78 The Death Penalty in the OSCE Area decide whether Article 36 of the VCCR conveyed individual and judicially enforceable rights, but stated that even if it did, suppression of evidence was not an appropriate remedy for breaches of Article 36.196 The Court pointed out that defendants have other alternatives for breaches of Article 36, such as diplomatic remedies. The Court also decided the defendants could be procedurally barred from making Article 36 claims if they did not raise them at trial. According to unofficial statistics, 120 foreign nationals were on death row as of 24 May 2006.197 Fair-trial guarantees Racial prejudices In its concluding observations on the periodic report of the United States in 2001, the Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination noted with concern that, according to the special rapporteur of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions, there is a disturbing correlation between race, both of the victim and the defendant, and the imposition of the death penalty, particularly in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. The Committee urged the state party to ensure, possibly by imposing a moratorium, that no death penalty be imposed as a result of racial bias.198 Military commissions The death penalty may be applied in accordance with the military order establishing military commissions to prosecute individuals currently detained at Guantanamo Bay.199 On 29 June 2006, the US Supreme Court ruled that the Bush administration did not have authority to set up war-crimes tribunals and that the commissions were illegal under both military law and the Geneva Conventions. In this decision, the Court upheld the challenge of Salim Ahmed Hamdan against his trial at the US facility at Guantanamo. He is one of the 10 detainees facing a military tribunal there.200 196 Article 236 of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations contains provisions related to the communication and contact with nationals of the sending state. 197 198 199 Death Penalty Information Center, www.deathpenaltyinfo.org. Concluding observations of the CERD on the United States, A/56/18, 14 August 2001, para. 396. Military Commission Order No. 1 “Procedures for trials by military commissions of certain non-United States citizens in the war against terrorism”, 21 March 2002, Part 6 (g). 200 Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 548 U.S., 126S.Ct. 2749, 29 June 2006.