Senate confronts lack of confrontation on human rights violations

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said the U.S. must assume a role in business to fight violations of human rights. He added that this issue is very complicated, "not a black and white issue." Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) said that there is no excuse for companies, both national and international, to fail at protecting human rights. The Senate Judiciary Committee met to discuss international violations of human rights and the response from the United States.

In 2003, fatalities in the Niger Delta were "comparable to Iraq and Afghanistan," said Executive Director of Environmental Rights Action Nnimmo Bassey. Bassey said that the abundance of oil in the Niger Delta has made things worse. Oil has contributed to "50 years of dashed hope," continued Bassey. Senior Vice President for Social Research and Policy for Calvert Bennett Freeman called the Niger Delta "one of the most dangerous places to work in the world.

Co-Founder and Executive Director of EarthRights International Ka Hsaw Wa spoke about the conditions in Burma. He said that companies, such as Chevron, that work in Burma along the Yadana Pipeline are allowing human rights violations, including murder and torture, to happen without confrontation. These companies are "representatives of the United States," said Wa. He urged the U.S. government to hold these companies accountable.

Deputy Assistant Secretary of the State Department Jeffrey Krilla said the government has established an organization called Voluntary Principles (VP) to thwart human rights violations abroad. Currently, VP has four member nations; the U.S., the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Norway. He said the goal of VP was to work with international governments to find ways of enforcing human rights laws committed by private corporations. While VP has helped dialogue on human rights abroad, it is "not a cure-all," said Krilla.

Bush promotes the "transformative power of freedom" for 21st century

President Bush stressed the need for future presidents and congresses to promote a closer-knit global agenda for the United States. At his address to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), he outlined the future challenges of spreading freedom and democracy throughout the world.

"The challenge for future presidents and future congresses will be to ensure that America's generosity remains tied to the promotion of transparency and accountability and prosperity," said Bush.

The mission of USAID is to end tyranny and corruption by building "democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture," according to the document, "Democracy and Governance: Advancing Freedom Around the World." USAID helped gather the 2008 census in Sudan, write a constitution in Afghanistan, and draft legislation in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The President said the United States needs to use "foreign assistance to promote democracy and good government." The future also depends on free trade agreements, Bush said, and the United States has agreements with 11 countries. Bush suggested purchasing 25 percent of U.S. food aid from developing nations to improve their local economies

Bush compared current enemies of the U.S. to Germany and Japan during World War II. He said those countries were once against the U.S., but now they are strong democracies and strong allies. In countries like Sudan, Iran, and Syria, the U.S. "spoke out against tyrannical regimes."

Since Bush took office in 2001, the administration has doubled the federal budget for human rights programs, increased funds for the National Endowment for Democracy by 150 percent, and changed the nature of foreign assistance by creating the Millennium Challenge Account.

Lack of political leadership continues in Guantanamo

The Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (Helsinki Commision) held a hearing on “Guantanamo Detainees after Boumediene: Now What?” Chairman Alcee Hastings (D-Fla.) presided over the hearing and said that six years after the Guantanamo camp was opened, there seems to be little progress made in addressing the fundamental problems that plague the detention facility. Hastings also said that the fact that Guantanamo is still open is testament to the genuine challenges the U.S. faces in relocating its residents, and also “speaks to a lack of political leadership” in fixing the problems there.

The International Legal Director of Human Rights First, Gabor Rona, explained that each successive decision of the Supreme Court on the subject of post-9/11 detention has brought the U.S. further back toward the “fold of respect” for international human rights and humanitarian law and the purposes they serve. Rona said that popular notion continues to persist that existing laws of war and criminal law are inadequate because they did not anticipate today’s conflicts, that there is conflict and a requirement to choose between “war” and “crime” paradigms, and that therefore, a new “legal architecture” needs to be developed.

Matthew Waxman, an associate professor of law at Colombia Law School, agreed with Rona and said that on September 11, 2001 the U.S. confronted a grave threat for which it was “poorly prepared.” He explained that Congress needs to reconsider the basic legal and policy decisions taken immediately after 9/11, and the next reform effort should also focus on two interlocking issues: the future of Guantanamo and the appropriate role for courts in reviewing detention decisions. Waxman said that Guantanamo is a symptom of a much larger problem and Congress should not consider it in isolation from other U.S. Government detention operations. He also said that closing Guantanamo will be hard, but despite the challenges it should be closed because doing so will improve the country’s ability to combat terrorism.

Jeremy Shapiro, a Fellow and Research Director with The Brookings Institution, compared Europe’s “long and troubled history” of terrorism with the United States’. Shapiro said that the problem of creating a system of norms and laws for detaining terrorism suspects has been a challenge for every democratic government that has faced a terrorist threat. He explained that each democratic country that has faced a terrorist threat has struggled with precisely the same issues being dealt with in the U.S. Shapiro explained that one general lesson emerges strongly from the experience of other democratic countries: counterterrorism measures, including those regarding detention, need to be rooted in preexisting notions of law and fairness and they need to have broad support across the political spectrum.

ACLU calls for changes in the terrorist watch list

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) held a press conference today for the terrorist watch list hitting one million names. The list ACLU is calling for Congress to take action on this list but adding due process, a right to access and challenge data upon which listing is based, tight criteria for adding names to the lists, and rigorous procedures for updating and cleansing names from the list.

“America’s new million record watch list is a perfect symbol for what’s wrong with this administration’s approach to security: it’s unfair, out-of-control, a waste of resources, treats the rights of the innocent as an afterthought, and is a very real impediment in the lives of million of travelers in this country,” said Barry Steinhardt, director of the ACLU Technology and Liberty Program.

The Inspector General of the Justice Department reported in Sept. 2007 that the Terrorist Screening Center had over 700,000 names as of April and said that the list was growing by an average of 20,000 names per month. Working off that average the ACLU has predicted that today the list would reach one million names.

The watch list has become long and “bloated” naming several individuals who are probably not terrorists, Steinhardt said. Nelson Mandela, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize was on the watch list and only recently removed after and act by Congress, and Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) was also on the list causing him trouble and delays when flying, he said.

The ACLU is also calling for the Bush Administration or the next one to issue and executive order requiring the lists to be reviewed and limited to only those for whom there is credible evidence of terrorist ties or activities.

Human rights is not a boutique issue

At the national conference of the Campus Progress organization of the Center for American Progress, hundreds of young college student gathered together to hear a discussion about the “forgotten factor” in foreign policy: human rights. Nancy Rubin, former U.S.ambassador to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights urged young adults to take action on human rights.

Rubin said that human rights is in all of our hands and is based on the inherent dignity of people. International human rights laws were created after World War II and we still need it, however the United States has not ratified many of the newer human rights conventions such as the Kyoto Protocol. Rubin said that human rights are fundamental to how we do business around the world.

The United States was a strong, bold, strategic leader in the fight for human rights, but lately “we have fallen behind on ratifications,” Rubin said. The U.S. is a leader in many other things and has a huge potential to create change if youth and others band together and fight for human rights.

Mallika Dutt, founder and executive director of Breakthrough, said that human rights is a complex, complicated issue that covers a myriad of issues from deportation, to immigration, HIV/AIDS, counterterrorism and national security. Dutt also called the youth to action to petition the government and the government of offending nations to respect human rights.