UN attacks US torture stance

Louise Arbour

UNITED STATES - The United States-led war on terror has undermined the global ban on torture, weakening American moral authority on human rights worldwide, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said.

"The principle once believed to be unassailable - the inherent right to physical integrity and dignity of the person - is becoming a casualty of the so-called war on terror," Louise Arbour said ahead of Human Rights Day tomorrow.

Arbour decried two practices in particular: holding prisoners in secret detention centres, which she said was a form of torture, and rendering suspects to third countries outside normal extradition procedures, that is, without independent oversight.

"There are a lot of human rights that can be set aside in cases of emergency, lots of them, but not the right to life and not the protection against torture," she told a news conference.

The US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton rebuked Arbour, calling the criticism illegitimate second-guessing. Arbour's comments were not helpful in the fight against violent extremists, he said.

The US has denied practising torture but it has avoided denying or confirming a Washington Post report that the CIA has run secret centres in Eastern Europe to interrogate terrorism suspects. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, under pressure from European leaders during her ongoing visit to the continent, has defended the US treatment of detainees as lawful operations that prevent attacks. But Arbour said that it was difficult to accept such statements "because everything is done in total secrecy".

The US has also come under international criticism for prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay.

Arbour is a former Canadian Supreme Court justice and a chief prosecutor at the UN war crimes court for the former Yugoslavia. She praised past US leadership on expanding political and civil rights because it allowed Americans "to lecture others about their performances".

"To the extent that there's a perception that there is a withdrawal from the high-water mark of commitment to civil and political liberties, I think it makes it a lot more difficult for the US to exercise that kind of moral leadership on all human rights issues."



UN convention against torture

* The convention bans torture under all circumstances.
* Came into effect in June 1987.
* Defines torture as "any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining information or a confession".
* Requires states to make torture illegal and provide punishment for those who commit torture.
* Requires states to take effective measures to prevent torture
* Declares that no emergency, or orders from a superior or authority, may be invoked to justify torture.
* Forbids the return of a refugee to his or her country if there is reason to believe he/she will be tortured.
* A Committee Against Torture of 10 independent experts monitors the compliance of the 140 signatories of the convention.

- REUTERS