Khaled Saifullah
On the eve of the 66th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the US Senate Committee report on the CIA’s torture of terrorism suspects in secret prisons shook up the world media. Human rights law has come a long way in the last 66 years, and while many suggest that, despite pitfalls, it is our best hope against tyrannical rule, some still question the effectiveness of human rights regime altogether and call for its replacement with a new system.
America’s recourse to torture after 9/11, the rise of China and its blatant rejection of the civil-political rights, the ambiguity in the content of most human rights left deliberately to persuade states with diverse interests and loyalties to sign the conventions, and the weakness of international parent institutions such as the United Nations Human Rights Council are some of the fatal chinks in the armor of human rights regime.
Of these four weaknesses, the use of torture by the US leaves arguably the worst consequences for at least two reasons. Firstly, the US has for long been leading the promotion and protection of human rights. Many even find the UDHR a glaring reflection of the established principles of the American courts. Since the end of cold war in 1990, the US has been increasingly using economic influence and military power for the protection of human rights of the people in other nations. Secondly, there are nearly 400 human rights clamoring for their universal recognition.
The list is ever-growing, as we tend to call anything and everything worth protecting a human right – from the right to leisure to the right to the truth. Understandably, not every state agrees upon the binding nature of all of those human rights owing to their unique social, economic and cultural conditions. But if there is any human right which is absolute, it is the right not to be tortured. Even while deporting terrorism suspects, many states including the US and the UK have sought diplomatic assurances from Tajikistan and Jordan respectively to protect such individuals from torture.
The beginning of current controversy over America’s recourse to torture lies more than a decade back in time, when the Abu Gharib scandal exposed the brutal torture by American prison guards, military intelligence officers and private contractors in 2003. In the face of severe criticism, the then Bush administration maintained that it did not overtly authorise such torture, mentioning it was an “isolated incident” triggered by an individual failure to maintain discipline.
Soon in 2005, the Washington Post reported the existence of secret interrogation facilities called “black sites” outside the US territory, run by the CIA, known to only a handful of top officials in the US and the host country. This fundamentally challenged the “overtly unauthorised” protection shell of the US. The issue then played a big part in the US politics, before Obama ended the “enhanced interrogation” program, in the name of which detainees were tortured and abused, in 2009. The Senate report is the latest development in this saga and it, though severely redacted, brings to the public a significant official account of torture by the CIA.
Due to the United State’s leading role as a promoter of human rights and the unqualified nature of the right not to be tortured, how the United States addresses the illegal use of torture by the CIA as an interrogation technique will have a crucial impact on the plausibility of human rights regime. Violations of one of the most widely accepted human rights by the intelligence agency of the most powerful and active promoter of human rights with impunity cannot go hand in hand. If the US chooses to remain ambivalent about the prosecution of those involved in the torture, it would be no less than a mockery when the US calls out another nation for its violation of human rights.
The US has an obligation to investigate and prosecute the commission of torture under the Geneva Convention relative to the treatment of prisoners and the Convention against Torture. Leading human rights organisations, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International are now calling for the prosecution of those involved in the torture. The current Obama administration has promised to use its authority to make sure America never resort to those methods again. But those loyal to the Bush administration and the CIA are refusing to use the term “torture,” claiming that those enhanced interrogation techniques were necessary to keep the Americans safe, and they should be decorated, not criticised.
This spurred a debate on the utility of torture as a method to fight against terrorism. The debate seems to presuppose that if torture works as an effective interrogation technique, it would justify the violation of people’s right not to be tortured. Unfortunately, this debate nakedly exposes exactly when human rights regime stands most vulnerable – when national interests of the powerful cross the way with human rights.
This is a critical juncture for the international human rights regime. If the responsible officials are ultimately prosecuted, the human rights regime would have one less strong criticism to face, and one big proud story to tell – one story that human rights defenders would tell with glaring pride and conclude, no one, not even the President of the United States gets away with the violations of human rights. If they are not, this report would make the case against human rights only stronger, at the least.
At worst, human rights would fall in a black hole with an increasing number of top players losing their moral authority – with the blood and dirt at the back of the US, the UK, Russia and China’s shirts from wars and denials of civil-political rights.
Sourcet:
http://www.dhakatribune.com/juris/2014/dec/18/how-torture-report-will-change-future-human-rights#sthash.f1ZvsWtw.dpuf
