Getting away with torture? (8)

If indicted, then they will only really be wanted war criminals in Spain. This is a state thing, not an international court indictment. Big Deal, thats about as meaningful as being banned from IC Not so much a message sent, as a reason to snigger.

Even a pan-euro arrest warrant is unlikely to be honoured by other member states of the EC. Also is Spain claiming "universal jurisdiction" merely a step or two away from wanting to be the worlds policeman, a charge often levelled at the US? Imperialism is alive and well after all it seems, although I would never have guessed at the spaniards having a try.

It's easy to tell the difference between right and wrong. What's hard is choosing the wrong that's more right.
I tend to be suspicious of all true believers. Present company included.
Elise Kraft, The Siege.

Universal Jurisdiction is handily defined on the mighty wiki here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_jurisdict... and it's not too complicated. A crime is judged to be severe enough that it extends beyond national boundaries. Spain also have a more direct case because six Spaniards were held at Guatanamo. Being a wanted criminal by the Spanish doesn't mean you're safe outside Spain either. Suppose I go to Spain and shoot a few people, then leg it out of Spain and return to sunny England what happens? I get busted and I get extradited. And suppose I don't run back to England, I go to Japan or Croatia or India? Same deal. Locals pick me up and ship me off. This is why as a general rule you can't just hop a national border to escape prosecution for a serious crime.

So enforcement of such a case wouldn't be an EU thing, technically any nation could, perhaps even should depending on existing treaties, arrest the suspects for extradition. It's not like it's that new anyway, Spain picked up an Argentinian accused of genocide who was extradited from Mexico, so it's been done before.

Hell even the yanks have tried it, seem to recall a certain war we piled into a few years ago was motivated in no small part to capture an international bad egg. Hell they've been popping missiles into countries, snatching suspects, blowing shit up for years. They are without doubt the worlds foremost exponents of universal jurisdiction.

The Americans are signatories of the 1984 UN Convention Against Torture, so while they can happily ignore this entire case it will be yet another hammer to the ballbag of their international credibility.

So it would be the height of hypocrisy for the US to grab, imprison and torture foreign nationals without paying any heed to due process or even building a legitimate case against them and yet refuse to partake when a legitimate legal system does build a case. Again, the US can simply refuse to expose its people to prosecution, but again it is another massive blow to the USA attempts to be seen as anything other than bullshitmuncher central on the world stage.

So while none of these guys, as I said, are likely to see the inside of a prison cell the almost certain refusal of the US to allow them to clear their names in a legitimate court of law amounts to an admission of institutional guilt. Put simply for a Western democracy to face accusations of torture with the eyes of the world upon them, and have no better defence than to shrug and look at its shoes is monumentally humiliating.

Anybody who says truth is stranger than fiction has never seen tentacle porn.

Edited 29 Mar 09, 10:05 AM by Doghouse_Reilly

As you say such action by the Spanish might not (in fact, probably won't) have any practical effect, but I still think it's better than nothing.

As regards universal jurisdiction, the UK arrested Pinochet when Spain was trying to extradite him. In the end he got away with it, but in principle it can be done.

I think it would be better if Spain got its own house in order before it started posturing as universal judge and jury.

Here comes a whizz-bang, and I think you know what I'm talking about, woof!

On the hypocrisy front, perhaps Spain should honour every single one of its international treaties first, not to mention admit it has a truly appalling history of civil rights infringements.

Of course the US may decide not to shrug and look at its shoes, it may decide to do what most European countries do with their little EU treaties, just ignore it and not even waste the energy of a shrug.

It's easy to tell the difference between right and wrong. What's hard is choosing the wrong that's more right.
I tend to be suspicious of all true believers. Present company included.
Elise Kraft, The Siege.

He got away with it because he died, the wheels were still in motion. The thing that made that case potentially worrying for people like Pinochet is that he had diplomatic immunity when he was arrested.

Anybody who says truth is stranger than fiction has never seen tentacle porn.

As I said, six Spaniards were among the prisoners at Guatanamo. So which ever way you cut it this is their house.

Anybody who says truth is stranger than fiction has never seen tentacle porn.

Ahhh the multiquotes! I can't deal with their codey wrath. But I'll have a go.

Regarding honouring treaties, this is simply a matter of you do it or you don't. Now maybe the US doesn't honour it, but that hurts their position next time they want somebody. As I said I don't believe they ever would hand over their people, but this does means that they can either launch a full criminal investigation themselves (this would undermine the principle of universal jurisdiction because local investigations remove the need for a foreign one) or they basically have to admit that they've committed war crimes and they won't hand their people over for it. It would be catching them red handed as being one rule for us, one rule for them.

Treaties are not always worthless, it depends who signs them and what they are about. Some of the pettier EU treaties sure, they are cobblers. But when a nation steps up to make a big humanitarian commitment as the US did along with many others in 1984 to go back on that, and to have to admit to that is incredibly damaging to the nations credibility.

The argument about who is and who is not perfect is the important one because the US has always strived to be the good guy, if not in reality at least in theory and presentation. The US has always seen itself as the hero, they fight for democracy, they fight against terror, they build nations. Calling them out, publicly, for being a greedy bunch of brutish imperialist scumbags makes them look bad, it takes the shine off the apple.

It's easy to say everybody is as bad as each other, but it simply isn't true. The USA built a concentration camp, kidnapped people from all sorts of different places, locked them up in it for several years without due process and tortured them. Now sure if somebody like Syria or Russia or China wanted to call out the USA on their shady behaviour then you could say, 'Pipe down you're just as bad' but the Spanish, like most countries have a legit claim to the moral high ground.

Regarding how the Spanish deal with their own dirty laundry to be honest I think you're asking for the moon on a stick if you think that's easily done. Hell even the US still has people with a chip on their shoulder about their Civil War and that was centuries ago, the Spanish one, and it's legacy, are matters of living memory. Not the sort of issues anybody can just magically fix, but that's not to say they aren't trying.

As to what the US should do, well in accordance with their own principles and international law they should either launch a real investigation of Guatanamo Bay and let that run its course, or they should hand over those accused of war crimes. What they will do is probably is try to skirt round the issue and have to eat some humble pie next time they want to ask for a favour from anybody.

International relations is all about deals and scoring points and that sort of sly diplomatic malarkey. The US chooses to ignore this, maybe they have to ask twice as politely next time they need somebody to help them conquer a country or give up a criminal to their custody.

Anybody who says truth is stranger than fiction has never seen tentacle porn.