sayak
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UN human rights committee severely criticized USA for its human rights records on multiple different issue. How justified do you think these accusations are, and should there be a concerted push to improve it?
US criticised by UN for human rights failings on NSA, guns and drones | World news | theguardian.com
Some topics that leapt to the eye:-
Discuss.
US criticised by UN for human rights failings on NSA, guns and drones | World news | theguardian.com
Some topics that leapt to the eye:-
Walter Kälin, a Swiss international human rights lawyer who sits on the committee, attacked the US government’s refusal to recognise the convention’s mandate over its actions beyond its own borders. The US has asserted since 1995 that the ICCPR does not apply to US actions beyond its borders - and has used that “extra-territoriality” claim to justify its actions in Guantánamo and in conflict zones.
“This world is an unsafe place,” Kälin said. “Will it not become even more dangerous if any state would be willing to claim that international law does not prevent them from committing human rights violations abroad?”
Kälin went on to express astonishment at some of America’s more extreme domestic habits. He pointed to the release this week in Louisiana of Glenn Ford, the 144th person on death row in the US to be exonerated since 1973, saying: “One hundred and forty-four cases of people wrongfully convicted to death is a staggering number.”
Pointing out the disproportional representation of African Americans on death rows, he added: “Discrimination is bad, but it is absolutely unacceptable when it leads to death.”
The experts raised questions about the National Security Agency’s surveillance of digital communications in the wake of Edward Snowden’s revelations. It also intervened in this week’s dispute between the CIA and US senators by calling for declassification and release of the 6,300-page report into the Bush administration’s use of torture techniques and rendition that lay behind the current CIA-Senate dispute.
Discuss.