{"id":17720,"date":"2013-01-10T21:24:26","date_gmt":"2013-01-11T05:24:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=17720"},"modified":"2013-01-10T21:26:49","modified_gmt":"2013-01-11T05:26:49","slug":"the-problem-with-human-rightshumanitarian-law-taking-precedence-over-the-nuremberg-principle-torture-is-wrong-but-so-is-the-supreme-war-crime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2013\/01\/10\/the-problem-with-human-rightshumanitarian-law-taking-precedence-over-the-nuremberg-principle-torture-is-wrong-but-so-is-the-supreme-war-crime\/","title":{"rendered":"The Problem with Human Rights\/Humanitarian Law Taking Precedence over the Nuremberg Principle: Torture is Wrong but So Is the Supreme War Crime"},"content":{"rendered":"

A number of human rights issues converge on Friday January 11, 2013.\u00a0In Washington DC<\/a>\u00a0and many other cities around the country,\u00a0including the Twin Cities<\/a>, people will don orange \u201cGitmo\u201d jumpsuits and black hoods to protest the 11th<\/sup>\u00a0year anniversary-travesty of Guantanamo as well as the (bizarrely coincidental) national release of the\u00a0 despicable, CIA-inspired \u201czero conscience\u201d film <\/a>that falsely conveys the message that torture \u201cworks\u201d and is somehow heroic.<\/p>\n

\"This<\/p>\n

The third, far less known issue involves the resignation (effective on January 11) of Suzanne Nossel, Director of Amnesty International-USA.\u00a0 Her resignation after only one year as American Director would be unimportant except for how it exposes more fundamental problems involving the way human rights principles during peace time and humanitarian rules governing warfare can function to undercut the more well established\u00a0jus ad bellum<\/i>\u00a0prohibitions, under international law, of launching wars of choice.\u00a0 Nossel\u2019s statement itself gave little clue of the more fundamental problematic issues underlying her resignation (except for the fact that she only mentioned her appreciation for\u00a0working to uphold \u201chuman rights\u201d in the Soviet Union, Afghanistan, Myanmar and Syria \u00adbut left out the human rights violations that the US-NATO-Israel is responsible for).
\n
\nThere\u2019s no need to rehash the points we tried to make in \u201cAmnesty’s Shilling for US Wars<\/a>\u201d (co-authored with Col Ret\u2019d Ann Wright) and \u201cAre Human Rights Becoming a Tool of US \u2018Smart Power?<\/a>” which described\u00a0the way Nossel personified<\/a>\u00a0some of these revolving door conflicts of interest plaguing human rights and humanitarian non-governmental organizations (NGOs)\u00a0based in the West.\u00a0 It\u2019s simply not possible\u00a0for anyone\u00a0to constantly go back and forth from serving US national interests vis a vis other nation-state sovereigns in the world to the theoretically loftier role of promoting human rights around the world as head of a non-governmental organization whose credibility depends upon\u00a0not<\/i><\/b>\u00a0being aligned with any country\u2019s national interests.<\/p>\n

To be sure, these conflicts of interest did not begin with Suzanne Nossel but have a long history <\/a>which\u00a0also reside in\u00a0the NGO\u2019s\u00a0donor base\u00a0according to former Amnesty-USA Board member Francis Boyle<\/a>. There seems to be an even more fundamental problem, however, engulfing not only Amnesty but a great many other \u201chuman rights\u201d NGOs and academics based in the United States and its western allies.\u00a0 Amnesty\u2019s verbatim response back in June to our \u201cAmnesty Shilling for Wars\u201d article was telling:<\/p>\n

Among many distortions in this post, it is ludicrous, offensive and\u00a0 irresponsible to suggest\u00a0that Amnesty International\u00a0USA\u2019s work on Afghan\u00a0 women\u2019s\u00a0rights is being scripted by the Central Intelligence Agency\u00a0\u201cRed Cell\u201d report of 2010. Amnesty International has been monitoring and reporting on\u00a0Afghanistan\u00a0for decades, and we have been issuing statements and reports pertaining to\u00a0the human rights of women in\u00a0Afghanistan\u00a0since at least the 1990s.<\/p>\n

AI\u2019s advocacy is based on our own independent research into human rights abuses in a given country. As a matter of longstanding policy, we remain independent of governments, we do not espouse political ideologies or systems of governance, and\u00a0we do not take positions on armed intervention. We did not call for NATO\u2019s involvement in\u00a0Afghanistan, we are not calling for NATO to remain in the country, and we are not praising NATO\u2019s actions in\u00a0Afghanistan\u00a0or elsewhere. The Shadow\u00a0Summitwas exclusively about the right of women in\u00a0Afghanistan\u00a0to participate in political decisions that will impact their lives. In order to press for them to be at the table, it was necessary to direct our message to the entities who set the table. This is no way breaches our independence or impartiality.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Apparently this \u201clongstanding policy\u201d also led Amnesty and Human Rights Watch to take no position regarding the US launching of the Iraq War in spite of large world-wide protests as well as widespread knowledge, including amongst key UN officials and monitoring agencies, that US politicians were deceptively ginning up a \u201cwar of choice\u201d on Iraq.\u00a0 Moreover, such a \u201cpolicy\u201d simply ignores the entire huge body of international law known as\u00a0jus ad bellum<\/i>\u00a0or\u00a0\u201cjust war theory\u201d upon which the Kellogg Briand Pact, UN Charter and Nuremberg Principles are based, premised upon nation-state sovereignty and equality.\u00a0 Firmly established international law holds that a nation commits the \u201csupreme crime\u201d by launching an unjustified \u201cwar of aggression\u201d since such a war tends to give rise to and encompass the other (lesser) war crimes and humanitarian abuses.\u00a0Countries are consequently prohibited from launching such \u201cwars of choice\u201d as tools of foreign policy.\u00a0So any \u201cnon-governmental organization\u201d that dismisses jus ad bellum and states it\u2019s only concerned with the two bodies of international \u201chuman rights\u201d and \u201chumanitarian law of warfare\u201d (jus in bello<\/i>\u00a0military law, i.e. which aims to restrict hurting and killing of civilians and prisoners of war as well as prohibiting the use of torture and cruel and inhumane treatment during warfare) is choosing to see the trees instead of the forest.<\/p>\n

In fact the common theme of\u00a0US\u00a0government and military lawyers since 9-11 has fully borne out the rationale for the Nuremberg Principle, that wars of aggression are the supreme crime.\u00a0 US militarists have essentially argued the need to \u201cgo to the dark side\u201d, because the jus in\u00a0bello\u00a0\u201chumanitarian law of warfare\u201d is \u201cincreasingly obsolete\u201d and\/or has failed to keep pace with how \u201cterrorists\u201d operate outside the Geneva Conventions.\u00a0 One might imagine some of the British Redcoats similarly pleading with the King to bend their rigid rules and regimentation in order to more effectively combat the American revolutionary soldiers who were picking them off from behind trees and fighting more of a guerrilla war.\u00a0 Simply put, ignoring the commission of the \u201csupreme crime\u201d will inherently and always lead to a certain amount of hypocrisy and complicity.<\/p>\n

International law professor Richard Falk recently gave a rather long interview on the \u201cThe Future of International Law and Human Rights\u201d in which he was asked about this.\u00a0 He generously described this issue as \u201ctricky\u201d, explaining that:<\/p>\n

Human rights and international criminal law both illustrate the contradictory potential of international law. On one level, the imposition of human rights norms is a restraint on interventionary diplomacy, especially if coupled with respect for the legal norm of self-determination. But on another level, the protection of human rights creates a pretext for intervention as given approval by the UN Security Council in the form of the R2P (responsibility to protect) norm, as used in the 2011 Libyan intervention.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Falk\u2019s interview<\/a>\u00a0deserves to be read in its entirety even though it\u2019s geared to those with some prior understanding of how international law has evolved and is evolving; its inherent weaknesses and double standards based on current geopolitics.\u00a0 Ironically, not long after this interview, the international law icon (he co-authored the international law textbooks that I studied from at the University of Iowa Law School in the late 1970s) and \u201cUN Special Rapporteur\u201d on Human Rights,\u00a0was himself expelled from Human Rights Watch<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Consider whether Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch has ever questioned the new\u00a0US\u00a0doctrine of \u201cpre-emptive or preventative\u201d wars, key to the notion of the\u00a0US\u00a0\u201cglobal war on terrorism.\u201d\u00a0 Have\u00a0\u201chumanitarian\/human rights NGOS\u201d criticized NATO\u2019s bombing of\u00a0Libya\u00a0or US (and allied countries\u2019) threats to use military force on\u00a0Syria\u00a0and\u00a0Iran\u00a0(or the harsh sanctions provocations) in pursuit of \u201cregime change?\u201d\u00a0 The jus ad bellum body of international law which even the \u201cBush-Powell Doctrine\u201d was to some degree based on after Vietnam has now become almost totally ignored and forgotten whereas international \u201chuman rights\u201d and humanitarian bodies of law are increasingly in vogue.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The human rights movement does not seem to worry much if at all about militarily weaker nation-states being protected from stronger military powers.\u00a0 If this is the model for human rights enforcement, the clear result is to undermine nation-state sovereignty and to undermine the more firmly established law prohibiting wars of aggression.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

If \u201chuman rights NGOS\u201d do work totally independently of any government\u2014and\u00a0some like the Red Cross appear much more careful to do so\u2014it\u00a0would seem fine for the two systems of international law to operate, in an overlapping but independent fashion.\u00a0 But when \u201chuman rights organizations\u201d join hands with powerful governments, as seen when many recently stood with and applauded the creation (at the instigation of Madeline Albright and Samantha Powers) of the\u00a0US Atrocity Prevention Board<\/a>, that\u2019s where the problem emerges.\u00a0 Amnesty\u2019s and other human rights organizations\u2019 attempt to enforce human rights law around the world through entwining themselves with US-NATO-Israel\u2019s military force as a kind of supreme international human rights policeman of the world, can in fact,\u00a0lead to the deaths of the people<\/a>\u00a0they say they are trying to help.\u00a0<\/p>\n

These human rights NGOs, not just Amnesty, seem to disdain the old international law, even more firmly engrained, built as it was upon the old order of nation-state sovereignty but which, in addition to jus ad bello included the jus ad bellum body of law which held that unjustified wars of aggression, aka \u201cpre-emptive wars\u201d and wars of choice involving covert incitements, international political assassinations, etc were\/are highly illegal.\u00a0 Truly credible and independent humanitarian efforts to help individuals are inherently ineffective when entwined with any government\u2019s national interests.\u00a0 The Red Cross\u00a0may be\u00a0an example of a human rights effort operating internationally that seems to do a better job of maintaining independence from any particular government\u2019s national interests (even in difficult war situations).\u00a0 Greg Mortenson\u2019s efforts described in\u00a0Three Cups of Tea<\/i>\u00a0to build schools in Afghanistan-Pakistan, on the other hand, and which were originally begun independently, appear on the other hand, as an example at the other end of the spectrum as Mortenson later developed a relationship with General Petraeus and the Pentagon.\u00a0 Such \u201chuman rights\u201d and democracy promotion efforts that are entwined with US-NATO-Israel\u2019s quest for \u201cfull spectrum dominance\u201d through military force\u00ad as a kind of \u201cpoliceman of the world\u201d theory\u00ad seem to totally pervert the human and humanitarian bodies of law and become nothing but a way of selling wars of aggression as a kind of \u201cwhite man\u2019s burden .\u201d<\/p>\n

Human\u00a0rights proponents might rationalize that the old jus ad bellum law premised as it\u00a0was\u00a0on nation-state sovereignty is no longer valid and they want to see a new world order arise, a kind of \u201ccitizen of the world\u201d paradigm where individuals\u2019 rights do not depend upon any one sovereign nation\u2019s government.\u00a0 But even if this is the case, a clearer explanation or critique\u00ad is needed to show how these two main bodies of international law can conflict, be exploited and\/or play out and backfire in a world where old nation state sovereignty may or may not be giving way to a new global order.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A number of human rights issues converge on Friday January 11, 2013.\u00a0In Washington DC\u00a0and many other cities around the country,\u00a0including the Twin Cities, people will don orange \u201cGitmo\u201d jumpsuits and black hoods to protest the 11th\u00a0year anniversary-travesty of Guantanamo as well as the (bizarrely coincidental) national release of the\u00a0 despicable, CIA-inspired \u201czero conscience\u201d film that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":89,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99,66],"tags":[563,689,571],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-17720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cia","category-torture","tag-amnesty-international-usa","tag-guantanamo","tag-suzanne-nossel"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/89"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17720"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17720\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17734,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17720\/revisions\/17734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17720"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=17720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}