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*[http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2009/01/un-torture-investigator-calls-on-obama.php UN torture investigator calls on Obama to charge Bush for Guantanamo abuses] Ximena Marinero, JURIST, January 21, 2009
*[http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2009/01/un-torture-investigator-calls-on-obama.php UN torture investigator calls on Obama to charge Bush for Guantanamo abuses] Ximena Marinero, JURIST, January 21, 2009
*[http://harpers.org/archive/2009/01/hbc-90004250 UN Rapporteur: Initiate criminal proceedings against Bush and Rumsfeld now] By Scott Horton, No Comment, January 21, 2009</ref> Law professor [[Dietmar Herz]] explained Nowak's comments by saying that under U.S. and international law former President Bush is criminally responsible for adopting torture as interrogation tool.<ref name="Novak"/>
*[http://harpers.org/archive/2009/01/hbc-90004250 UN Rapporteur: Initiate criminal proceedings against Bush and Rumsfeld now] By Scott Horton, No Comment, January 21, 2009</ref> Law professor [[Dietmar Herz]] explained Nowak's comments by saying that under U.S. and international law former President Bush is criminally responsible for adopting torture as interrogation tool.<ref name="Novak"/>

However, [[Michael Ignatieff]], leader of the [[Liberal Party of Canada]] and former director of the [[Carr Center for Human Rights Policy]] said that the threat of terrorism requires serious and possibly permanent abridgement of civil liberties. Unlike conventional wars, terrorism has an unlimited duration. Governments are justified in combating terrorism with "lesser evils", ranging from suspension of civil liberties, through secret uses of executive power, to torture of suspects, as well as targeted assassination, right up to pre-emptive war to destroy terrorist bases and also to prevent the development or deployment of weapons which may be used by terrorists or states that support terrorist aims. No liberal democracy has ever defended itself against terrorism without at least some sacrifice of its liberties. International standards should not be considered too authoritative, because there are no valid ethical standards to guide the war on terror. The Geneva convention is unhelpful because it does not define torture or state that terrorists are entitled to its immunities and protections.<ref>Ignatieff, Michael. ''The Lesser Evil: Political Ethics in an Age of Terror'' Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004 ISBN 0-691-11751-9, pp. 1-24</ref>


==See also==
==See also==

Revision as of 22:03, 1 September 2010

The United States government has been accused of committing war crimes at various points throughout its history. Most, but not all contemporary war crimes are defined by the International Criminal Court (ICC), the Geneva Conventions, and the associated Laws of war under international law.[1] War crimes in the United States can be prosecuted through the War Crimes Act of 1996 but the US government does not accept the Jurisdiction of the ICC over its military forces.[2]

International Criminal Court

As of April 2010, 111 states are States Parties to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Their nationals are liable to prosecution by the court for the violation of any relevant international criminal laws. Because the United States is not a state party, Americans cannot be prosecuted by the court (except for crimes that take place in the territory of a state that has accepted the court's jurisdiction, or situations that are referred to the court by the United Nations Security Council, where the US has a veto[citation needed].

On Dec. 31, 2000, President, Bill Clinton, signed the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. At the time of signing President Clinton recommended that the incoming administration not submit the treaty to the United States Senate for ratification because of serious reservations about numerous clauses in the treaty. After the Rome Statute reached the requisite 60 votes for ratification in 2002, President George W. Bush's Administration sent a note of suspension to the UN Secretary General on May 6, 2002.[3] The note suspended the signature of the US and informed the Secretary General that the US recognized no obligation toward the Rome Statute. In addition, the US stated that its intention not to become a member state be reflected in the UN depositary list because signatories have an obligation not to undermine the object and purpose of a treaty. The US can engage with the Court by reactivating its signature to the Rome Statute by a letter to the UN Secretary General.[4] As the treaty that is not ratified it is not legally binding.[5]

1902 Lodge Committee investigating Philippine-American war crimes

See also: 1902 Lodge Committee investigating Philippine-American war crimes and Philippine–American War

The Committee on the Philippines was a standing committee of the United States Senate from 1899 to 1921.[1] The committee was established by Senate resolution on December 15, 1899, to oversee administration of the Philippines, which Spain had ceded to the United States as part of the settlement of the Spanish-American War. The committee was established by Senate resolution on December 15, 1899, even though the treaty of December 10, 1899, had not yet been ratified.[2]

In 1921, the Committee was terminated and jurisdiction over legislative matters concerning the Philippines was transferred to the newly created Committee on Territories and Insular Possessions.[3]

World War II

  • The Dachau massacre: killing of German prisoners of war and surrendering SS soldiers.[6]
  • Richard Dominic Wiggers asserts that American food policy in post-war Germany violated international law by directly and indirectly causing the unnecessary suffering and death, from starvation, of large numbers of civilians and POWs in occupied Germany.[7] The adequate feeding of the German population in occupied Germany was an Allied legal obligation,[8][9] under international law (Article 43 of The 1907 Hague Rules of Land Warfare).[unreliable source?][10]
  • In the Biscari massacre, which consist of two instances of mass murders, U.S. troops of the 45th Infantry Division killed roughly 75 prisoners of war, mostly Italian.[11][12]
  • Interpretation of the Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as a war crime. In 1963, after eight years of deliberation in the claims brought by five survivors of the Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki the commentary of a judicial review in Ryuichi Shimoda et al. v. The State.[13] stated that while The District Court of Tokyo declined (and had no authority to) rule on the legality of nuclear weapons in general, they found that "the attacks upon Hiroshima and Nagasaki caused such severe and indiscriminate suffering that they did violate the most basic legal principles governing the conduct of war."[14] However the Treaty of San Francisco specifically precluded legal proceedings in war crimes allegations of either Japan or the US, .

Vietnam War

See also: My Lai Massacre and Vietnam War Crimes Working Group Files

The Vietnam War Crimes Working Group Files is a collection of formerly secret documents compiled by Pentagon investigators in the early 1970s, confirming that atrocities by U.S. forces during the Vietnam War were more extensive than had been officially acknowledged[15][16]. The documents are housed by the United States National Archives and Records Administration. They detail 320 alleged incidents that were substantiated by United States Army investigators — not including the 1968 My Lai Massacre.

The My Lai Massacre was the mass murder of 347 to 504 unarmed citizens in South Vietnam, almost entirely civilians, most of them women and children, conducted by U.S. Army forces on March 16, 1968. Some of the victims were sexually abused, beaten, tortured, or maimed, and some of the bodies were found mutilated. The massacre took place in the hamlets of Mỹ Lai and My Khe of Sơn Mỹ village during the Vietnam War.[17][18] Of the 26 US soldiers initially charged with criminal offences for their actions at My Lai, only William Calley was convicted. He served four and one-half months of his two-year sentence.

The incident prompted widespread outrage around the world. The massacre also reduced U.S. support at home for the Vietnam War. Three U.S. Servicemen (Hugh Thompson, Jr., Glenn Andreotta and Lawrence Colburn) who made an effort to halt the massacre and protect the wounded were sharply criticized by U.S. Congressmen, received hate mail, death threats and mutilated animals on their doorsteps.[19] Only 30 years after the event were their efforts honored.[20]

Yugoslavia

Amnesty International has condemned the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, which killed between 400 and "thousands" of civilians, in what it claims were violations of international law and war crimes, due to deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure and indiscriminate attacks, with lack of precautionary measures taken to prevent civilian casualties[21]

Human Rights Watch documented approximately 500 civilian deaths as a result of the NATO bombing campaign. They found no evidence of war crimes but did criticize other violations of international humanitarian law.[22]

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia reviewed these events, including HRW's report, as well as that alleged by the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. It concluded "either the law is not sufficiently clear or investigations are unlikely to result in the acquisition of sufficient evidence."[23]

War on Terror

Human Rights Watch has claimed that the principle of "command responsibility" could make high-ranking officials within the Bush administration guilty of war crimes allegedly committed during the War on Terror, either with their knowledge or by persons under their control.[24]

As a reaction to the September 11, 2001 attacks the U.S. Government adopted several controversial measures (e.g., invading Iraq, applying "unlawful combatant" status to prisoners, conducting "extraordinary renditions", and "enhanced interrogation methods"[25]).

Alberto Gonzales and others argued that detainees should be considered "unlawful combatants" and as such not be protected by the Geneva Conventions in multiple memoranda regarding these perceived legal gray areas.[26]

Gonzales' statement that denying coverage under the Geneva Conventions "substantially reduces the threat of domestic criminal prosecution under the War Crimes Act" suggests, to some authors, an awareness by those involved in crafting policies in this area that US officials are involved in acts that could be seen to be war crimes.[27] The US Supreme Court challenged the premise on which this argument is based in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, in which it ruled that Common Article Three of the Geneva Conventions applies to detainees in Guantanamo Bay and that the Military Tribunals used to try these suspects were in violation of US and international law.[28]

On April 14, 2006, Human Rights Watch said that Secretary Rumsfeld could be criminally liable for his alleged involvement in the abuse of Mohammad al-Qahtani.[29] On November 14, 2006, invoking universal jurisdiction, legal proceedings were started in Germany - for their alleged involvement of prisoner abuse - against Donald Rumsfeld, Alberto Gonzales, John Yoo, George Tenet and others.[30]

The Military Commissions Act of 2006 is seen as an amnesty law for crimes committed in the War on Terror by retroactively rewriting the War Crimes Act[31] and by abolishing habeas corpus, effectively making it impossible for detainees to challenge crimes committed against them.[32]

Luis Moreno-Ocampo has told the Sunday Telegraph he is willing to start an inquiry by the International Criminal Court (ICC), and possibly a trial, for war crimes committed in Iraq involving British Prime Minister Tony Blair and American President George W. Bush.[33] Though under the Rome Statute, the ICC has no jurisdiction over Bush, since the USA is not a State Party to the relevant treaty—unless Bush were accused of crimes inside a State Party, or the UN Security Council (where the USA has a veto) requested an investigation. However Blair does fall under ICC jurisdiction as Britain is a State Party[citation needed].

Nat Hentoff wrote on August 28, 2007, that a leaked report by the International Committee of the Red Cross and the July 2007 report by Human Rights First and Physicians for Social Responsibility, titled "Leave No Marks: Enhanced Interrogation Techniques and the Risk of Criminality", might be used as evidence of American war crimes if there was a Nuremberg-like trial regarding the War on Terror.[34][unreliable source?]

Shortly before the end of President Bush's second term, newsmedia in other countries started opining that under the United Nations Convention Against Torture the US is obligated to hold those responsible for prisoner abuse to account under criminal law.[35] One proponent of this view was the United Nations Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (Professor Manfred Nowak) who, on January 20, 2008, remarked on German television that former president George W. Bush had lost his head of state immunity and under international law the U.S. would now be mandated to start criminal proceedings against all those involved in these violations of the UN Convention Against Torture.[36] Law professor Dietmar Herz explained Nowak's comments by saying that under U.S. and international law former President Bush is criminally responsible for adopting torture as interrogation tool.[36]

See also

References

  1. ^ Tarik Kafala (2009-10-21). "What is a war crime?". BBC. Retrieved 2010-05-27.
  2. ^ http://www.usembassy.at/en/download/pdf/icc_pa.pdf
  3. ^ "Administration Update, Suspension of US Signature, copy of note" (PDF). The American Non-Governmental Organizations Coalition for the International Criminal Court. after January, 2009. Retrieved 2009-06-09. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  4. ^ "Administration Update, Suspension of US Signature". The American Non-Governmental Organizations Coalition for the International Criminal Court. after January, 2009. Retrieved 2009-06-09. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  5. ^ Definition of key terms used in the UN Treaty Collection
  6. ^ Albert Panebianco (ed). Dachau its liberation 57th Infantry Association, Felix L. Sparks, Secretary 15 June 1989. (backup site)[unreliable source?]
  7. ^ Richard Dominic Wiggers. "The United States and the Refusal to Feed German Civilians after World War II" p. 288.
  8. ^ Nicholas Balabkins, "Germany Under Direct Controls: Economic Aspects of Industrial Disarmament 1945–1948", Rutgers University Press, 1964 p. 101.
  9. ^ Richard Dominic Wiggers. "The United States and the Refusal to Feed German Civilians after World War II" p. 274.
  10. ^ Richard Dominic Wiggers p. 279. "In postwar Germany and Japan, the U.S. Army financed the most urgent food imports by citing obligations under Article 43 of The Hague Rules of Land Warfare."[unreliable source?]
  11. ^ "A Peculiar Crusade" By James J. Weingartner, p. 118. (Google)
  12. ^ James J. Weingartner, "Massacre at Biscari: Patton and an American War Crime", Historian, Volume 52 Issue 1, pp. 24–39, 23 August 2007.
  13. ^ Shimoda et al. v. The State, Tokyo District Court, 7 December 1963
  14. ^ Falk, Richard A. (1965-02-15). "The Claimants of Hiroshima". The Nation. reprinted in Richard A. Falk, Saul H. Mendlovitz eds., ed. (1966). "The Shimoda Case: Challenge and Response". The Strategy of World Order. Volume: 1. New York: World Law Fund. pp. 307–13. {{cite book}}: |editor= has generic name (help)
  15. ^ Kill Anything That Moves : U.s. War Crimes And Atrocities In Vietnam, 1965-1973, a doctoral dissertation, by Nick Turse, Columbia University 2005
  16. ^ Nick Turse, “A My Lai a Month: How the US Fought the Vietnam War”, The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 47-6-08, November 21, 2008
  17. ^ Summary report from the report of General Peers.
  18. ^ Department of the Army. Report of the Department of the Army Review of the Preliminary Investigations into the My Lai Incident (The Peers Report), Volumes I-III (1970).
  19. ^ "Moral Courage In Combat: The My Lai Story" (PDF). USNA Lecture. 2003.
  20. ^ My Lai Pilot Hugh Thompson
  21. ^ "Frederal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) /NATO: "Collateral damage" or unlawful killings? Violations of the Laws of War by NATO during Operation Allied Force" (PDF). Amnesty International. 5 June 2000. Retrieved August 13, 2010.
  22. ^ Civilian Deaths in the NATO Air Campaign: Summary, Human Rights Watch, February 2000
  23. ^ Final Report to the Prosecutor by the Committee Established to Review the NATO Bombing Campaign Against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
  24. ^ Getting Away with Torture? Command Responsibility for the U.S. Abuse of Detainees Human Rights Watch, April 2005 Vol. 17, No. 1
  25. ^ Prisoner abuse
  26. ^ Parsing pain By Walter Shapiro, Salon
  27. ^ War Crimes warnings
  28. ^ The Gitmo Fallout: The fight over the Hamdan ruling heats up—as fears about its reach escalate. By Michael Isikoff and Stuart Taylor Jr., Newsweek, July 17, 2006
  29. ^ U.S.: Rumsfeld Potentially Liable for Torture Defense Secretary Allegedly Involved in Abusive Interrogation Human Rights Watch, April 14, 2006
  30. ^ Universal jurisdiction
  31. ^ Pushing Back on Detainee Act by Michael Ratner is president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, The Nation, October 4, 2006
  32. ^ Military Commissions Act of 2006
  33. ^ Court 'can envisage' Blair prosecution By Gethin Chamberlain, Sunday Telegraph, March 17, 2007
  34. ^ History Will Not Absolve Us - Leaked Red Cross report sets up Bush team for international war-crimes trial by Nat Hentoff, Village Voice, August 28th, 2007
  35. ^ Other countries may start prosewcution Von Wolfgang Kaleck Süddeutschen Zeitung, January 19, 2009 (German)
  36. ^ a b Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment calls for prosecution

Further reading

General

By nation

Iraq

Vietnam

  • Deborah Nelson (2008). The war behind me: Vietnam veterans confront the truth about U.S. war crimes. Basic Books. ISBN 9780465005277.

Yugoslavia

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