international law ? not for the US/UK anglo powers
Even as a Nepali colonel, accused of torture, is being held by the British - under their "international law obligations" - the sheer hypocrisy of the US/UK Anglo powers is coming to the front again.
'International Law' exists only to be very selectively applied to the weaker rest of the world, it seems. The impunity of the bigger perpetrators of torture and their violations of International laws reigns supreme even as UN resolutions and their commitments to Humanitarian International Laws and Treaties are not only ignored but are actually sought to be subverted.
'Time for a Reckoning': UN Investigator says US/UK Must Account for Torture, Human Rights Violation
'Words are not enough. Platitudinous repetition of statements affirming opposition to torture ring hollow,' says Ben Emmerson'
If the US and UK governments truly want to rebuke the role that kidnapping, torture and prolonged detention without trial played—and in some cases continues to play—in their declared "war against terrorism" than they must go beyond words and release the still disclosed internal reports that document such abuses.
Ben Emmerson: failure to release intelligence reports shows seeming unwillingness by UK and US to face up to international crimes. Photograph: Sarah Lee for the GuardianThat's the argument of Ben Emmerson, the UN special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights while countering terrorism, who spoke out on Monday against the secrecy and denial that persists within both governments.
Perpetrators and architects of such programs should be held accountable and face justice, he declared in both an official report and in a speech delivered Monday.
"Despite this clear repudiation of the unlawful actions carried out by the Bush-era CIA, many of the facts remain classified, and no public official has so far been brought to justice in the United States," Emmerson writes in the report written for the the U.N. Human Rights Council, which he will present Tuesday.
Prefacing the report in Geneva on Monday, Emmerson criticized "a policy of de facto immunity for public officials who engaged in acts of torture, rendition and secret detention, and their superiors and political masters who authorized these acts."
Citing the hypocrisy of such secrecy and the damage done to the reputation of both countries abroad, Emmerson continued:
"Words are not enough. Platitudinous repetition of statements affirming opposition to torture ring hollow to many in those parts of the Middle East and North Africa that have undergone, or are undergoing, major upheaval, since they have first-hand experience of living under repressive regimes that used torture in private whilst making similar statements in public.""The scepticism of these communities can only be reinforced if western governments continue to demonstrate resolute indifference to the crimes committed by their predecessor administrations."
But Emmerson said that using a "superior orders defense" and invoking secrecy on national security grounds was "perpetuating impunity for the public officials implicated in these crimes".
Senior judge warns over deportation of terror suspects to torture states
Britain's most senior judge Lord Neuberger says policy would mean pulling out of UN and European court of human rights
Email
Lord Neuberger has given his first interview since becoming president of the supreme court. Photograph: David Levene for the Guardian
Britain will have to withdraw from the United Nations as well as the European court of human rights if it wants to deport terrorist suspects to states that carry out torture, the country's most senior judge has warned
http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2013/mar/05/lord-neuberger-deportation-terror-suspects
posted by Satish Sharma at
20:18
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