Concern over US human rights stance

The United States today stuck to its refusal to apply the main international human rights treaty to detainees held outside the United States, causing concern among UN experts that it might encourage other countries to be selective in the rights they respect.

“I don’t think this is a very positive message to the other state parties,” said Christine Chanet, who chaired two days of hearings by the UN Human Rights Committee on US compliance with the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Torture is banned everywhere in US detention facilities because it is a violation of both the law of armed conflict and US domestic law, said Matthew Waxman of the US State Department.

“It is important to understand that the attacks of al Qaida confronted not only the United States but the entire world with a new kind of threat, a threat that did not fit neatly into existing legal categories.

This continuing threat poses difficult dilemmas for us all,” he said.