Some Thoughts on Extraordinary Renditions

Following up on Julian’s post, I think the problem is not fully appreciating the difficulty of justifying extraordinary renditions under international law, regardless of torture.

Let’s say someone is picked up and rendered to another country for interrogation. If we are not at war, then the full panoply of human rights law, including the ICCPR, to which we are a signatory, applies. Squaring such behavior with due process and fair trial rights is a tough sell.

But let’s say this is war. Then capturing someone and sending them away from the theater of conflict for detention and interrogation is against the Geneva Conventions. Under whichever analogy you use–peace or war–there are legal difficulties.

Of course we can try to get around this by saying this is a war but a “different kind of war.” And, although some here in the U.S. may find that persusasive, we have yet to convince other signatories to these treaties that this is a sound argument.

At the end of the day, there is still the big question, the elephant in the room: why, once we have custody of these people, do we need to render them to other countries for interrogation? What is the purpose? It sure seems like it is because we hope these countries will do things that we are not (or were not) comfortable doing.

Secrecy breeds conspiracy theories. If the Administration doesn’t like the world’s reaction to extraordinary renditions, then it should be a little more forthcoming. It has nobody to blame but itself.