LaGrand case

On June 27, 2001, the ICJ, rejecting all of the United States' arguments, ruled in favor of Germany. The ICJ held that the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations of April 24, 1963, granted rights to individuals on the basis of its plain meaning, and that domestic laws could not limit the rights of the accused under the convention, but only specify the means by which those rights were to be exercised. The ICJ also found that its own provisional measures were legally binding. The nature of provisional measures has been a subject of great dispute in international law; the English text of the Statute of the International Court of Justice implies they are not binding, while the French text implies that they are. Faced with a contradiction between two equally authentic texts of the statute, the court considered which interpretation better served the objects and purposes of the statute, and hence found that they are binding. This was the first time in the court's history it had ruled as such.

Diplomatic efforts, including pleas by German Ambassador Jürgen Chrobog and German Member of Parliament Claudia Roth, and the recommendation of Arizona's clemency board, failed to sway Arizona Governor Jane Dee Hull, who insisted that the executions be carried out. Karl LaGrand was subsequently executed by the state of Arizona on February 24, 1999, by lethal injection. Walter LaGrand was executed March 3, 1999, by lethal gas (upon his request), and currently remains the last person executed by that method in the United States.

Germany then initiated action in the U.S. Supreme Court for enforcement of the provisional order. In its judgment, the U.S. Supreme Court held that it lacked jurisdiction with respect to Germany's complaint against Arizona due to the Eleventh Amendment of the U.S. constitution, which prohibits federal courts from hearing lawsuits of foreign states against a U.S. state. With respect to Germany's case against the United States, it held that the doctrine of procedural default was not incompatible with the Vienna Convention, and that even if procedural default did conflict with the Vienna Convention it had been overruled by later federal law – the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, which explicitly legislated the doctrine of procedural default. (Subsequent federal legislation overrides prior self-executing treaty provisions, Whitney v. Robertson, 124 U.S. 190 (1888)).

On January 7, 1982, brothers Karl-Heinz LaGrand (1963–1999) and Walter Bernhard LaGrand (1962–1999) bungled an armed bank robbery in Marana, Arizona, United States, killing 63-year-old Kenneth Hartsock by stabbing him 24 times with a letter opener, and severely injuring 20-year-old Dawn Lopez by stabbing her multiple times. Lopez later said she heard one of the brothers twice say, "Just make sure he's dead." They were subsequently charged and convicted of murder and sentenced to death. The LaGrands also had prior convictions for robbery and burglary, which were used against them during the sentencing phase of their trials.