Background on Accountability for War Crimes
Article 3, common to the four Geneva Conventions, reflects customary international law. Its provisions have been determined by the International Court of Justice as constituting 'a minimum yardstick, in addition to the more elaborate rules which are also to apply to international conflicts'. As early as 1949, the Court called its protections 'elementary considerations of humanity'. Common Article 3 holds that trials may only be carried out under "regularly constituted courts affording all the judicial guarantees... recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples". It also prohibits torture, cruel, humiliating or degrading treatment.
There is evidence that the rejection of Geneva Convention protections by the US administration may have been part of a possible attempt to exempt US agents from prosecution for war crimes under US law. Subsequently, human rights violations by the USA in the "war on terror" have been systemic. For more than two years, Amnesty International has been calling for a full commission of inquiry into all aspects of the USA's "war on terror" detention and interrogation policies and practices, including renditions and secret detentions.
In a recent memorandum to the US administration, Amnesty International stressed that as a matter of central importance, not least in the context of the "war on terror", the need for the US administration to ensure that when officials speak of the USA's commitment to humane treatment, what they mean at least meets international law and standards. This has clearly not been the case to date. US officials have authorized and condoned interrogation techniques and detention conditions that violate international norms and yet at the same time have claimed to be committed to treating detainees humanely. The Supreme Court's decision in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld has extended these basic protections to detainees in the "war on terror," and the Department of Defense memo is a critical step in implementing that decision.For more information on the War Crimes Act, see AI's response to the Administration's proposal
For more information on the War Crimes Act, see AI's response to the Administration's proposal
