Rubber stamping violations in the ‘war on terror’: Congress fails human rights
By passing the Military Commissions Act, the United States Congress has, in effect, given its stamp of approval to human rights violations committed by the USA in the “war on terror”. This legislation leaves the USA squarely on the wrong side of international law, and has turned bad executive policy into bad domestic law.
On 27 September, the House of Representatives passed the Military Commissions Act by 253 votes to 168. On 28 September, the Senate passed the Act by 65 votes to 34. After any discrepancies between the Senate and House bills are reconciled, the legislation will go to President Bush for signing into law. If President Bush signs the bill, as expected, Amnesty International will campaign for repeal of the Act. The constitutionality of the legislation is also likely to be challenged in the courts.
In the “war on terror”, the US administration has resorted to secret detention, enforced disappearance, prolonged incommunicado detention, indefinite detention without charge, arbitrary detention, and torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. Thousands of detainees remain in indefinite military detention in US custody in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay. Congress has failed these detainees and their families. President Bush has defended the CIA’s use of secret detention and in the debates over the Military Commissions Act, members of Congress have done the same. Yet this is a policy in clear violation of international law.
Accountability among higher officials for human rights violations authorized or committed by US personnel in the “war on terror” has been absent, as has been reparation for such abuses. Investigations into alleged war crimes and human rights violations have lacked independence and have not gone up the chain of command. Not a single US agent has been charged with war crimes under the USA’s War Crimes Act or torture under the extraterritorial anti-torture statute, despite compelling evidence that such offences have occurred.
Meanwhile, the Military Commissions Act provides for trials of the “enemy” in front of military commissions using lower standards of evidence than apply to US personnel, and with the power to hand down death sentences. Whether charged for trial or not, those detained by the USA as “enemy combatants” will not be able to challenge the lawfulness or conditions of their detention in habeas corpus appeals. Habeas corpus is a fundamental safeguard against enforced disappearance, arbitrary detention and torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. [more]