John B. Quigley

John B. Quigley’s most recent book, Foreigners on America’s Death Rows: The Legal Combat over Access to a Consul (2018), will come as a shock to anyone who believes in justice. It tells the sordid tale of how courts in the United States allow foreigners to be executed for crime, even when their right to contact a consular officer of their home government for assistance has been ignored by police and prosecutors. The story that Foreigners on America’s Death Rows tells has been called “deeply disturbing” by an ex-judge of the International Court of Justice, Bruno Simma, who says that the book “depicts the grim story of how access to consular assistance by foreigners facing the death penalty” is “depreciated by the U.S. judiciary out of a mix of stubbornness, ignorance and arrogance.” The book explains how this policy of refusing to enforce elementary international norms in regard to foreigners was devised by the US Department of State under administrations both Democrat and Republican. An image abroad of the United States as a law breaker has been the result, contributing to hostility that ill serves the United States. Foreigners on America’s Death Rows explains specific steps the United States must now take to bring itself into international compliance.

John B. Quigley is an international lawyer with a long history of involvement in human rights litigation. A graduate of the Harvard Law School, he is Professor Emeritus at the Moritz College of Law of The Ohio State University.