Nothing to see here
April 13, 2014, 12:00 pm
By Jeffrey Bachman
While Western media focuses almost
exclusively on events in Russia
and Ukraine,
it continues to ignore the growing calls for transparency and accountability
for suspected war crimes and the most egregious of human rights violations from
the Obama administration regarding
its “targeted” killing program. That’s right; you might not know it, but the United States
is being called to task for the very same violations of international law it so
vehemently calls on others to obey.
The New York Times, for example,
allotted just
one paragraph to a United Nations Human Rights Committee report that condemned a wide
array of U.S. counterterrorism policies, calling on the U.S. to “ensure that
all cases of unlawful killing…are effectively, independently and impartially investigated,
that perpetrators, including, in particular, persons in command positions, are
prosecuted and sanctioned." The Western media has also ignored the
intensification in the number of drone strikes in Yemen, including seven
strikes in the first two weeks of March,
resulting in “a
sharp escalation in the number of reported civilian casualties."
Meanwhile, in his 2013 State of the Union address, Obama said the following on fighting terrorism, “We must enlist our values in the fight. That's why my administration has worked tirelessly to forge a durable legal and policy framework to guide our counterterrorism efforts…So in the months ahead, I will continue to engage Congress to ensure not only that our targeting…of terrorists remains consistent with our laws and system of checks and balances, but that our efforts are even more transparent to the American people and to the world.”
Despite Obama’s pledge of greater
transparency, the United States chose to boycott a United Nations Human Rights
Council discussion of a Pakistani draft
resolution, which was later adopted with 27 states in favor, six against, and 14 abstentions,
that urges states to "ensure transparency" regarding drone strikes
and to "conduct prompt, independent and impartial investigations whenever
there are indications of any violations to human rights caused by their
use."
While the Obama administration
continues to rely on the “trust
us” defense against allegations that it has
violated international human rights law and the laws of war, Christof Heyns,
United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary
Executions, and Ben Emmerson, UN Special Rapporteur on Counterterrorism and
Human Rights, have repeatedly called for the Obama administration to be
transparent about who it kills in its drone strikes.
In October 2013, Heyns published a
report that stated, “Legal and political accountability are
dependent on public access to the relevant information. Only on the basis of
such information can effective oversight and enforcement take place. The first
step towards securing human rights in this context is transparency about the
use of drones.” He added, “Accountability for violations of international human
rights law (or international humanitarian law) is not a matter of choice or
policy; it is a duty under domestic and international law.”
Earlier this month, Emmerson
published the
last of three reports, within which he called
upon the United States
to “disclose the results of any fact-finding inquiries into the alleged
incidents listed therein, or to explain why no such inquiries have been made.”
Related, in his September 2013 report, Emmerson noted, “The Special Rapporteur does not accept
that considerations of national security justify withholding statistical and
basic methodological data of this kind.”
What gets lost in the debate over
transparency is the direct link between transparency and accountability.
Serious and legitimate questions have been raised regarding the legality of some of the methods employed in
President Obama’s “targeted” killing program, as well as the number of innocent
people killed in such operations. These
methods include: “signature
strikes” which target individuals and groups
based in behavioral characteristics rather than operational intelligence that
indicates they are participating in hostilities; the use of “double
taps”; and the attacking of funeral
attendees.
From the lack of transparency, it
can be concluded that the Obama administration fears that transparency will
reveal violations of international human rights law and/or international
humanitarian law. Allegations of such violations were recently levied against
the United States
by two internationally recognized members of the human rights NGO community,
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
According to Amnesty
International’s report on drone strikes in Pakistan, “[T]heir deliberate
killings by drones … very likely violate the prohibition of arbitrary
deprivation of life and may constitute extrajudicial executions.”
According to Human Rights Watch’s report on strikes in Yemen, “Two of these attacks were
in clear violation of international humanitarian law – the laws of war –
because they struck only civilians or used indiscriminate weapons. The other
four cases may have violated the laws of war because the individual attacked
was not a lawful military target or the attack caused disproportionate civilian
harm.”
The near complete lack of
transparency from the Obama administration concerning its targeted killing
program has made accountability impossible, thus undermining the very
international legal system the United States, according to its own “principled
interpretation ,” claims to be in compliance
with.
The international system, as
established by United Nations
Charter Article 2(1), is “based on the principle
of the sovereign equality of all states.” International law cannot possibly
function as it was designed when the most powerful states are able to make
unsubstantiated claims about the legality of their actions, and are free to act
with impunity and without the slightest fear that one day they too will be held
to account for them.
United Nations Human Rights
Harold
H. Koh was a delegate for the United
Nations Commission on Human Rights, the legal adviser at the U.S. Department of State for the Barack Obama administration, a trustee
at the Brookings Institution (think
tank), a director at Human Rights
First, and is Howard K. Koh’s
brother.
Note: Foundation
to Promote Open Society was a funder for the Brookings Institution
(think tank), and Human Rights First.
George Soros
was the chairman for the Foundation to Promote Open Society.
Teresa Heinz
Kerry is an honorary trustee at the Brookings Institution (think tank),
and married to John F. Kerry.
John
F. Kerry is married to Teresa Heinz
Kerry, and the secretary at the U.S.
Department of State for the Barack
Obama administration.
James
D. Zirin was a director at Human
Rights First, and is the senior counsel at Sidley Austin LLP.
Mark
A. Angelson was a director at Human
Rights First, and a partner at Sidley
Austin LLP.
R.
Eden Martin is counsel at Sidley
Austin LLP, and the president of the Commercial
Club of Chicago.
Newton
N. Minow is a member of the Commercial
Club of Chicago, and a senior
counsel at Sidley Austin LLP.
Michelle
Obama was a lawyer at Sidley Austin
LLP.
Barack
Obama was an intern at Sidley Austin
LLP.
Dora
Hughes is a senior policy adviser for Sidley
Austin LLP, and was the counselor at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for Kathleen Sebelius.
Kathleen Sebelius’s
counselor at the U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services (HHS) was Dora
Hughes, and the secretary at the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for the Barack Obama administration.
Howard
K. Koh is the assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for the Barack Obama administration, and is Harold H. Koh’s brother.
Harold
H. Koh is Howard K. Koh’s
brother, was the legal adviser at the U.S.
Department of State for the Barack
Obama administration, a trustee at the Brookings
Institution (think tank), a director at Human Rights First, and a delegate for the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.
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