human rights

Abstract

The detention and interrogation policies adopted by the United State's government in the wake of the 11 September 2001 attacks have raised several questions about its commitment to international law and human rights. Initially a bipartisan issue, the instances of torture and prisoner abuse brought before the public were condemned by both Democrats and Republicans, and both party's presidential candidates promised to shut down the illegal prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Likewise, with the exception of foreign government officials who participated in the Central Intelligence Agency's “extraordinary rendition” program, much of the international community has called on the U.S. government to comply with its treaty obligations.

This is a brief account of the prominent international treaties pertaining to human rights1 and some of their predecessors in various instances of domestic law. What most intellectuals and politicians in the European tradition (including the US2 and its other colonial progeny) consider the principle affirmation of global human rights, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, was ratified in the United Nations in 1948, 3 years after Germany's unconditional surrender.

1. 1. My formal education is in landscape ecology, and rarely involved international law. Like Noam Chomsky, my knowledge of international law is derived largely from from personal study (although I could hardly claim to be as knowledgeable as Chomsky). I have also done some volunteer work with Amnesty International, but that was primarily centered on US violations of the Geneva Conventions and the Convention against Torture, etcetera. As I learn more through feedback from users or personal experience, I will expand on what is here. Feel free to suggest additions or revisions.
2. 2. Although it was heavily involved in the development of the United Nations, the "political consensus" in the United States has become increasingly hostile to the international body. Chomsky's observation that this is related to the democratization of the UN and the decline of the US government's hegemony over the body fits with timing and nature of this trend. In any case, although the US government purports to agree with and uphold the Universal Declaration as the de facto standard, it routinely fails to uphold---or actively undermines---what is actually stated in the Universal Declaration. Although hardly unique to the US, this duplicity is perhaps more disturbing in the US in light of the frequency with which the US employs human rights as a rhetorical device.

As I contend in a related blog entry, I do not believe that the arguments supporting legislation against the legal recognition of homosexual marriages in the United States are consistent with the letter or the spirit of the U.S. Constitution. The pragmatic arguments against homosexual marriages are weak at best (particularly considering the dismal divorce rate in heterosexual marriages) and fail to justify current and proposed legislation on their own, leaving only the religious arguments underlying them---arguments which, of course, cannot legally be used to justify an act of Congress. Consequently, the burden of proof in the debate on the legislation lies not on the proponents to demonstrate that same-sex marriages should be acceptable but on the opponents to demonstrate, without resorting to hackneyed pseudo-religious dogma, that same-sex marriages both are economically or otherwise quantitatively detrimental to the public interest, and lead to the violation of individual rights. Unless such a basis can be offered, I offer that the current "Defense of Marriage Act", the proposed "Marriage Protection Act", and the many state-level imitations thereof are in diametric contradiction to the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

What does the decision to operate an illegal prison camp without Congressional or judicial oversight say about the United States government's commitment to its own legal system or to international humanitarian law? Very few spokespersons in the media seem to be willing to address this question directly, despite its apparent importance. Although the detention and interrogation policies implemented by the Bush administration were not particularly new in terms of the tactics employed, the blatant arrogance that accompanied them was largely unprecedented. Despite initial indications that it would at least superficially break with the Bush administration's policies, the Obama administration has perpetuated and tried to legitimize many of its predecessor's most egregious abuses. While this issue occasionally appears in the headlines, the media has thus far done little more than echo the debates between the establishment's "hawks" and "doves" under the banner of objective journalism. Admittedly, this mainstream journalism does appear to possess a certain level of objectivity when contrasted to its more extreme examples, such as FOX News---which has given up on journalism altogether and instead produces wholesale propaganda designed to terrify the public into believing that they're on the verge of being swarmed by masses of bloodthirsty terrorists hell-bent on destroying freedom, justice, and the American way. The range of this objectivity, however, is always circumscribed by the interests of the eight or so major corporations that own almost all the mass media in the US. In the case of illegal incarceration and torture, this means that much of the debate has been about whether these tactics help to further the United States' foreign policy objectives, and not what those objectives are, or what harms or benefits they will bring to the US and world public. I have collected the resources listed here in an effort to present the debate in this larger context.

Many contemporary concepts of human rights have their origins in the concept of "Natural Law" that developed in the "Age of Enlightenment". While historic documents such as England's "Magna Carta", France's "Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen", the United States' "Bill of Rights", and the Russian Revolution's "Declaration of the Rights of the People of Russia" all outline basic human rights, the concept of human rights as binding, universal principles backed by legal enforcement is generally acknowledged to have come into existence with the formation of the United Nations and the signing of the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights" in 1948. Although it is based exclusively on European (including the US) principles of human rights, the Universal Declaration is widely considered the foundation of international human rights law and, together with the two Covenants, makes up the "International Bill of Rights".