Opinion ID: 767955
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: State Department Interpretation

Text: 33 We first consult the United States Department of State's interpretation of the two treaties, to which we accord substantial deference. See, e.g., El Al Israel Airlines, Ltd. v. Tsui Yuan Tseng, 119 S. Ct. 662, 671 (1999) (Respect is ordinarily due the reasonable views of the Executive Branch concerning the meaning of an international treaty.); Sumitomo Shoji America, Inc. v. Avagliano, 457 U.S. 176, 185 (1982) (Although not conclusive, the meaning attributed to treaty provisions by the Government agencies charged with their negotiation and enforcement is entitled to great weight.); Kolovrat v. Oregon, 366 U.S. 187, 194 (1961) (same). 34 In the State Department's view, the treaties do not create individual rights at all, much less rights susceptible to the remedies proposed by appellants. After devot[ing] considerable time to the issue, see Department of State Answers to the Questions Posed by the First Circuit in United States v. Nai Fook Li (Answers) at A-2, the State Department has concluded that 35 [t]he [Vienna Convention] and the US-China bilateral consular convention are treaties that establish state-to-state rights and obligations.... They are not treaties establishing rights of individuals. The right of an individual to communicate with his consular official is derivative of the sending state's right to extend consular protection to its nationals when consular relations exist between the states concerned. 36 Id. at A-3; see also id. at A-1. The [only] remedies for failures of consular notification under the [Vienna Convention] are diplomatic, political, or exist between states under international law. See id. at A-3. 3 37 Nor is the State Department's position of recent origin. A 1970 letter sent by a Department legal adviser to the governors of the fifty states shortly after the Vienna Convention's ratification advised that the Department did not believe that the Vienna Convention will require significant departures from the existing practice within the several states of the United States. Needless to say, the creation of rights on par with those guaranteed by the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments to the United States Constitution would constitute just the sort of significant departure[] disclaimed by this letter. Accordingly, the Department has denied the availability of criminal remedies for failures of consular notification. In 1989, a letter from a Department legal adviser informed a foreign national being held in an American prison that [w]hile the U.S. authorities are required to comply with the obligations [of Vienna Convention Article 36], failure to do so would have no effect on [his] conviction or incarceration. 38 Moreover, the State Department has advanced the same view before at least two international tribunals. In 1998, Paraguay brought suit against the United States in the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Paraguay, which sought to halt the execution of a Paraguayan national named Angel Breard in the Commonwealth of Virginia, argued that Breard had not received consular notification and that his conviction was therefore tainted. In an oral presentation to the ICJ, a State Department Assistant Legal Adviser for United Nations Affairs offered the following response: 39 Paraguay's Application maintains that the necessary legal consequence for any... breach [of the consular notification obligation] is that [an] ensuing conviction and sentence must be put aside. There is absolutely no support for this claim in the language of the [Vienna] Convention. The Court should not read into a clear and nearly universal multilateral instrument such a substantial and potentially disruptive additional obligation that has no support in the language agreed by the parties. 40 Verbatim Record (Paraguay v. U.S.), 1998 I.C.J. 426, at 3.20. 41 The issue also arose in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) in 1998, when Mexico sought an advisory opinion on the availability of criminal remedies for failures of consular notification. 4 In a written submission to the IACtHR, counsel for the State Department argued that the Vienna Convention does not require the domestic courts of State parties to take any actions in criminal proceedings, either to give effect to its provisions or to remedy their alleged violation. Written Observations of the United States of America, Request for Advisory Opinion OC-16, June 1, 1998 (corrected June 10, 1998).