The UN human rights chief says that the global ban on torture is becoming a casualty of the "war on terror," singling out the reported US practices of sending terrorist suspects to other countries and holding prisoners in secret detention.
Louise Arbour's comments on Wednesday sparked an immediate rebuke from US Ambassador John Bolton who said it was "inappropriate and illegitimate for an international civil servant to second guess the conduct that we're engaged in the war on terror, with nothing more as evidence than what she reads in the newspapers."
It would be far more appropriate if Arbour had used Human Rights Day to talk about "the real human rights problems that exist in the world today," Bolton said, without elaborating on what they were.
Arbour told a news conference she chose the theme of "terrorists and torturers" to mark Saturday's annual commemoration of the UN's adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 because the absolute ban on torture, once believed to be unassailable, is under attack.
"The absolute ban on torture, a cornerstone of the international human rights edifice ... is becoming a casualty of the so-called `war on terror,'" she said.
Arbour said "two phenomena today are having an acutely corrosive effect on the global ban on torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" -- seeking diplomatic assurances to justify the return or transfer of suspects to countries where they face a risk of torture and holding prisoners in secret detention.
Diplomatic assurances may make countries complicit with torture carried out by others and secret detention facilities create the conditions for torture by a country's own agents, she said.
Arbour called on the US and other countries to state clearly and unambiguously what practices they accept and don't accept in the interrogation of suspects, and whether they operate secret detention centers at home or abroad and provide details.
The UN high commissioner for human rights also called for a ban on returning people to countries where they may face torture and on secret detentions, access to all prisoners, and prosecution of those responsible for torture and ill-treatment.
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