Report Echoes Amnesty International Concerns
(New York) -- Responding to the U.N. Human Rights Committee conclusions regarding the United States' compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), Amnesty International said that the United States government must recognize that it is failing to meet a range of fundamental human rights obligations at home and abroad.
"How many times does the United States need to hear that it is promoting some of the most shameful practices in the world today?" asked Curt Goering, Senior Deputy Executive Director for Amnesty International USA. "How many times does the U.S. government need to be reminded how far its human rights practices have strayed from international norms? It now must adopt the Committee's sensible recommendations post-haste, and finally begin to restore its commitment to respect human rights."
The Committee expressed concern at a wide range of U.S. practices -- including, secret and incommunicado detentions, the use of interrogation methods that violate the prohibition on torture and on cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, the policies of "rendition", police brutality, the shackling of pregnant inmates during labor and delivery, and the use of electro-shock weapons such as TASERs.
The United States appeared before the Human Rights Committee on July 17 and 18 in Geneva. It was only the second time that the United States had reported to the Committee, and the first time since it launched the "war on terror" following the attacks of September 11, 2001 in the United States.
A fundamental issue of contention between the Human Rights Committee and the United States at the Geneva hearing is the U.S. government's view that the ICCPR does not apply extraterritorially -- that is, that the treaty does not apply to those held by the United States outside U.S. territory, which today includes thousands of detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantánamo and secret locations. The Committee, like other international bodies and experts, rejects this U.S. interpretation of its obligations under the treaty. It concluded that the United States applies an unacceptably "restrictive interpretation" of its obligations, including a refusal to accept the applicability of the ICCPR to its operations abroad.
"It is deplorable that the U.S. authorities refuse to apply fundamental human rights protections under the Covenant to those held outside the United States," Goering said. "More than four years into the 'war on terror', systemic human rights violations at the hands of United States forces clearly demonstrate the need for an end to this unacceptable face of U.S. exceptionalism."
Background Information
Amnesty International briefed the Human Rights Committee on a range of the organization's concerns under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in relation to U.S. policies and practices inside and outside U.S. territory (see http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGAMR511112006). In addition, the organization attended the hearing in Geneva on July 17 and 18. Amnesty International also provided information to the Human Rights Committee at this session regarding implementation of the ICCPR by UNMIK (U.N. Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo).
In May 2006, the U.N. Committee Against Torture issued conclusions highly critical of the U.S.'s failure to comply with its obligations under the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, both at home and abroad. The U.S. administration was initially dismissive of the Committee Against Torture's criticisms. Amnesty International has called on the administration to ensure that its enduring response will be more constructive and one of fully implementing the Committee's recommendations (see http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGAMR510932006).
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