Amnesty International called yesterday for the US, China and Russia to sign up to the International Criminal Court (ICC), in a hard-hitting report alleging powerful governments have blocked advances in global justice.
The trio and four of their fellow G20 nations — India, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and Turkey — must drop their opposition to the ICC, Amnesty said, as it unveiled its annual snapshot of global human rights.
Amnesty’s interim secretary-general Claudio Cordone also called on Thailand to allow international investigators to help probe the army’s crackdown on protesters this month.
Cordone said the group wanted “to ensure that no one is above the law.”
“Our report shows that powerful states hold themselves above the law and protect their allies so justice is only served when expedient,” he said at the report’s launch.
The group said no country could justify its refusal to fully sign up to the ICC — the only independent, permanent court with authority to try genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
However, Cordone said he was confident that the initially fierce US opposition to the court was lessening under US President Barack Obama.
“We feel that such opposition may be softening,” he said in an interview. “If governments are serious about justice then they realize that this court is operating to proper human rights standards, and there should be no reason why it shouldn’t be supported. So in the end I am optimistic that the United States will join the court.”
Amnesty is deeply concerned about this month’s riots on the streets of Bangkok, Cordone said.
He conceded that Thai security forces had been confronted by opposition demonstrators using firearms.
“But in their response we saw the army shooting indiscriminately among demonstrators and sometimes apparently they were targeting unarmed people,” he said.
In Russia, the report lamented, “human rights defenders, lawyers and journalists were threatened and physically attacked; some were killed.”
“A climate of impunity for these crimes prevailed,” it said.
For the US, Guantanamo Bay was still open despite Obama’s commitment to close the prison, while detainees continued to be held at Bagram airbase prison in Afghanistan “in violation of international standards,” it noted.
Asian conflicts took a brutal toll on civilians last year, killing thousands and leaving millions homeless, destitute and often ignored by governments responsible for their misery, Amnesty said.
From Afghanistan and Pakistan to Sri Lanka and the Philippines, civilians caught up in fighting between government forces and insurgents were left to fend for themselves, the report said.
The report highlighted the plight of non-combatants during the final months of Sri Lanka’s war.
By the time of the Tigers’ final defeat in May last year, Amnesy said, the UN estimated that about 7,000 civilians had died.
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