this the judicial courts have nothing to do and can give no redress. 27 Head Money Cases, 112 U.S. 580, 598 (1884). See also Foster v. Neilson, 27 U.S. (2 Pet.) 253, 306 (1829) (The judiciary is not that department of the government, to which the assertion of its interests against foreign powers is confided; and its duty commonly is to decide upon individual rights, according to those principles which the political departments of the nation have established.), overruled in part on other grounds by United States v. Percheman, 32 U.S. (7 Pet.) 51 (1833). International agreements, even those directly benefitting private persons, generally do not create private rights or provide for a private cause of action in domestic courts . . . . Restatement (Third) of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States 907, cmt. a (1987). In fact, courts presume that the rights created by an international treaty belong to a state and that a private individual cannot enforce them. See, e.g., Goldstar (Panama) S.A. v. United States, 967 F.2d 965, 968 (4th Cir. 1992) (International treaties are not presumed to create rights that are privately enforceable.); Matta-Ballesteros v. Henman, 896 F.2d 255, 259 (7th Cir. 1990) (It is well established that individuals have no standing to challenge violations of international treaties in the absence of a protest by the sovereigns involved.). 28 Nonetheless, the Supreme Court has recognized that treaties can create individually enforceable rights in some circumstances. See, e.g., United States v. Alvarez-Machain, 504 U.S. 655, 667-68 (1992) (citing United States v. Rauscher, 119 U.S. 407 (1886)); Argentine Republic v. Amerada Hess Shipping Corp., 488 U.S. 428, 442-43 (1989). Whether or not treaty violations can provide the basis for particular claims or defenses thus appears to depend upon the particular treaty and claim involved. United States v. Lombera-Camorlinga, 206 F.3d 882, 885 (9th Cir.) (en banc), cert. denied, 121 S. Ct. 481 (2000). Absent express language in a treaty providing for particular judicial remedies, the federal courts will not vindicate private rights unless a treaty creates fundamental rights on a par with those protected by the Constitution. See, e.g., Page, 232 F.3d at 540-41. Acknowledging that the Vienna Convention arguably confers on an individual the right to consular assistance following arrest, the Supreme Court has left open the question of whether the Vienna Convention creates an individual right enforceable by the federal courts. Breard, 523 U.S. at 376. 4
29 With respect to Emuegbunem's claim that violation of his rights under the Vienna Convention requires dismissal of the indictment, we need not determine whether private individuals can enforce the treaty or whether Emuegbunem in fact suffered a violation of the rights conferred by the treaty. In Page, 232 F.3d at 540, we held that although some judicial remedies may exist, there is no right in a criminal prosecution to have evidence excluded or an indictment dismissed due to a violation of Article 36. See also United States v. Chaparro-Alcantara, 226 F.3d 616, 618 (7th Cir.) (holding that dismissal of an indictment is not available to remedy a violation of the Vienna Convention), cert. denied, 121 S. Ct. 599 (2000); United States v. Cordoba-Mosquera, 212 F.3d 1194, 1196 (11th Cir. 2000) (per curiam) (absent a showing of prejudice a violation of the Vienna Convention cannot be remedied through dismissal of the indictment), cert. denied, 121 S. Ct. 893 (2001); United States v. Li, 206 F.3d 56, 66 (1st Cir.) (en banc) (dismissal of indictment is not an available remedy), cert. denied, 121 S. Ct. 379 (2000). Even if Defendant has suffered a violation of his rights under the Vienna Convention and even if he can enforce those rights in federal court, Page forecloses dismissal of the indictment as a remedy.
30 In Page we addressed only the availability of suppression of evidence or dismissal of an indictment as remedies to redress a violation of the Vienna Convention. Accordingly, we must turn to consideration of whether reversal of a conviction can remedy a violation of the Vienna Convention. As a threshold matter, the government contends that the Vienna Convention does not create rights individually enforceable in the federal courts. We agree. 31 Confronted in recent years with numerous claims based upon the Vienna Convention without the benefit of a definitive statement from the Supreme Court, federal courts whenever possible have sidestepped the question of whether the treaty creates individual rights--typically by concluding that remedies such as suppression of evidence or dismissal of an indictment are not available even if the treaty creates individual rights. See, e.g., United States v. Santos, 235 F.3d 1105, 1108 (8th Cir. 2000); Page, 232 F.3d at 540; United States v. Lawal, 231 F.3d 1045, 1048 (7th Cir. 2000), cert. denied, 121 S. Ct. 1165 (2001); Chaparro-Alcantara, 226 F.3d at 621; Lombera-Camorlinga, 206 F.3d at 885; Li, 206 F.3d at 66. On other occasions courts have concluded that a defendant must show prejudice to establish a violation of the Vienna Convention. See, e.g., United States v. Minjares-Alvarez, 264 F.3d 980 987-88 (10th Cir.2001); United States v. Chanthadara, 230 F.3d 1237, 1256 (10th Cir. 2000), petition for cert. filed, No. 00-9757 (May 2, 2001); Cordoba-Mosquera, 212 F.3d at 1196; United States v. Pagan, 196 F.3d 884, 890 (7th Cir. 1999); United States v. Ademaj, 170 F.3d 58, 67-68 (1st Cir. 1999). One circuit has held that the Vienna Convention does not establish any judicially enforceable right of consultation between a detained foreign national and the consular representatives of his nation. United States v. Jimenez-Nava, 243 F.3d 192, 198 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 121 S. Ct. 2620 (2001). See also Santos, 235 F.3d at 1109 (Beam, J., concurring) (concluding that the Vienna Convention does not confer on private citizens rights enforceable in federal court); Li, 206 F.3d at 66-67 (Selya, J. & Boudin, J., concurring) (same). No federal appellate court has yet accepted a claim based upon violations of the treaty. 32 In construing a treaty, as in construing a statute, we first look to its terms to determine its meaning. Alvarez-Machain, 504 U.S. at 665 (citing Air France v. Saks, 470 U.S. 392, 397 (1985), and Valentine v. United States ex rel. Neidecker, 299 U.S. 5, 11 (1936)). See also Eastern Airlines, Inc. v. Floyd, 499 U.S. 530, 534 (1991); Volkswagenwerk Aktiengesellschaft v. Schlunk, 486 U.S. 694, 699 (1988). Of the seventy-nine articles of the Vienna Convention, only Article 36 arguably protects individual non-consular officials. Jimenez-Nava, 243 F.3d at 196. The argument that the treaty confers rights upon criminal defendants who are foreign nationals originates in the language of individual rights that appears throughout the Article among the treaty's protections for the ability of the consular officials of a sending State to communicate with a detained national. See, e.g., Vienna Convention art. 36, 1(a) (Nationals of the sending State shall have the same freedom with respect to communication with and access to consular officers of the sending State.); 1(b) ([Arresting] authorities shall inform the person concerned without delay of his rights under this sub-paragraph.). Yet the Preamble to the Vienna Convention expressly disclaims the creation of any individual rights: [T]he purpose of such privileges and immunities is not to benefit individuals but to ensure the efficient performance of functions by consular posts on behalf of their respective States. Vienna Convention, 21 U.S.T. at 79, 596 U.N.T.S. at 262 (emphasis added). Similarly, Chapter II of the treaty, in which Article 36 appears, concerns the privileges and immunities of consular officers, not detained foreign nationals. Moreover, consistent with the background presumption against implying personal rights in international treaties, the rights contained in Article 36 belong to the party states, not individuals. 33 Of course, there are references in the [treaty] to a right of [consular] access, but these references are easily explainable. The contracting States are granting each other rights, and telling future detainees that they have a right to communicate with their consul is a means of implementing the treaty obligations as between States. Any other way of phrasing the promise as to what will be said to detainees would be both artificial and awkward. 34 Li, 206 F.3d at 66 (Selya, J. & Boudin, J., concurring). Accordingly, we conclude that the Vienna Convention does not create in a detained foreign national a right of consular access. 35 To the extent the treaty admits of any ambiguity on the question, nontextual sources, such as a treaty's ratification history and its subsequent operation, United States v. Stuart, 489 U.S. 353, 366 (1989), dispel any doubt about whether the Vienna Convention creates individual rights. In resolving doubts about the interpretation, the construction of a treaty by the political department of the government, while not conclusive upon courts called upon to construe it, is nevertheless of weight. Factor v. Laubenheimer, 290 U.S. 276, 295 (1933). See also El Al Israel Airlines, Ltd. v. Tsui Yuan Tseng, 525 U.S. 155, 168 (1999) (Respect is ordinarily due the reasonable views of the Executive Branch concerning the meaning of an international treaty.); Kolovrat v. Oregon, 366 U.S. 187, 194 (1961) (While courts interpret treaties for themselves, the meaning given them by the departments of government particularly charged with their negotiation and enforcement is given great weight.). 36 Since 1970 the State Department has consistently taken the view that the Vienna Convention does not create individual rights. Li, 206 F.3d at 63-64. See also Jimenez-Nava, 243 F.3d at 197; Lombera-Camorlinga, 206 F.3d at 887-88. In the view of the State Department, the only remedies for failures of consular notification under the Vienna Convention are diplomatic, political, or exist between states under international law. Page, 232 F.3d at 541 (quoting Li, 206 F.3d at 63) (alterations omitted). This position accords with the view of the Department and the Senate during the ratification proceedings. Li, 206 F.3d at 64-65. In practice the parties to the Convention have attempted to remedy violations of Article 36 through investigations and apologies. The State Department indicates that it has historically enforced the Vienna Convention itself, investigating reports of violations and apologizing to foreign governments and working with domestic law enforcement to prevent future violations when necessary. Lombera-Camorlinga, 206 F.3d at 886. In turn [m]any, if not most, of the countries with which the United States raises concerns that consular notification obligations have been violated with respect to U.S. citizens will undertake to investigate the alleged violation and, if it is confirmed, to apologize for it and undertake to prevent future recurrences. Li, 206 F.3d at 65. Apparently, no country remedies violations of the Vienna Convention through its criminal justice system. Id. These practices evidence a belief among Vienna Convention signatory nations that the treaty's dictates simply are not enforceable in a host nation's criminal courts[.] Id. at 66. 37 In support of his argument that the Vienna Convention creates individually enforceable rights, Emuegbunem cites Faulder v. Johnson, 81 F.3d 515 (5th Cir. 1996), and Breard v. Pruett, 134 F.3d 615 (4th Cir. 1998). This reliance is misplaced. In Faulder, the Fifth Circuit stated that the Vienna Convention requires an arresting government to notify a foreign national who has been arrested, imprisoned or taken into custody or detention of his right to contact his consul. 81 F.3d at 520. Although state authorities admitted that they had failed to comply with the Vienna Convention, the court affirmed a capital murder conviction because on the facts presented there the violation did not merit reversal of the conviction. Id. Subsequently, the Fifth Circuit explained that its ruling in Faulder had not expressed a view on the question of whether the Vienna Convention confers rights enforceable by individuals. Flores v. Johnson, 210 F.3d 456, 457-58 (5th Cir.) (per curiam), cert. denied, 121 S. Ct. 445 (2000). 38 We do not read our opinion in Faulder as recognizing a personal right under the Convention. Rather, the panel dispatched the claim with its conclusion that any violation was harmless. Any negative implication inherent in rejecting the claim as harmless lacks sufficient force to support a contention that the panel held that the Convention created rights enforceable by individuals. While we conclude that Faulder has not decided the question, we do not reach its merits because at best Flores's assertion is Teague barred. 39 Id. at 457. Accordingly, after Flores whether the Vienna Convention created individual rights remained an open question in the Fifth Circuit, Jimenez-Nava, 243 F.3d at 195 n.2 (concluding in the wake of Faulder and Flores that the question was one of first impression in the circuit), and in Jimenez-Nava the court resolved the issue adversely to the position advocated by Defendant. Id. at 198. 40 Like Faulder, the Fourth Circuit's opinion in Breard simply attempts a description of the Vienna Convention and takes no position on the rights and remedies of criminal defendants in the United States who are foreign nationals. Breard v. Pruett, 134 F.3d 615, 619 (4th Cir. 1998) (setting forth Breard's argument that the court should overturn his conviction and death sentence because the authorities failed to notify him that, as a foreign national, he had the right to contact the Consulate of Argentina or the Consulate of Paraguay pursuant to the Vienna Convention), cert. denied, 523 U.S. 371 (1998) (per curiam). Two features of the Fourth Circuit's decision in Breard confirm this conclusion. First, noting that Breard had failed to raise this claim in state court, the Fourth Circuit concluded that he had procedurally defaulted the claim and that he could not show cause to excuse the default. Accordingly, the court declined to consider the merits of Breard's Vienna Convention claim. Id. at 619-20. Second, the court quoted Murphy v. Netherland, 116 F.3d 97, 100 (4th Cir. 1997), in which it rejected an argument that a habeas petitioner's Vienna Convention claim was so novel that he could not have raised it in state court proceedings, because a reasonably diligent attorney should have discovered the existence and applicability (if any) of the Vienna Convention. Breard, 134 F.3d at 620 (emphasis added). This procedural posture and the quotation from Murphy demonstrate that the Fourth Circuit in Breard took no position on the question of whether the Vienna Convention creates individual rights. 41 For the foregoing reasons, we hold that the Vienna Convention does not create a right for a detained foreign national to consult with the diplomatic representatives of his nation that the federal courts can enforce. A contrary conclusion risks aggrandizing the power of the judiciary and interfering in the nation's foreign affairs, the conduct of which the Constitution reserves for the political branches. See Lombera-Camorlinga, 206 F.3d at 887 (The addition of a judicial enforcement mechanism contains the possibility for conflict between the respective powers of the executive and judicial branches.). Significantly, the Supreme Court has twice held that the Vienna Convention does not provide a signatory nation a private right of action in the federal courts to seek a remedy for a violation of Article 36. Federal Republic of Germany v. United States, 526 U.S. 111, 111-12 (1999) (per curiam); Breard, 523 U.S. at 377. If a foreign sovereign to whose benefit the Vienna Convention inures cannot seek a judicial remedy, we cannot fathom how an individual foreign national can do so in the absence of express language in the treaty.