U.N. Rights Panel Focuses On U.S. Record, Executing Mentally Ill?
UN rights panel focuses on US record
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/13904785/
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By Frances Williams in Geneva
Updated: 32 minutes ago
US officials on Monday faced their second grilling in two months by United Nations human rights experts on alleged violations of international law in the fight against terrorism.
The 18-member UN human rights committee, which oversees countries' compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, made it clear that it did not accept US arguments that the covenant did not apply to US actions abroad.
Human rights groups argue that the US is failing to respect key provisions of the covenant in its "war on terror", especially in relation to the detention without charge of thousands of non-US nationals held in prisons in Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantánamo Bay and secret locations.
Alleged abuses documented by Amnesty International, among other groups, and submitted to the human rights committee include torture and ill-treatment, arbitrary detention, "disappearances" and "extraordinary" renditions of terror suspects to countries known to practise torture.
Sir Nigel Rodley, a UK expert on the committee and a former UN torture envoy, said prolonged secret detention was an egregious violation of the covenant and he was "dismayed and astonished" that the US was apparently carrying out a "practice of such extravagant enormity".
The two-day hearing, 11 years after Washington's first appearance before the human rights committee in 1995, follows a similar session in May before the UN committee against torture. The human rights committee is due to release its conclusions and recommendations, which are not binding, at the end of this month.
The US administration says the covenant, adopted by the UN in 1966, applies only to US territory but the committee, in common with other international legal bodies, argues that it applies wherever the US has jurisdiction, including military bases abroad. The US ratified the covenant, to which 156 states are party, in 1992.
Washington is also under fire for certain domestic policies and practices that civil liberties organisations claim violate the covenant. These include the execution of the mentally ill, the alleged discriminatory response to Hurricane Katrina and the rebuilding of New Orleans, harsh and abusive prison conditions and the sentencing of juveniles to life without parole.
Matthew Waxman, the State Department official heading the large US inter-agency team despatched to Geneva, said the US was proud of its human rights record, while recognising there was always more to be done.
