10 Mar Shocker: UN Special Rapporteurs Oppose Military Commission Trials
I’m not exactly surprised to read this:
United Nations human rights investigators called on the Obama administration on Tuesday to prosecute the accused September 11 masterminds in a civilian court, declaring that U.S. military tribunals would not be fair.
The White House is reviewing options to bring the 9/11 detainees to justice and U.S. officials said on Friday senior administration officials may recommend that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other suspects in the 2001 attacks face a military trial.
“I take the view that the Military Commissions Act is fundamentally flawed. It is very far from international fair trial standards and probably cannot be fixed,” said Martin Scheinin, U.N. special rapporteur on the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism.
But I am surprised just how little the opinion of these rapporteurs matter in the burgeoning U.S. debate over where to try the 9/11 terrorists. No one in the Obama Administration seems to care much. I wonder if they have even bothered to issue a rebuttal. After all, the current military commission system was amended in accordance with proposals from the Obama Administration, supposedly to make them compliant with domestic and international standards. A rebuttal seems necessary at some point. Another task for our State Department’s Legal Adviser?
I’m not at all surprised by the Obama administration’s attitude to the Special Rapporteurs – their stance from the beginning has been “mind your own business, this doesn’t concern you” etc. I am horrified by the comments at the end of the article you linked though!
Am I the only one who thinks Julian Ku is perhaps the snottiest poster on OJ, or am I just reading him wrong? It’s not just that I disagree with basically everything he says. Same goes w/ Kenneth Anderson, but I don’t find Anderson’s posts snotty. I dunno.
UN bashing is a very current American dynamic on the Right and the Left. I think the UN rapporteur is willing to take this step to distance the UN from any notion that the military commissions here are fair. So he recognizes the internal complexities of the US game but, looking from an international vision, is just seeing this as a state trying to use its internal to extract itself from its international obligations. Nothing new under the sun in seeing a state try to do that. Of course, we as citizens can influence our state, if we think it warrants it. As I do.
Best,
Ben
[…] Julian Ku reports that the HRC is weighing in on military commissions… and being ignored by the Obama Administration. […]
“Am I the only one who thinks Julian Ku is perhaps the snottiest poster on OJ, or am I just reading him wrong? ”
No, you’re not alone. He has a gift for coming across as somewhat petulant. Anderson is not snotty per se, but he carries the same kind of chip on his shoulder in other ways.