Human Rights
Written by William T. Dowell Tuesday, 17 February 2009 03:48
Hardly anyone questions that the administration of former President George W. Bush stretched the definition of the law in his post 9/11 war against terror. The policy shift was aptly expressed by former vice-president Dick Cheney when he announced in the words of Darth Vader that the administration was “going to explore the dark side.” A 213-page report entitled “Assessing Damage, Urging Action,” which has just been released by the Geneva-based International Commission of Jurists, goes beyond the effect that former Bush administration policies had on US law and examines their impact on the rule of law in the rest of the world (the report is available on line at www.icj.org). An 8-member panel of respected jurists, headed by former Irish president, Mary Robinson, studied the impact of the war against terror on some 40 countries.
The report’s theme is that the former administration’s eagerness to circumvent human rights has set the tone for much of the rest of the world. Just as the lack of regulation of the US financial markets triggered a global financial meltdown, the former administration’s readiness to overlook laws intended to protect its own citizens has encouraged other countries to ignore or water down their own citizen’s legal protections.
In short, when the USA sneezes, the rest of the world does indeed catch cold.
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