50 other Mexicans on various states ' death rows were improperly denied access to their consulate upon arrest , a violation of a treaty signed by the United States decades ago . Their home countries could have provided legal and other assistance to the men had they been notified , the court said . In a separate judgment , the ICJ declined Mexico 's demand that the United States provide guarantees against executing other foreign inmates in the future . The U.S. Supreme Court last March ruled for Texas , allowing the Medellin execution to proceed . Efforts stalled in Congress last summer over legislation that would have given foreign death row inmates like Medellin a new hearing before any punishment could be carried out . State Department officials have said the international ruling will not help other foreign inmates in U.S. prisons , because federal officials can not force states to comply . Administration officials also said that the president did all he could to force state compliance and that Congress now needs to intervene with specific legislation . Medellin was 18 when he participated in the June 1993 gang rape and murder of two Harris County girls :
WASHINGTON -LRB- CNN -RRB- -- A United Nations court has found that the United States violated an international treaty and the court 's own order when a Mexican national was executed last year in a Texas prison . Jose Ernesto Medellin was executed by lethal injection for raping and murdering two girls aged 14 and 16 . The International Court of Justice -LRB- ICJ -RRB- issued a ruling Monday in an unusual case that pitted President Bush against his home state in a dispute over federal authority , local sovereignty and foreign treaties . Mexico had filed a formal complaint against U.S. state and federal officials `` The United States of America has breached the obligation incumbent upon it '' to stop the execution , the ICJ announced in a unanimous opinion . Jose Ernesto Medellin 's death by lethal injection in August followed a 15-year legal dispute after his conviction for two brutal slayings . At issue was whether Texas and other states had to give in to a demand by the president that the prisoner be allowed new hearings and resentencing . Bush made that request reluctantly after the international court in 2004 concluded that Medellin and about