Last week, the President of the United Nations General Assembly announced a new proposal to revamp the UN Human Rights Commission and rename it the UN Human Rights Council. The product of months of negotiations between the 53 member nations of the Commission, the proposal will be voted on by the General Assembly next month…. Read more »
Last month, in a little-noticed vote, the Senate rejected Democratic Senator Robert Byrd’s proposal to delete funding for the US prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The amendment to the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act for Defense, the Global War on Terror, and Tsunami Relief, 2005 would have stripped HR 1268 of $36 million earmarked for construction… Read more »
In 1945, the United Nations Conference in San Francisco gave birth to the United Nations Organization. In the wake of two world wars that claimed 55 million lives, the U.N. Charter pledged to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.” The Charter allows a member state to use armed force in only two instances:… Read more »
Associate United States Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson was the chief prosecutor at the Nuremberg Tribunal. In his report to the State Department, Justice Jackson wrote: “No political or economic situation can justify” the crime of aggression. He also said: “If certain acts in violation of treaties are crimes they are crimes whether the United… Read more »
Major General Geoffrey Miller, the American commander in charge of detentions and interrogations at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, recently conducted an overnight tour of the facility for journalists. He proudly displayed “Camp Liberty” and “Camp Redemption,” newly renovated in response to the torture scandal unleashed by the release of the disgusting photographs last spring…. Read more »
On February 7, 2002, George W. Bush declared in an executive order that he could suspend the Geneva Conventions, which require that war prisoners receive humane treatment. Myriad news reports during the past month suggest that government interrogators took full advantage of that order to extract information from prisoners held at Abu Ghraib prison in… Read more »
It’s all falling into place. The Wall Street Journal has revealed that Bush’s lawyers told him he can order that torture be committed with impunity. It is now official that George W. Bush is above the law. As horror after horror emerged from Abu Ghraib prison, Americans exclaimed that this is not behavior befitting our… Read more »
Will Saddam Hussein really “face the justice he denied to millions,” as promised by George W. Bush the morning after Hussein’s arrest? Although President Bush has said Hussein will receive a public trial with Iraqi participation, he refuses to identify the venue, perhaps because his advisers are still undecided about the politically propitious course to… Read more »
The “capture” of Saddam Hussein is being hailed as a great victory for President Bush. After all, who needs to worry about the missing weapons of mass destruction or the lack of ties between Hussein and the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks, now that we’ve caught the “Butcher of Baghdad”? Bush is likely to… Read more »
Overcoming Impunity with the International Criminal Court Non-governmental organizations and individuals from sixty-six different countries have filed 499 “communications” – or complaints – with the International Criminal Court (ICC), between July 2002 and July 2003. Many of them urge the ICC to investigate the United States conduct in the war on Iraq. The primary charge… Read more »