Human Rights: Human Rights USA Position on Prosecutions

Independent Prosecutor Must Have Power to Investigate Senior Officials Who Authorized Human Rights Violations‏:

Human Rights USA welcomes the news that Attorney General Holder has decided to appoint a prosecutor to investigate interrogations that may have violated U.S. obligations not to torture.

As we explained on our blog earlier this month, the Attorney General should ensure that the scope of the investigation includes senior government officials responsible for directing, approving, or authorizing the use of such techniques. Based on information currently available to the public, it is apparent that lawyers for the Bush administration wrote legal memoranda approving techniques that clearly violate the Geneva Conventions and U.S. laws. To investigate only the CIA interrogators who exceeded the broad rules set by the administration is to repeat the faulty investigations conducted by the former administration. The focus of the investigation appears to be too narrow to include all individuals responsible for the abuses committed during the last administration.

An investigation into crimes committed by low-level CIA interrogators is an attempt to again blame detainee abuse on just a few "bad apples." This kind of limited investigation does not reach the heart of the problem: the administration authorized tactics that violated accepted standards of domestic and international law. Unfortunately, failing to fully investigate the abuses at issue could have international repercussions for the United States. Human Rights USA has closely followed this matter for many months and has called for the current administration to uphold the United States' international human rights obligations.

Our efforts include petitioning the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights earlier this year. On March 20, 2009, representatives from Human Rights USA, in collaboration with the representatives from the Center for Constitutional Rights and the American Civil Liberties Union, appeared during the thematic hearing on accountability for major human rights abuses committed by U.S. Government officials during the 'war on terror.' The hearing provided the Commission with information regarding the types of accountability measures that the Obama administration must take in order to comply with its international human rights obligations, under the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man and international law, to investigate, prosecute, and punish international crimes.