World Court finds US breached obligations to Germany in LaGrand brothers case

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) today found that the United States had breached its obligations to Germany and to the LaGrand brothers -- two German nationals who faced the death penalty -- under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations.

Delivering today its Judgment in the "LaGrand Case (Germany) v. United States of America", the Court also determined that its provisional measure of 3 March 1999 that the United States should not execute one of the two nationals, Walter LaGrand, pending a final ICJ decision was legally binding. Mr. Walter LaGrand was executed the same day.

The Hague-based Court found that "by not informing Karl and Walter LaGrand without delay following their arrest" of their rights under the Vienna Convention, and "by thereby depriving Germany of the possibility, in a timely fashion, to render the assistance provided for by the Convention" to the brothers, the United States breached its obligations to Germany and to the LaGrand brothers under the 1963 Convention -- to which the US is a party.

The LaGrand brothers -- German nationals who had been permanently residing in the United States since childhood -- were arrested in 1982 in Arizona for their involvement in an attempted bank robbery in which the bank manager was murdered and an employee seriously wounded. In 1984, an Arizona court convicted them of murder and sentenced them to death.

The ICJ found, for the first time in its history, that orders indicating provisional measures are legally binding.