Foreigners on America's Death Row: The Legal Combat over Access to A Consul

At a time when more and more people travel far beyond their own shores, the possibility to contact a consulate is an important protection against arbitrary detention and conviction abroad.

In this volume, John Quigley, probably the most knowledgeable US expert regarding the law and practice of consular relations, gives a comprehensive account of the successful fight for creating an individual right to consular information and contact in international law and before international courts, and of the less successful quest for enshrining such a right in domestic law in the US in particular in cases where it counts most: after the pronouncement of the death penalty against a foreigner.

This account is a timely and forceful argument for implementing international law for the sake of foreigners being detained and prosecuted in an alien court system. Justice Andreas Paulus, Federal Constitutional Court of Germany; former counsel for Germany in the LaGrand case before the International Court of Justice Quigley's book is both impressive and deeply disturbing. It depicts the grim story of how access to consular assistance by foreigners facing the death penalty, increasingly recognized as a human right, continues to be depreciated by the U.S. judiciary out of a mix of stubbornness, ignorance and arrogance. Bruno Simma, former Co-Agent and Counsel for Germany in the LaGrand Case and Judge at the International Court of Justice 2003 - 2012.