Can international law save civil liberties?

[atommom]

This is an interesting idea, but I think the neocons are already taking the offensive against it. (The Constitution Restoration Act, for example, specifically states that the U.S. does not have to observe international law.) One more reason we need to oppose their efforts to sidestep the judiciary...

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 9 (IPS) - A new book edited by noted civil rights attorney Ann Fagan Ginger suggests that the U.S. left should focus on using international law to stem the rights violations that are increasingly common side effects of Washington's "war on terror".

''Challenging U.S. Human Rights Violations Since 9/11'' (Prometheus Books, April 2005) represents the first complete collection of the 183 alleged rights violations committed by the U.S. at home and around the world following the attacks of Sep. 11, 2001.

Ginger explains that the book is also meant to inform the U.S. reports to the U.N. and the Organisation of American States on the condition of human rights in this country, which Washington is obliged to do periodically, under three conventions it has ratified.

The volume contains the texts of all the international laws the U.S. has ratified, including the U.N. Charter, the Nuremberg Principles, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, and the Nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty.

Combined with domestic law, these laws form a crisscrossing web of obligations that Ginger believes, if enforced, could prevent most kinds of human rights abuses by the U.S. government.

http://www.ipsnews.net/new_nota.asp?idnews=28159

[Jack Rabbit]

1. Not if the neocons can help it

Press Release from Human Rights Watch
Dateline Washington Thursday April 7

US: Pentagon Detention Guidelines Entrench Illegality
Enemy Combatants Could be Held as "Ghost Detainees"

Proposed Pentagon guidelines will formalize the U.S. military's illegal policy of holding "enemy combatants" without protections under the Geneva Conventions, Human Rights Watch said today in a letter to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

The new policies, set out in a 142-page final draft document prepared by the Joint Chiefs of Staff entitled "Joint Publication 3-63: Joint Doctrine for Detainee Operations," (Note: PDF -- JR) include a directive that would allow the military to hold enemy combatants as "ghost detainees," by denying access to them by the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The guidelines also specify that humane treatment of all detainees can be limited by "military necessity," a position that is both contrary to international and domestic law and opens the door to mistreatment and even torture of detainees.

"Instead of correcting current violations of the Geneva Conventions, these guidelines would shred the conventions further," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. "The policies set out in this document could even require personnel to commit war crimes."

Read more.

Still more global tyranny from the noeocons. These people are the most outlandish war criminals assembled in over sixty years.

[atommom]

2. Yes, this is what's behind the Bush administration's hostility

to international laws and treaties. They want unfettered power, unlimited profits, and the ability to commit heinous crimes against anyone who stands in their way.

[Mist]

3. The current admin. has no intention of being held to international

standards for ANYTHING, environment, courts, anything. They are a law unto themselves!