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International Law NACDL

NACDL




As we enter the new millennium, all of us in the international community need to enlist in the struggle for justice. No nation or government is exempt from prosecutorial overreaching — including rampant law enforcement abuses and police misconduct — which runs roughshod over citizen rights and liberties. Some organizations are content to sit on the sidelines. We’re not. At the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL), we believe you have to fight for what you believe. And we need your help.

NACDL’s growing reputation within the international community as a leader on behalf of human rights — promoting fairness for all; due process for even the least among us who may be accused of wrongdoing; compassion for witnesses and victims of crime; and just punishment for the guilty — has recently culminated in an invitation to serve as a member of the International Human Rights Law Group’s delegation to the 56th Session of the UN Commission on Human Rights. . . . more on NACDL's International Efforts



August Issue '99 -- Northern Lights By Steven Skurka, Leslie Pringle & Rachel E. Young
Cruel and Unusual Punishment in Canada -- more --

July Issue '99 -- An Introduction to International Prisoner Transfers:
Going Home By Alan Ellis
The United States has treaties with 59 countries which may make it possible for foreign nationals to go home and serve their sentences. -- more --

May Issue '99 -- Informal Opinion By Diane Marie Amann
By Often-Asked Questions About the International Criminal Court -- more --

April Issue '99 -- Northern Lights By Steven Skurka & Leslie Pringle
Search and Seizure in Canada -- more --

March 1999 -- The Murder of Rosemary Nelson: Impartial Outside Investigation Urged
Washington, DC, March 16, 1999 -- NACDL expresses outrage and profound grief over the murder of human rights lawyer Rosemary Nelson, who was killed by a car bomb outside her home in Northern Ireland yesterday. "On behalf of our 10,000 members on both sides of the Atlantic, I am calling for an immediate and independent inquiry into this case to forestall any possibility of official cover-up of this heinous crime," said NACDL President, Larry Pozner. --more--

March 1999 -- Defense Lawyers Urge Germany to Impose Economic Sanctions In Protest of LaGrand Executions
Washington, DC, March 1, 1999 -- NACDL urges German companies which do business in the United States to withhold economic investment in the 38 states which execute imprisoned criminals. The 10,000-member organization is protesting last week’s execution of German national Karl LaGrand and the impending execution Wednesday of his brother Walter, also a German citizen. --more--

Jan/Feb Issue '99 -- NACDL Resolution Supports Irish Defense Lawyers NACDL News
At the Atlanta meeting, the NACDL Board of Directors approved a resolution in support of defense lawyers in Northern Ireland. -- more --


Jan/Feb Issue '99 -- Northern Lights By Steven Skurka & Rachel E. Young
A View From Canada -- more --


Sept/Oct '98 Champion -- Representing Foreign Nationals: Emerging Importance of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations as a Defense Tool By John Cary Sims and Linda E. Carter
The Vienna Convention guarantees consular officials of each signatory access to their citizens who may need assistance while abroad. Professors Sims and Carter say the treaty has direct consequences for U.S. criminal defendants who are foreign nationals. -- more --


August '98 Champion -- The Ordeal of Guy Paul Morin: Canada Copes With Systemic Injustice By Jack King
The acquittal, the conviction, and then the exoneration of an innocent man led the Province of Ontario to conduct an unprecedented top-to-bottom examination of its criminal justice system. Staggering in its scope, the inquiry found perjured testimony by prosecution witnesses, incompetence and cover-up in the country's premier forensic sciences center, suppression of exculpatory evidence by police and prosecutors, a possibly contaminated crime scene, poor evidence handling, and lost evidence. -- more --


Jan/Feb '98 Champion -- Behind Closed Doors: Second Circuit Applies Fifth Amendment to Fear of Foreign Prosecution By David S. Rudolf & Thomas K. Maher
The Fifth Amendment means different things to different people, or different courts. To the Second Circuit, the Fifth Amendment plays a "role in preserving an individual's privacy and dignity," preserving our criminal justice system and protecting the individual citizen against governmental overreaching. The importance of the Fifth Amendment is illustrated by the court's willingness to defend its safeguards even when the only threat to the individual is prosecution by a foreign government. -- more --


November '97 Champion -- RICO Report: Fifth Amendment Privilege and Fear of Foreign Prosecution By Barry Tarlow
Eighty-four-year-old Aloyzas Balsys has lived in the United States as a resident alien for the last 36 years, and resides with his family in Woodhaven, New York. The OSI (Office of Special Investigations) section of the Criminal Division of the United States Justice Department, which was created to investigate and conduct denaturalization and deportation proceedings against suspected Nazi war criminals, initiated an investigation of Balsys for suspected collusion with the Nazi forces occupying Lithuania during World War II, by his alleged role as a persecutor of Jews and other civilians while a member of the Lithuanian Security Police. -- more --


August '97 Champion -- DOJ Renews Assault on Defendants' Right to Use Treaties to Obtain Evidence from Abroad By Michael Abbell
Today, the United States has more than 20 mutual legal assistance treaties (MLATs) worldwide. This article focuses on the importance of MLATs in obtaining evidence from abroad in criminal cases, and how the Department of Justice (DOJ) has endeavored to stymie criminal defendants in their efforts to obtain evidence from abroad for use in their own defense. Defense counsel must diligently pursue such evidence or risk a subsequent charge of ineffective assistance of counsel. -- more --


May '97 Champion -- Rwanda's Quest for Justice: National and International Efforts and Challenges By Michael G. Karnavas
Approximately 90,000 men, women and children sit in overcrowded prisons charged with the most deplorable of all crimes -- genocide. Some have waited, or better yet survived, over two years in these prisons. Almost all of them have yet to have even an initial appearance in court, let alone a trial. Though the prisons have much improved, the conditions remain a human rights nightmare. Many inmates suffer from dysentery, malaria, AIDS, tuberculosis and respiratory infections. As of May 1996, 377 infants were incarcerated with their mothers and 1163 minors were living with the adult prison population. -- more --


March '97 Champion -- Vienna Convention: New Tool for Representing Foreign Nationals in the Criminal Justice System By Logene L. Foster & Stephen Doggett
Foreign Nationals arrested on criminal charges are at a disadvantage in mounting a criminal defense. This disadvantage is particularly serious in a capital case, in which the accused may lose his life because of an inability to respond effectively to the charges. To compensate for the disadvantages experienced by accused foreign nationals, international law guarantees the right of consular access. -- more --


December '96 Champion -- The International Criminal Tribunal By Michael G. Karnavas
May 31, 1996, before a packed public gallery, separated from the courtroom by panes of bulletproof glass, the audience at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) listened to Drazen Endemovic's grisly account of genocidal acts. Endemovic, 24, a Croat serving in the Bosnian Serb army, pled guilty for his involvement in the summary execution of unarmed Muslim men in July 1995, after Srebrenica, the UN protected "safe area," fell to Bosnian Serb forces. -- more --




NACDL's International Efforts

Visiting international delegations increasingly look to NACDL for help in structuring more rational and humane criminal justice policies in their respective countries. We have most recently met with delegates from Venezuela — the latest Latin American country to switch from the inquisitorial to the adversarial system of justice. We’ve also given counsel to Judge Hiromichi Inoue of the Tokyo High Court in his studies of the public defender system in the U.S. And we’ve met with justice ministers, prosecutors, judges, and law professors from Oman, Brazil, Spain, Macedonia, Romania, Azerbaijan, Chile, the United Kingdom, and the Peoples Republic of China to share our perspective on both the plusses and minuses of America’s justice system.

NACDL’s Legislative Director, Raj Purohit, is a native of the United Kingdom and completed his law degree in the U.K. His academic and professional background, steeped in human rights, suits this Association well in our international advocacy efforts. Here’s just a sample of some of our initiatives that may be of interest to you:

Citizens of every nation have a right not to be deprived of their liberty or property without due process of law. They have a right to expect privacy in their homes, vehicles, and communications. And they have a right to consult counsel of their choice without it being used against them. Lending your support by becoming an International Member of NACDL, you advocate these fundamental rights.