“THERE was one problem with all these transfers. The United States had signed a series of treaties both against torture and also regulating its treatment of prisoners captured in a time of war. After 9/11, when many prisoners were captured as part of the declared war on terror, and many were initially detained by the military in war zones such as Afghanistan, one of the big obstacles was the Geneva Conventions. These conventions demanded that prisoners be treated humanely and be given access to the Red Cross. They also, more importantly, placed strong restrictions on interrogations. In theory,...”
—Stephen Grey
(via Brian Christopher Long)
“the solution chosen by President Bush was to treat all captured terrorist suspects, wherever seized, as detainees held by the United States under wartime powers, with no rights as civilians.”
—Stephen Grey
(via Brian Christopher Long)
“Another big problem for renditions was Article 3 of the United Nations Convention Against Torture that prohibited any state from transferring a prisoner to a country where there was substantial risk that he or she would be tortured. This convention was ratified into U.S. law by Congress, with the only proviso that what constituted torture would be defined by U.S. domestic law. Almost by definition, renditions involve the transfer to countries where the rule of law was weak and therefore they were much more likely to tolerate torture.”
—Stephen Grey
(via Brian Christopher Long)
