US Government Eats Crow

The USG has settled a claim brought against it by Brandon Mayfield relating to his wrongful detention as a suspected terrorist. It’s paying out $2 million, but more interestingly the settlement also involved a formal apology, as described in today’s NYT:

“The United States of America apologizes to Mr. Brandon Mayfield and his family for the suffering caused” by his mistaken arrest, the government’s apology began. It added that the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which erroneously linked him to the Madrid bombs through a fingerprinting mistake, had taken steps “to ensure that what happened to Mr. Mayfield and the Mayfield family does not happen again.”

Another case of international mechanisms being brought home (not the first time of course, although I’m not aware off the top of my head of other instances of apologies to individuals). See this paper by Richard Bilder which recently went up on SSRN. Might this be the first of many (to individuals and to groups) in 9/11’s wake?