#achr

Pakistan’s draft resolution on Myanmar is filled with factual errors

A draft resolution against Myanmar tabled at the United Nations Humar Rights Council by Pakistan is filled with factual errors. The Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR) states that Pakistan’s draft resolution against Myanmar tabled at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva on Wednesday contains factually incorrect information.

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Notorious T-Shirt Iron Achr -Hitam

Stephen Collinson and Evan Perez, CNN Washington (CNN) -- The CIA's harsh interrogations of terrorist detainees during the Bush era didn't work, were more brutal than previously revealed and delivered no "ticking time bomb" information that prevented an attack, according to an explosive Senate report released Tuesday. The majority report issued by the Senate Intelligence Committee is a damning condemnation of the tactics -- branded by critics as torture -- the George W. Bush administration deployed in the fear-laden days after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The techniques, according to the report, were "deeply flawed," poorly managed and often resulted in "fabricated" information. The long-delayed study, distilled from more than six million CIA documents, also says the agency consistently misled Congress and the Bush White House about the harsh methods it used and the results it obtained from interrogating al Qaeda suspects. The report is reigniting the partisan divide over combating terrorism that dominated Washington a decade ago. Democrats argue the tactics conflict with American values while leading members of the Bush administration insist they were vital to preventing another attack. It contains grisly details of detainees held in secret overseas facilities being subjected to near drowning, or waterboarding, driven to delirium by days of sleep deprivation, threatened with mock executions and threats that their relatives would be sexually abused. The central claim of the report is that the controversial CIA methods did not produce information necessary to save lives that was not already available from other means. That is important because supporters of the program have always said that it was vital to obtaining actionable intelligence from detainees that could not be extracted through conventional interrogations.

  Read the full report here

The New York Times: 7 Key Points From the C.I.A. Torture Report

Vox: 16 absolutely outrageous abuses detailed in the CIA torture report

  Human rights at issue include, but are not limited to:

right to be free from torture, degrading treatment or punishment; right to dignity; right to life; right to recognition before the law; right to be free from arbitrary arrest or detention; right to highest attainable standard of physical and mental health.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Article 3: Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

Article 5: No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

Article 9: No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

Article 7: No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. In particular, no one shall be subjected without his free consent to medical or scientific experimentation.

Article 9:

1. Everyone has the right to liberty and security of person. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest or detention. No one shall be deprived of his liberty except on such grounds and in accordance with such procedure as are established by law.

2. Anyone who is arrested shall be informed, at the time of arrest, of the reasons for his arrest and shall be promptly informed of any charges against him.

3. Anyone arrested or detained on a criminal charge shall be brought promptly before a judge or other officer authorized by law to exercise judicial power and shall be entitled to trial within a reasonable time or to release. It shall not be the general rule that persons awaiting trial shall be detained in custody, but release may be subject to guarantees to appear for trial, at any other stage of the judicial proceedings, and, should occasion arise, for execution of the judgement.

4. Anyone who is deprived of his liberty by arrest or detention shall be entitled to take proceedings before a court, in order that that court may decide without delay on the lawfulness of his detention and order his release if the detention is not lawful.

5. Anyone who has been the victim of unlawful arrest or detention shall have an enforceable right to compensation.

Article 10.1: All persons deprived of their liberty shall be treated with humanity and with respect for the inherent dignity of the human person. Article 16: Everyone shall have the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.

ICCPR, Forty-fourth session, 1992.

General Comment No. 20: Replaces general comment 7 concerning prohibition of torture and cruel treatment or punishment (Art. 7) : . 03/10/1992. General Comment 20.

2. The aim of the provisions of article 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights is to protect both the dignity and the physical and mental integrity of the individual. It is the duty of the State party to afford everyone protection through legislative and other measures as may be necessary against the acts prohibited by article 7, whether inflicted by people acting in their official capacity, outside their official capacity or in a private capacity. The prohibition in article 7 is complemented by the positive requirements of article 10, paragraph 1, of the Covenant, which stipulates that “All persons deprived of their liberty shall be treated with humanity and with respect for the inherent dignity of the human person”.

3. The text of article 7 allows of no limitation. The Committee also reaffirms that, even in situations of public emergency such as those referred to in article 4 of the Covenant, no derogation from the provision of article 7 is allowed and its provisions must remain in force. The Committee likewise observes that no justification or extenuating circumstances may be invoked to excuse a violation of article 7 for any reasons, including those based on an order from a superior officer or public authority.

4. The Covenant does not contain any definition of the concepts covered by article 7, nor does the Committee consider it necessary to draw up a list of prohibited acts or to establish sharp distinctions between the different kinds of punishment or treatment; the distinctions depend on the nature, purpose and severity of the treatment applied.

5. The prohibition in article 7 relates not only to acts that cause physical pain but also to acts that cause mental suffering to the victim…

Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment

Article 1:

1. 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.

2. This article is without prejudice to any international instrument or national legislation which does or may contain provisions of wider application.

Article 2:

1. Each State Party shall take effective legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent acts of torture in any territory under its jurisdiction.

2. No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.

3. An order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification of torture.

Article 4

1. Each State Party shall ensure that all acts of torture are offences under its criminal law. The same shall apply to an attempt to commit torture and to an act by any person which constitutes complicity or participation in torture.

2. Each State Party shall make these offences punishable by appropriate penalties which take into account their grave nature.

International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

Article 12.1: The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health.

CESCR, Twenty-second session, 2000.

The right to the highest attainable standard of health (Art. 12) : 08/11/2000. E/C.12/2000/4. General Comment 14.

3. The right to health is closely related to and dependent upon the realization of other human rights, as contained in the International Bill of Rights, including the rights to food, housing, work, education, human dignity, life, non-discrimination, equality, the prohibition against torture, privacy, access to information, and the freedoms of association, assembly and movement. These and other rights and freedoms address integral components of the right to health.

…

I. NORMATIVE CONTENT OF ARTICLE 12

7. Article 12.1 provides a definition of the right to health, while article 12.2 enumerates illustrative, non-exhaustive examples of States parties’ obligations.

8. The right to health is not to be understood as a right to be healthy. The right to health contains both freedoms and entitlements. The freedoms include the right to control one’s health and body, including sexual and reproductive freedom, and the right to be free from interference, such as the right to be free from torture, non-consensual medical treatment and experimentation. By contrast, the entitlements include the right to a system of health protection which provides equality of opportunity for people to enjoy the highest attainable level of health.

A/RES/43/173. 76th plenary meeting. 9 December 1988. 43/173. Body of Principles for the Protection of All Persons under Any Form of Detention or Imprisonment

Principle 1: All persons under any form of detention or imprisonment shall be treated in a humane manner and with respect for the inherent dignity of the human person.

American Convention on Human Rights

Article 5. Right to Humane Treatment

1. Every person has the right to have his physical, mental, and moral integrity respected.

2. No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment or treatment. All persons deprived of their liberty shall be treated with respect for the inherent dignity of the human person.

Article 7. Right to Personal Liberty

1. Every person has the right to personal liberty and security.

2. No one shall be deprived of his physical liberty except for the reasons and under the conditions established beforehand by the constitution of the State Party concerned or by a law established pursuant thereto.

3. No one shall be subject to arbitrary arrest or imprisonment.

4. Anyone who is detained shall be informed of the reasons for his detention and shall be promptly notified of the charge or charges against him.

Inter-American Convention to Prevent and Punish Torture

Article 2

For the purposes of this Convention, torture shall be understood to be any act intentionally performed whereby physical or mental pain or suffering is inflicted on a person for purposes of criminal investigation, as a means of intimidation, as personal punishment, as a preventive measure, as a penalty, or for any other purpose. Torture shall also be understood to be the use of methods upon a person intended to obliterate the personality of the victim or to diminish his physical or mental capacities, even if they do not cause physical pain or mental anguish.

The concept of torture shall not include physical or mental pain or suffering that is inherent in or solely the consequence of lawful measures, provided that they do not include the performance of the acts or use of the methods referred to in this article.

Article 3

The following shall be held guilty of the crime of torture:

a. A public servant or employee who acting in that capacity orders, instigates or induces the use of torture, or who directly commits it or who, being able to prevent it, fails to do so.

b. A person who at the instigation of a public servant or employee mentioned in subparagraph (a) orders, instigates or induces the use of torture, directly commits it or is an accomplice thereto.

Article 5

The existence of circumstances such as a state of war, threat of war, state of siege or of emergency, domestic disturbance or strife, suspension of constitutional guarantees, domestic political instability, or other public emergencies or disasters shall not be invoked or admitted as justification for the crime of torture.

Neither the dangerous character of the detainee or prisoner, nor the lack of security of the prison establishment or penitentiary shall justify torture.

Editors Note: While some in the US have insisted that waterboarding is not torture (which is a claim that almost certainly rests, at least in part, on the United States’ reservations to the CAT and the ICCPR), the highest ranking UN Human Rights officials do classify waterboarding as either torture or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.

From a 2008 story: “The controversial interrogation technique known as waterboarding and used by the United States qualifies as torture, the U.N. human rights chief said on Friday. ‘I would have no problems with describing this practice as falling under the prohibition of torture,’ the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, told a news conference in Mexico City.”

Also in 2008, Professor Bent Sørensen, Senior Medical Consultant to the IRCT and former member of the United Nations Committee against Torture:

“It’s a clear-cut case: Waterboarding can without any reservation be labelled as torture”, says Prof. Sørensen. “It fulfils all of the four central criteria that according to the United Nations Convention against Torture (UNCAT) defines an act of torture.” He explains:

“First, when water is forced into your lungs in this fashion, in addition to the pain you are likely to experience an immediate and extreme fear of death. You may even suffer a heart attack from the stress or damage to the lungs and brain from inhalation of water and oxygen deprivation. In other words there is no doubt that waterboarding causes severe physical and/or mental suffering – one central element in the UNCAT’s definition of torture”.

“In addition,” he continues, “the CIA’s waterboarding clearly fulfils the three additional definition criteria stated in the Convention for a deed to be labelled torture, since it is 1) done intentionally, 2) for a specific purpose and 3) by a representative of a state – in this case the US.”

“Finally,” says Prof. Sørensen, “it should not be forgotten that the consequences of torture – including waterboarding - are often long-lasting or even chronic. For instance, anxiety attacks, depression and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder are very common sequelae after torture, regardless of course, whether the victim is guilty or innocent. So torture is never just a momentary infliction of suffering.”

In a 2010 interview, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Juan Mendéz (who remains the Special Rapporteur as of the posting of this entry), said this about waterboarding and other ‘enhanced interrogation techniques and practices’ by the CIA:

MARK COLVIN: There’s no question that in international law waterboarding is torture?

JUAN MENDEZ: I don’t think there is any question, any serious question. I mean it’s a question of severity. If you think that waterboarding is not severe mistreatment you don’t really know what waterboarding is. But you know if just with the definition that it’s designed to create a sensation of asphyxia, you can tell that it’s severe. There’s just no other way.

I mean if you then redefine upwards the severity standard to say that it’s only severe if it’s organ failure or death, then you know you’re really very clearly distorting the sense of the words and you know words have to be interpreted in treaty language, they have to be interpreted in their plain meaning and their plain meaning couldn’t be more clear in the case of waterboarding.

MARK COLVIN: How about some other things that the administration, the Bush administration lawyers said the CIA could do, along with waterboarding; depriving the prisoner of sleep for more than seven days straight, physically slamming him into a wall, cramming him into a small box, placing him in stress positions to increase discomfort and dowsing him with cold water. How about those things?

JUAN MENDEZ: Well here the disingenuous argument is that you know each one of those, depending on the circumstances, could be either cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or, if it’s more severe, it’s clearly torture. But what they don’t say is the accumulation of all of them in the single individual is clearly torture.

  Same-Sex Marriage Is Now Legal For A Majority Of The U.S.

Nate Silver and Allison McCann, Five Thirty-Eight Although the trend toward greater acceptance of same-sex marriage has been evident for some time both in jurisprudence and public opinion, the speed with which it has become the law of the land is striking. The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision Monday to decline hearing a series of appeals cases on same-sex marriage will have the effect of immediately legalizing gay marriage in Indiana, Oklahoma, Utah, Virginia and Wisconsin. When combined with the 19 states (and the District of Columbia) that had previously legalized same-sex marriage, these states have a collective population of roughly 165 million, according to 2013 census figures. That means for the first time, same-sex marriage is legal for the majority of the U.S. population. The 26 states where the practice is not legal have a total population of about 151 million. The Supreme Court’s decision may also lead to the legalization of same-sex marriage in Colorado, Kansas, North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia and Wyoming. Those states have an additional 25 million people combined. If they follow suit, 30 states and the District, totaling about 60 percent of the U.S. population, would allow same-sex marriage.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/same-sex-marriage-is-now-legal-for-a-majority-of-the-u-s/

  New Court Ruling Paves Way for Same-Sex Marriage in Five More States

Ashby Jones, The Wall Street Journal Law Blog Just one day after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up several appeals on the issue, paving the way for same-sex marriages to begin in a host of states, another court has entered the fray. A three-judge panel of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco on Tuesday afternoon struck down laws in Idaho and Nevada banning same-sex marriage. According to the WSJ’s Jess Bravin, “The Ninth Circuit decision will apply to five states with marriage bans in that appellate circuit, likely expanding to 35 the number of states with legal same-sex marriage.” In addition to Idaho and Nevada, the decision will also likely lead to the legalization of same-sex marriage in Arizona, Montana and Alaska.

http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2014/10/07/new-court-ruling-paves-way-for-same-sex-marriage-in-five-more-states/

    Human rights at issue include, but are not limited to:

non-discrimination (under ‘other status,’ with special reference to the fact that sex was, in Toonen v Australia, suggested by the U.N. Human Rights Committee to include sexual orientation—a position later confirmed by the Committee), equal protection, right to privacy, right to family life, right to marry, right to equality, right to certain family benefits, duty of States to protect children from discrimination with respect to parent status.

  For a look into much of the international human rights norms and law regarding this topic, please see our previous post on this topic:

Trudy Ring, Advocate.com As more and more states offer same-sex couples the right to marry, couples are taking advantage of this right — the number of same-sex married couples in the U.S. increased by 50 percent between 2010 and 2013, according to a new study from the Williams Institute. At the end of 2013, there were approximately 690,000 same-sex couples in the U.S., of which at least 124,000 and perhaps as many as 130,000 were married, says the institute’s report, based on its analysis of the National Health Interview Survey for 2013, the first time the survey included a sexual orientation question. Comparing these numbers with data from other demographic studies, the Institute estimates the number of married same-sex couples increased by 50 percent over three years. Other findings from the report, “LGB Families and Relationships: Analyses of the 2013 National Health Interview Survey,” include the geographic distribution of married same-sex couples, with 39 percent living in the Northeast, where equal marriage rights have been available the longest. Twenty-eight percent live in the West, 21 percent in the Midwest, and 12 percent in the South. Nationwide, married same-sex couples are raising more than 30,000 children, according to the study. Another new Williams Institute study, “LGBT Demographics: Comparisons Among Population-Based Surveys,” finds that between 2.2 percent and 4 percent of U.S. adults, or between 5.2 million and 9.5 million people, identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. Younger people are more likely than older generations to identify as LGBT, and people in the Northeast and the West are more likely to do so than those in the Midwest or South. The findings of these studies will be useful in political debates about LGBT rights, said Gary J. Gates, a Williams distinguished scholar and author of the studies. “Courts, legislatures, and voters continue to debate high-profile policy issues including marriage and parenting rights for same-sex couples along with economic and health disparities associated with discrimination and stigma toward LGBT individuals,” Gates said in a press release. “The availability of new data sources that include identification of LGBT respondents allows us to better inform those debates with critical information about the demographic characteristics of LGBT individuals and their families.”

http://www.advocate.com/politics/marriage-equality/2014/09/30/study-number-married-same-sex-couples-50-percent-three-years

   Human rights at issue include, but are not limited to:

non-discrimination (under ‘other status,’ with special reference to the fact that sex was, in Toonen v Australia, suggested by the U.N. Human Rights Committee to include sexual orientation—a position later confirmed by the Committee), equal protection, right to privacy, right to family life, right to marry, right to equality, right to certain family benefits, duty of States to protect children from discrimination with respect to parent status.

  For a look into much of the international human rights norms and law regarding this topic, please see our previous post on this topic: