home > by publication type > daily analysis > Prisoner Abuse Back in Spotlight
Email
| Prepared by: | Eben Kaplan |
|---|
A UN report calls for the closing of the Guantanamo Bay detainee camp (Photo: AP)
A recurring sore spot between human rights advocates and U.S. policymakers— the military detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba—is again making headlines. A new UN report says the substandard treatment of detainees there violates the UN Convention Against Torture and calls for the United States to close the facility by either bringing the detainees to trial or setting them free. The report is the product of an eighteen-month investigation by five UN special envoys operating under mandates from the UN Commission on Human Rights. U.S. officials have rejected the report's findings (LAT), pointing out the authors never visited Guantanamo Bay.
The release of the UN report coincides with the publication of more photographs of prisoner abuse in Iraq's now-infamous Abu Ghraib prison in 2003. The acts of abuse depicted in the photos, circulated widely in the Muslim world, were condemned by Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari (BBC).
The torture debate last flared up in December 2005, when Congress passed the Detainee Treatment Act, banning "cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment" against detainees held inside as well as outside U.S. borders. When signing the bill into law, President Bush issued a statement suggesting the legislation's ban of such treatment might be bypassed by his executive authority. A CFR Background Q&A examines the torture debate in a legal context, an interview with two legal experts outlines how the limits of executive power may be decided by the Supreme Court, and a BBC Q&A outlines the legal proceedings against the detainees.
Like the legal discourse on torture, the public debate continues. Writing in the Weekly Standard, conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer contends torture is a necessary evil, while CFR Fellow Max Boot suggests reports of prisoner abuse are blown out of proportion. On the other side, Christianity Today offers "5 Reasons Torture is Always Wrong" and Soviet-era prison survivor Vladimir Bukovsky warns of the pitfalls of torture in the Washington Post. Senator John McCain (R-AZ), who sponsored the Detainee Treatment Act, writes in Newsweek that such torture tactics "undermine the values we hold dear."
Human Rights Watch Executive Director Kenneth Roth harshly criticized the United States in the introduction to his organization's 2006 World Report, while a new Amnesty International report details recent abuses at Guantanamo Bay. This CFR Background Q&A details how poor treatment of prisoners has put a strain on U.S.-Europe relations; a Congressional Research Service report (PDF) provides more details about the Guantanamo detainees, and an FBI report probes allegations of prisoner abuse at the detention camp.
Weigh in on this issue by emailing CFR.org.
To order Task Force reports, Council Special Reports, and Critical Policy Choices, please call, fax, or order online from our distributor, the Brookings Institution Press: phone +1.800.537.5487, fax +1.410.516.6998.
For information on other reports that are not for sale, or for general publications information, please call +1.212.434.9516 or email publications@cfr.org.
Start-Up Nation addresses the trillion-dollar question: How is it that Israel—a country of 7.1 million, only sixty years old, surrounded by enemies— produces more start-up companies than large, peaceful, and stable nations like Japan, China, India, Korea, Canada, and the UK? With the insights of geopolitical experts and investors, the authors examine this nation’s adversity-driven culture to answer this question and offer prescriptions for a global economy on the rebound.
In Forces of Fortune, Vali Nasr presents a paradigm-changing revelation that will transform the understanding of the Muslim world at large. He reveals that there is a vital but unseen rising force in the Islamic world—a new business-minded middle class—that is building a vibrant new Muslim world economy and that holds the key to winning the cold war against Iran and extremists.
In Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know, Julia E. Sweig presents a remarkably accessible portrait of Cuba's unique place on the world stage over the past fifty years, including its internal politics, its often fraught relationship with the United States, and its shifting relationship with the global community.
Complete list of CFR Books
The report of this bipartisan Task Force of distinguished leaders and experts represents a strong consensus on the importance of repairing America's immigration policy. It makes the case that maintaining America's political and economic leadership depends on attracting talented and hard-working immigrants, and on securing the country's borders in a smart, effective, and humane way.
This report finds that nuclear weapons will remain a fundamental element of U.S. national security in the near term, and makes recommendations on how to ensure the safety, security, and reliability of the U.S. deterrent nuclear force, prevent nuclear terrorism, and strengthen the nuclear nonproliferation regime.
About Independent Task Forces at CFR
Complete list of Task Force reports
Identifying international threats and acting on them may be the most difficult job for U.S. policymakers. This report
provides an actionable road map for managing international threats before they erupt into crises and makes a strong case that preventive action is not a luxury but a necessity.
For more than a decade, the United States has mostly watched from the sidelines as Asian countries organize themselves into an alphabet soup of new multilateral groups. In this report, the authors review the relationship between pan-Asian and trans-Pacific institutions and suggest policy guidelines for a new U.S. approach to this new Asian landscape.
Complete list of Council Special Reports
To request permission to reprint or reuse CFR material, please fill out this permissions request form (PDF), referring to the instructions on page 1.
Copyright 2009 by the Council on Foreign Relations. All Rights Reserved.