Check out this OFFICIAL U.S. POSITION on the legality of torture

Land Shark

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Mon Feb-08-10 04:45 PM
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Check out this OFFICIAL U.S. POSITION on the legality of torture

Edited on Mon Feb-08-10 04:51 PM by Land Shark

These are the written and signed words of the US Government's Department of State, after "extensive" consultations with the Department of Justice and numerous other federal agencies and offices:

United States representatives participated actively in the formulation of the United Nations Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Being Subjected to Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, adopted in 1975, and in the negotiation of the Convention against Torture. {...}

Torture is prohibited by law throughout the United States. It is categorically denounced as a matter of policy and as a tool of state authority. Every act constituting torture under the Convention constitutes a criminal offence under the law of the United States. No official of the Government, federal, state or local, civilian or military, is authorized to commit or to instruct anyone else to commit torture. Nor may any official condone or tolerate torture in any form. No exceptional circumstances may be invoked as a justification of torture. United States law contains no provision permitting otherwise prohibited acts of torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment to be employed on grounds of exigent circumstances (for example, during a �state of public emergency�) or on orders from a superior officer or public authority, and the protective mechanisms of an independent judiciary are not subject to suspension. The United States is committed to the full and effective implementation of its obligations under the Convention throughout its territory.

Paragraph 6 of Initial Report of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA to the UN Committee on Torture and Other Forms of Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment
Dated October 15, 1999
Archived at, inter alia, http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/cat/cat-reports2000.html

That was in late 1999, and we all know what happened in 2000, and thereafter...

Paragraph 7 of the above report goes on to state why the above international law, once freely recognized and promoted by the USA, is important:

"No Government, however, can claim a perfect record in each of the areas and obligations covered by the Convention."

And, indeed, the great lack of perfection in both humanity and governments in adhering to basic human rights is, and was, true worldwide.

What's different now, and what makes a huge difference overall, is this:

1. The frequency and systematic nature of abuses,

and, what makes everything incredibly worse:

2. endorsement of such abuses as approved by the law of the land, or, alternatively, not expressly prohibited by domestic law (which domestic law, by the way, every signatory country to the Convention including the USA is obliged to adjust so that domestic laws mirror or exceed the Convention's protections against all forms of inhumane treatment including, but not limited to, torture).