Apologies for getting somewhat off-topic, but it’s noteworthy that Israel is one of the few countries that defends the practice of torture.
>> It’s already allowed to inspect the prisons of the US, so it’s not asking for anything that it doesn’t abide by
The Ryan, Um, no. That’s the whole point which is being discussed. The denial of the US to accept such inspections
chula, can you give me some cites on that. I’m very interested in confirming or denying that.
My source was a well-known professor of human rights and an Israeli lawyer who defended the practice. I guess I should have expected that someone would demand a cite, so I’ve dug up these:
The Guardian: The Israeli Supreme Court ruled that torture is acceptable when there is evidence that there is an impending threat to human lives.
Amnesty International: Israel continues to employ torture methods prohibited by Supreme Court decision.
Common Dreams:“Israel uses torture in defiance of court ban"
BBC News: “Israel Admits to Torture”
Physicians for Human Rights
How does this treaty help to eradicate torture? Doesn’t it only apply to the signatories?
And what is ‘torture,’ exactly?
(The last one isn’t rhetorical, either, I actually am curious as to how specifically it is defined)
From the link porvided above:
For the purposes of this Convention, the term “torture” means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.
Also, after reading the rest, I cannot determine if a “state party” means a signator of the convention or any member of the UN. Perhaps someone can clarify this.
In a continued effort to keep this debate on the healthy side of the sanity barrier:
The issue is not whether the US can inspect its own prisons and those of other nations. It’s about whether or not the UN should be allowed to inspect the prisons of all and sundry nations including the US within provisions of the Convention Against Torture.
I’ll run that once more in a slightly different way for safety’s sake:
The issue at hand is whether or not the US should ratify a document that lets the UN (United Nations) inspect prisons in the US (United States) and in the rest of the nations that ratify the protocol, not anything else.
Sparc
“state party” refers to a ratfying state, which is thereby party to the convention. For states that do not ratify a UN convention other means such as resolutions and interventions need be used.
Sparc
So does the death penalty fall under the definition of torture?
The UN should have called the US’s bluff when the yanks said they would pull out all their “peace keepers” world wide if special exceptions where not made for Americans specifically in reguards to a world court and war crimes. America can not afford to pull out their troops because they’re not ‘keeping the peace’, their protecting the interests of the American capitalist minority and promoting US world economic dominance, the economic repercusions of such a retrawal would undermine US markets and hasten the arrival of the next big market “bust”. History shows boom and bust to be enevidable in market economy. But luckily the Americans have a good way of staying on top during world recessions, its called WAR. It means big profits and the worker will be made to pay again with his/her labour or life.
Halo13 and WV_Woman, you’re both doing wonders in keeping this both sane and on track.
And Neurotik, the document is at your leisurely disposal a bit further up. Read it instead of asking us to read it and print excerpts for you all the time.
Sparc
:: sigh: : I would ask those who are just spouting stuff totally unrelated to the subject of this thread to go do it somewhere else. You can open a pit thread and I’ll gladly join you there. And I would ask everyone to just ignore posts here which are not contributing to the discussion at hand. Let’s try to discuss this above the noise.
chula, if a country like Israel still admits to using torture this shows the dire need for international treaties which would prevent it. Israel, like other countries, is subject to outside pressure and the more countries which have joined this treaty, the less excuse Israel would have to stay out. I do believe in leading by example.
BUT, your post is very misleading. You say that “Israel is one of the few countries that defends the practice of torture”. This is a very broad statement. I checked you links. The first one is titled “Israeli court outlaws torture” and goes on to say the court said torture is always banned except “The new ruling stipulates that officers using torture will be exempted only if they can show evidence of an impending threat to civilian lives”. While I still find this not admissible it is a far cry from what your blanket statement implied.
The AI link expresses concern over “continuing use of interrogation methods prohibited by an Israeli Supreme Court ruling” which implies they are illegal already. This does not amount to “allowing” those acts. Acts which are illegal take place in the US and every other country and that is one more reason to allow for the inspections but a country cannot be held responsible for private conduct which it already considers illegal.
The same reasoning goes for the Common Dreams link. “Israel has resumed systematic torture of Palestinian detainees even though the Israeli Supreme Court banned the practice two years ago, three human rights groups said in a joint report” is a bad way of putting things because the Supreme Court is also Israel. It is not “Israel” but “Israeli Police” (or whoever). Israel has already expressed the illegality of the acts with the rulings of their Supreme Court. You could make similar cases about the US and many other countries and that is precisely why these inspections are needed. They would cut back on acts which are already illegal but which go undiscovered or just are condoned by the local authorities.
The BBC article says “Israel 'broke own rules” so it is more of the same. It is plainly clear by now that, contrary to what you say, Israel does not “defend” the use of torture. What there is is a situation where the government officials are abusing their authority. While I do not condone it, I can understand such things are more likely to be excused in a country which lives under constant threat of terrorists. At any rate, such abuses also happen in the US (if to a much lesser degree) and they just show a need for external inspections. Local authorities are more prone to be understanding of such abuses and cover them up and hide them.
In other word, there is still much to be done in this respect, in Israel and elsewhere. No country can say it is 100% innocent in this respect and all should work jointly to erradicate torture as is the intent of the original treaty ratified by the US. The correct thing to do now is to cooperate in its development.
I would have to say that depends on who is ignoring the supreme court. When, say, Andrew Jackson ignored the US Supreme Court regarding the Cherokee, it could have been described as “United States robs indians of land.” So I would want to know at what point in the hierarchy of the Israeli Security Forces the decision was made to ignore the Israeli ruling. If it’s some rogue colonel, then it’s an illegal act which reflects only on the individual. If it’s the Minister of Defense, that would be a different story.
At any rate, that is just a side issue here and I do not want to sidetrack the thread with that issue. The fact is that, to a greater or lesser degree, legally or illegally, torture and degrading treatment take place in many places in the world, inclusing Israel and the USA. I would like to see as much done as possible to put an end to these acts and I believe supporting the protocol in question is the right thing to do as it will diminish the risk of such acts happening in the US and it will serve as an example to other countries, including Israel.
chula, Isreal is usuing torture under special provocation. If the Palestinians stopped attacking them, their torture would end instantly.
When you ask that Israel stop using torture to prevent attacks against civilians, you need to think about what should replace it. If Israel stops using torture to get information on attacks planned, what should they do instead? Should they simply declare war on the Palestinians and attack all of them with all weapons at their disposal? Should they do nothing and encourage the continuing murder of their civilians? What are your thoughts?
sailor, you wrote
“The fact is that, to a greater or lesser degree, legally or illegally, torture and degrading treatment take place in…the USA.”
That attitude shows a failure to focus on the different magnitudes of the problem in different countries. I am concerned that the UN would use its authority to harass the US for extremely rare or non-existant problems, instead of dealing effectively with the areas where torture is rampant.
It’s a pleasant duty to visit US prisons and make morally pretentious statements. But, how will the UN check our torture in places like Iraq? They haven’t succeeded in checking out Iraq’s weapons.
It’s a question of setting a better example. If the US refuses to let people into their prisons, why shouldn’t Iraq continue to refuse? The idea is not that the US needs to monitored so that the UN can put the US on trial, but so that the UN can point to the free world and say; ‘Hey [insert tyrant of choice], you bludgeon head, we play with open cards, how about you getting with the game here?’
The fact is that ‘we’ (the US, EU end so on) do not have quite a clean slate so it will also serve the purpose of doing away with abusive practices by our own regional and local mini tyrants. See that as a bonus, if you like.
The fact remains that my first point is what really matters, the free world must set a better example if we want to continue policing the bandits, pirates and tyrants that deliberately break the rules. Allowing our prisons to be examined on equal footing as everyone else is part of that example.
Sparc
Were you unaware that “it” in that quote refers to the US, or are you claiming that the US is not allowed to inspect its own prisons?
Sparc, your statement may be correct, but it is beside the point. Iraq won’t let outsiders into their prisons whether or not the US and EU do so. Iraq doesn’t follow our example in other civil rights or civil liberties areas; they won’t in this case either. (If you think Iraq would open their prisons to inspection just because we did, please explain your reasons.)
Since Iraq’s conduct would not be affected if the US and EU allowed UN prison inspections, what’s the point? Some people might then feel a bit more morally superior to Saddam. However, I cannot understand why anyone would need additional reasons to find Saddam Hussein’s regime highly immoral.
The real question is, what action will actually help the people of Iraq? The answer is: a military overthrow of the current, horrendous regime and subsitution of a better government. I am hopeful that this will occur before year end.
If the US wants the UN to have the power to send someone, say the International Red Cross, to inspect the prisons in, say, Iraq or China, to ensure that their prisoners aren’t being mistreated, it seems only fair that the US should also allow its own prisons to be inspected in the same manner. Whether Iraq or China would comply is beyond the point. The US should be willing to walk the talk without any reservation. To do otherwise is rather hypocritical, isn’t it? How would you feel if the situation is reversed?
I for one am finding the UN bashing on this thread amazingly ignorant.
december cries out with a bleat of self-indulgent righteousness against the terrible job that the UN is doing in not being able to deter Saddam’s weapons program. As if the US could ever get in there and do the job. The UN is an honest broker: the US is partisan. And then there is that funny thing called “sovereignty” - the UN is not in the business of undermining the governments of its members, and can’t do more than its mandate.
Sovereignty is the key to this debate. The United States makes no bones about challenging the sovereign rights of other countries in the realm of human rights - and correctly, for as William Blake said, " The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." The human rights reports on China et al. are an effort to keep those countries with no respect for human rights accountable to world opinion, because they do not respect the opinions of their citizens.
Accountability, transparency, respect for the rule of law, and respect for the rights of the individual are amongst the foundations of Western civilisation. Every week, it seems, I see the current US administration trying to undermine those foundations. Its a mockery of the principles in the US constitution.
If Americans want to send a clear mesage not only to other countries, but to those at home, that it will not condone torture, then begin at home. Don’t rely upon a pathetic argument that it impacts upon your sovereignty, because it echoes China.