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organizations with NGO status at the United Nations. Please contact member parties regarding the
positions of their respective organizations on matters expressed in this online journal.
March 31, 2009
Posted 9:14 PM
by Mary
U.S. to Join U.N. Human Rights Council, Reversing Bush Policy By Colum Lynch Washington Post Staff Writer UNITED NATIONS, March 31 -- The Obama administration decided Tuesday to seek a seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council, reversing a decision by the Bush administration to shun the United Nations' premier rights body to protest the influence of repressive states. "Human rights are an essential element of American global foreign policy," Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in a statement. "With others, we will engage in the work of improving the U.N. human rights system. . . . We believe every nation must live by and help shape global rules that ensure people enjoy the right to live freely and participate fully in their societies." The United States announced it would participate in elections in May for one of three seats on the 47-member council, joining a slate that includes Belgium and Norway. New Zealand, which had also been on the ballot, supports the U.S. decision and withdrew its name to make room for the United States, Foreign Minister Murray McCully announced. "Frankly, by any objective measure, membership of the Council by the U.S. is more likely to create positive changes more quickly than we could have hoped to achieve them," he said. Labels: HRW, UNHRC
March 25, 2009
Posted 9:01 PM
by Mary
Defying the International Criminal Court: Bush, Bashir and Obama By: JimWhite Wednesday March 25, 2009 6:28 am Earlier this month, the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for the arrest of Omar Bashir, President of Sudan, for his role in genocide and other war crimes in Darfur. An editorial in the New York Times written shortly after the warrant was issued concluded with this paragraph: And he [Mr. Obama] should urge all of America’s allies to comply with the arrest order if Mr. Bashir decides to leave Sudan — there is talk that he may try to attend an Arab summit in Qatar later this month. Any country that continues to enable Mr. Bashir should be branded as an accomplice to his many horrors. There are now reports that Bashir is traveling freely. He visited Eritrea on Monday and is in Egypt today (Wednesday). So much for the US and Obama following the advice of the Times' editorial staff and urging our allies to honor the arrest warrant. It would be truly ironic if Obama did urge Egypt to arrest Bashir, since both the US and Obama are openly defying the ICC themselves. As described in the New York Times in May, 2002, the Bush Administration repudiated President Clinton's last minute signing of the treaty establishing the ICC: In a letter to Kofi Annan, the secretary general of the United Nations, the Bush administration said that the signature of the Clinton administration on the treaty creating the court was no longer legally binding. "The United States does not intend to become a party to the treaty," John R. Bolton, an undersecretary of state, wrote to Mr. Annan in a one-paragraph letter. "Accordingly, the United States has no legal obligations from its signature on Dec. 31, 2000." Finally, Jonathan Turley pointed out on Rachel Maddow's show this week that Obama is now risking becoming an accomplice to torture because he is refusing to prosecute those who ordered and carried out torture despite irrefutable evidence that the US committed this war crime: By refusing to prosecute those who ordered and carried out torture, Obama is ignoring the requirements of US law and international law. With his lack of action against Bush and Bashir, Obama is joining them in defying the ICC. That is not very good company for our president to be keeping, in my opinion. As the Times feared, Obama now has become an accomplice to Bashir's crimes, just as Turley points out he is an accomplice to Bush's crimes Labels: ICC
March 23, 2009
Posted 8:06 PM
by Mary
Harold Koh, Outspoken Opponent of Torture, Named State Department Legal Adviser By: Spencer Ackerman President Obama just announced that Harold Hongju Koh, the head of Yale Law School and a human-rights official in the Clinton administration, will be the legal adviser to the State Department. That's big news as the administration proceeds with its review of interrogations, detentions and renditions policy. Koh, recall, dramatically testified at Alberto Gonzales' confirmation hearing to become attorney general in 2005, calling the infamous August 2002 Office of Legal Counsel memo authorizing torture "perhaps the most clearly erroneous legal opinion that I have ever read" and a "stain on our national reputation." With Koh advising the State Department, expect a great deal of emphasis on international human rights law. It'll be especially interesting to see what he says about the legality of rendition in particular, and, relatedly, on the repatriation of detainees to countries where they're likely to be abused, as with the Uighurs at Guantanamo Bay that Daphne has so diligently been tracking. Labels: Human Rights, torture
March 18, 2009
Posted 10:29 AM
by Mary
Officials: Obama administration to reverse Bush stance on gay rights at UN MATTHEW LEE (AP) The Obama administration will endorse a U.N. declaration calling for the worldwide decriminalization of homosexuality that then-President George W. Bush had refused to sign U.S. officials said Tuesday they had notified the declaration's French sponsors that the administration wants to be added as a supporter. The Bush administration was criticized in December when it was the only western government that refused to sign on. The move was made after an interagency review of the Bush administration's position on the nonbinding document, which was signed by all 27 European Union members as well as Japan, Australia, Mexico and three dozen other countries, the officials said. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because Congress was still being notified of the decision. They said the administration had decided to sign the declaration to demonstrate that the United States supports human rights for all.
March 16, 2009
Posted 10:06 AM
by Mary
Red Cross Described 'Torture' at CIA Jails Secret Report Implies That U.S. Violated International Law By Joby Warrick, Peter Finn and Julie Tate Washington Post Monday, March 16, 2009; Page A01 The International Committee of the Red Cross concluded in a secret report that the Bush administration's treatment of al-Qaeda captives "constituted torture," a finding that strongly implied that CIA interrogation methods violated international law, according to newly published excerpts from the long-concealed 2007 document. The report, an account alleging physical and psychological brutality inside CIA "black site" prisons, also states that some U.S. practices amounted to "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment." Such maltreatment of detainees is expressly prohibited by the Geneva Conventions. The findings were based on an investigation by ICRC officials, who were granted exclusive access to the CIA's "high-value" detainees after they were transferred in 2006 to the U.S. detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The 14 detainees, who had been kept in isolation in CIA prisons overseas, gave remarkably uniform accounts of abuse that included beatings, sleep deprivation, extreme temperatures and, in some cases, waterboarding, or simulating drowning. At least five copies of the report were shared with the CIA and top White House officials in 2007 but barred from public release by ICRC guidelines intended to preserve the humanitarian group's strict policy of neutrality in conflicts. A copy of the report was obtained by Mark Danner, a journalism professor and author who published extensive excerpts in the April 9 edition of the New York Review of Books, released yesterday. He did not say how he obtained the repo Labels: CIA, geneva conventions, red cross, torture
March 4, 2009
Posted 10:23 AM
by Mary
THE HAGUE, Netherlands — The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant Wednesday for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur. He is the first sitting head of state the court has ordered arrested. The three-judge panel said there was insufficient evidence to support charges of genocide in a war in which up to 300,000 people have died and 2.7 million have fled their homes. "He is suspected of being criminally responsible ... for intentionally directing attacks against an important part of the civilian population of Darfur, Sudan, murdering, exterminating, raping, torturing and forcibly transferring large numbers of civilians, and pillaging their property," court spokeswoman Laurence Blairon said. Labels: ICC
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"War does not determine who is right--only who is left." - Bertrand Russell
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