UNITED NATIONS – Member states of the U.N. have frequently disregarded international human rights laws and principles in the name of counter-terrorism, an expert panel here found. 
The panel entitled “Fortress or Sand-Castle? Human Rights in the Age of Counter-Terrorism“, was the seventh instalment of the New Human Rights Dialogue Series, a 12 part monthly series in commemoration of the sixtieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The 30 articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights ‘read today very much like a catalogue of abuses, and quite often abuses carried out in the name of something called counter-terrorism,’ said Craig Mokhiber, of the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, who moderated the panel.
Some areas of concern with regards to counter-terrorism stressed by the panellists are the expansion of police powers, use of secret courts and evidence, use of preventative detention, and the application of the death penalty for non-lethal crimes.
‘Counter-terrorism laws passed worldwide have represented a broad expansion of government power to investigate detain, prosecute, and imprison individuals with minimal judicial oversight, public transparency, and due process,’ said Joanne Mariner, terrorism and counter-terrorism programme director at Human Rights Watch.
These laws restrict the rights of terrorists, political dissidents, social activists, and common criminals, according to Mariner.
The legislation is partly the result of the lack of an international definition for terrorism, without which countries are allowed to create their own broad definitions of what constitutes a terrorist organisation or act. Human rights violations resulting from laws based on these broad definitions are exacerbated by international pressure from the Security Council for member states to show that they are combating terrorism domestically.
The U.S. among other nations has attempted to justify the derogation of certain international human rights laws by claiming that the ‘war on terror’ is a new kind of armed conflict that lies outside of international human rights law and warrants the creation of a new structure of humanitarian law.
Margaret Satterthwaite, co-director of the international human rights clinic at the centre of human rights and global justice at New York University School of Law, noted that, ‘this argument has been rejected by a number of key high courts of various member states of the U.N. and even if one were to accept such an argument, one would still be under the rule of international humanitarian principles of customary international law when forging those new rules.’
The panellists explained that the Security Council has been slow to incorporate human rights into its global counter-terrorism strategy.
Joanna Weschler, director of research of the Security Council Report — a non-profit organisation affiliated with Columbia University — described the Council’s progress on integrating human rights into the counter-terrorism strategy as a, ‘process of slow and partial overcoming of a very deep reluctance.’
Weschler recalled that, ‘Council members were initially quite adamant that the Council would not make safeguarding human rights part of its anti-terror agenda and I remember very vividly in that period when a P5 ambassador said to me, ‘Joanna don’t expect to see the two words human and rights together in any council documents on terrorism any time soon’, and I must say they kept their word for a while.’
Weschler referenced Security Council resolution 1390, which expanded the Council’s sanctions on Afghanistan to be applicable worldwide. One result of this resolution was the creation of a list of individuals and entities that could be subjected to asset freezes, travel bans, and other sanctions — but there were no clear rules governing how parties were placed or removed from the list, and once listed, parties could not find out the reason for their listing or challenge it. Numerous cases of mistaken identity, post-mortem listing of individuals, and other human rights violations stemmed from the creation of the list, Weschler said.
The original sanctions were imposed on the Taliban in part because of their violation of human rights and were supported by human rights groups because they targeted governing bodies as opposed to citizens. To date the Security Council members have raised strong opposition to the creation of an independent review panel for the list.
Although there are many areas in which human rights continue to be neglected, the Security Council and other U.N. bodies have recently begun to take significant steps towards integrating human rights into counter-terrorist activities. The 2006 U.N. Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy lists human rights as one of its 4 pillars and states that, ‘the promotion and protection of human rights for all and the rule of law is essential to all components of the Strategy, recognising that effective counter-terrorism measures and the protection of human rights are not conflicting goals, but complementary and mutually reinforcing.’
The final document of the International Process on Global Counter-Terrorism Cooperation has recently been released and lists numerous recommendations for the General Assembly to consider in advance of the first formal review of the of the U.N. Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy in September. Among the recommendations the document lists are numerous enhancements of U.N. efforts to promote human rights within the context of counter-terrorism including further inclusion of human rights experts within the counter- terrorist bodies of the U.N. and greater support for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Emi MacLean of the Centre for Constitutional Rights concluded, ‘There seem to be varying options as we move forward. We could see international rights and humanitarian obligations as inapplicable to the current paradigm and forcing a paradigm shift… or we can reaffirm that [human rights] laws continue to have resonance and import and indeed continue to carry obligations even, or perhaps, especially within this context when we are tempted to derogate from them.’
© 2008 Inter Press Service
Peace and Justice Post 
What is imperialism?
June 28, 2008Events in Iraq – a major power dominating a much less developed one – seem to fit the popular image of imperialism.
This picture also reflects the form that imperialism took as it emerged in the late 19th century. From then into the first half of the 20th century, imperialism was characterised by military takeover and direct colonial control, the search for profitable investment opportunities and cheap labour, the ripping off of raw materials, and the use of the colonies as markets for the products of the imperial powers.
As capitalism developed, the boundaries of a single nation state had become too small and the search for raw materials and markets extended to encompass the entire world. States expanded their functions to protect and project the interests of the capitalists of their country over others.
The Russian revolutionary Lenin was one of the first to recognise that the rise of the great militarised states and the competition between them to carve up the world lay behind the slaughter of World War I.
He recognised that while economic, military and political domination by a small number of advanced economies over most of the world is the form that imperialism takes, it stems from something else – the rivalry between the powerful states. Sometimes this rivalry consists of economic competition for materials or markets, but ultimately it is backed up by military might.
Explaining in 1935 how the US military had extended US economic control over Central America, Major General Smedley D. Butler described his role like this:
I spent thirty-three years and four months in active service as a member of our country’s most agile military force – the Marine Corps…And during that period I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street, and for the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capital…
Thus I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in… I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for American fruit companies in 1903.
US imperialism’s aims have changed little since then. Today, multinational corporations need the state not only to control and if necessary suppress the workers that they exploit. They also need the military might of the state to protect their interests from rival multinationals and the rival states that protect them.
The USA is the world’s biggest military power. It intends to use its military might to ensure its role as the world superpower for the indefinite future.
As the example of Iraqi oil shows, control of raw materials continues to be a priority for the imperialist powers in the 21st century. But this example also shows how the rivalry between the major powers is the central dynamic of imperialism. Europe and Japan are more dependent on Middle Eastern oil than is the US. A military occupation of Iraq would give the US increased leverage over its main economic competitors.
Why does it matter if we think imperialism is about big powers dominating small ones and ripping off their resources, or if it is about the competition between the big powers themselves?
The first explanation makes sense of the attack on oil-rich Iraq, but how can we explain the US war on Afghanistan in 2001, or the projected attack on the resource-poor state of North Korea?
If we are looking for resource explanations for imperialism, it’s hard to make sense of the US’s war on Vietnam. Vietnam had no resources of value to the US. The millions of deaths did however have a strategic purpose in the imperialist rivalry between the US and the USSR, just as the Korean War of the early 1950s had.
As George W. Bush promises a century of war, he has his eyes on the major European powers, on Japan and on China, rather than on the particular impoverished country on which he may next unleash the US military machine.
Imperialism means the murder of thousands in countries like Iraq, and attacks on living standards and civil liberties in the imperialist powers, including small ones like Australia.
But imperialism is not invincible. At every stage of its bloody history, it has provoked revolt from below. As an international anti-war movement takes to the stage, the chance to once again organise and fight opens up.
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