By Abigail Levene
THE HAGUE (Reuters) - The World Court ordered the United States on Wednesday to stay executions of three Mexicans -- two on death row in President Bush's state of Texas -- and reserved the right to intervene in dozens more cases.
Mexico took Washington to the International Court of Justice at The Hague last month, saying more than 50 of its nationals on death row should get retrials because U.S. authorities breached an international treaty by failing to tell them of their rights to consular help after their arrests.
With the whole case likely to be lengthy, Mexico asked the highest U.N. court to instruct urgent stays of execution for 51 men. Judges ruled that just three were at imminent risk, though said it might order similar stays for others "if appropriate" before issuing its final judgment in the proceedings.
Mexico's court action reflects deep disquiet among some of Washington's closest allies over capital punishment, which has led to protests from leading European states and Pope John Paul.
The United States and Japan are the only rich industrialized nations to execute convicted criminals. The last person executed in the European Union was guillotined in France in 1977.
In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Anne Marks said the order had just been received and the department was reviewing it in consultation with the Department of Justice.
"The order does not address the merits of Mexico's case. It does not constitute a finding by the court that the United States has violated its obligations under the Vienna Convention."
She declined to say whether the federal government would pass the order to the states of Texas and Oklahoma.
LONG-RUNNING BATTLE
The case is the highest level bout of a long-running fight between the United States and its poorer southern neighbor over the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations.
The international treaty obliges local authorities to inform an arrested person without delay of his right to speak to consular officials from his country.
"I wouldn't look at it as a defeat or a victory," U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands Clifford Sobel told Reuters after the decision. "The order clearly does not address the merits of the case."
Mexico wants retrials for all its 54 nationals -- four of them mentally ill or retarded -- who were sentenced to death in 10 states in the United States. Three of the 54 were condemned in Illinois, however, where the state governor last month commuted all death sentences in his state.
"The United States of America must take all measures necessary to ensure Mr Cesar Roberto Fierro Reyna, Mr Roberto Moreno Ramos and Mr Osvaldo Torres Aguilera are not executed pending final judgment in these proceedings," Court President Gilbert Guillaume said in the binding order on Wednesday.
The three men -- two of whom were being held in Texas and the third in Oklahoma -- "are at risk of execution in the coming months or possibly even weeks," Guillaume said.
Fierro Reyna has been on death row since 1980.
"The decision is welcome, certainly. It comes in the line we have asked for and it certainly reinforces international law," said Santiago Onate, Mexico's ambassador to the Netherlands.
"We are looking for full redress. That we haven't had now. What we have now is...an order from the court that will prevent any execution until the court decides on the merits," Onate told reporters after the sitting.
The United States argued that Mexico neither proved its rights under the Vienna Convention were harmed nor that there was an urgent need for the emergency injunction.
Such an injunction would interfere with the United States' sovereign right to administer its criminal justice system and would mark an unwarranted intrusion by the court into U.S. affairs, it argued at a World Court hearing on January 21. (Additional reporting by Paul Gallagher)