country diplomat, said Lou Fintor, a U.S. State Department spokesman.. But it has withdrawn from an optional protocol that gave the International Court of Justice (ICJ) the final say as to whether a country had violated the Vienna Consular Convention. Fintor said in a telephone interview that the move was neither unusual nor will it absolve the U.S. from its obligations under previous ICJ rulings. He noted that less than 30 per cent of the more than 160 countries that are members of the Vienna Consular Convention have also signed on to the optional protocol. By withdrawing from it, the U.S. has joined countries such as Canada, Brazil, Spain, Jordan and Russia, he said. --More 2252 Local Time 1952 GMT
