JURIST - Paper Chase: Friday, May 11, 2012

[JURIST] The Malaysian Kuala Lumpur Foundation to Criminalise War (KLFCW) [advocacy website] on Friday found former US president George W. Bush [JURIST news archive] and seven administration officials guilty of war crimes [press release] after a symbolic trial. The five-member tribunal convicted Bush, former vice president Dick Cheney, former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, former attorney general Alberto Gonzales [JURIST news archives], and several other administration officials of torture and war crimes. The tribunal heard from three witnesses who were detained at the Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan or at Abu Ghraib [JURIST news archives] in Iraq, two of whom were eventually transferred to Guantanamo Bay [JURIST backgrounder]. The trials, headed by former Malaysian premier Mahathir Mohamad [BBC profile], a vocal critic of the Iraq conflict since its inception, have no enforcement power under international or domestic rule of law, but the KLFCW expressed hope that "the witnesses will, in the near future, find a state or an international judicial entity able and willing to exercise jurisdiction and to enforce the verdict of this Tribunal against the 8 convicted persons and their government." The KLFCW previously convicted Bush [JURIST report] and former UK prime minister Tony Blair [JURIST news archive] of war crimes in connection with the March 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Various human rights groups have filed charges against US and UK officials alleging war crimes committed in Afghanistan and Iraq. In October the attorney general for British Columbia blocked a lawsuit [JURIST report] filed by the Canadian Centre for International Justice [advocacy website] against Bush on torture allegations. Earlier in October Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International [advocacy websites] urged the Canadian government to investigate and arrest [JURIST report] Bush for his role in torture. In February 2011 the Center for Constitutional Rights and the European Center for Human Rights [advocacy websites] urged the signatory states of the UN Convention Against Torture [text] to pursue criminal charges [JURIST report] against Bush. Other calls to investigate the criminal culpability of Bush and officials in his administration have been rejected consistently by US officials [JURIST report]. In 2010 a former UN official strongly suggested [JURIST report] a war crimes investigation of actions by both sides in the Afghanistan war. In 2009 the UK High Court criticized [JURIST report] its own Ministry of Defense for failure to investigate or release documents regarding a claim of war crimes against UK soldiers in Iraq.

[JURIST] A judge for the US District Court for the District of Colombia [official website] ruled [opinion, PDF] Thursday that the final volume in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) [official website] history of the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba will remain secret. US District Judge Gladys Kessler ordered the volume to remain secret because it is merely a draft document that would "risk public release of inaccurate historical information." The National Security Archive (NSA) [advocacy website] sued [press release] the CIA in April seeking release of the volume. The CIA argued that release of the document was exempt from disclosure under the deliberative process privilege, an exemption in the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) [text].

The declassification of government documents is often a contentious issue. In 2008 the Public Interest Declassification Board [NARA backgrounder] pressed then-president George W. Bush for improvements to the existing US records declassification scheme [JURIST report] in an era of increased government secrecy. In 2009 the US Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) [official website] declassified a November 2008 report [JURIST reports] detailing the extent of top Bush administration officials' involvement in implementing severe interrogation techniques employed by US military forces against terrorism suspects. The declassification of the Senate report came just after the Department of Justice \[official website] released four top secret memos [JURIST report] from the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) [official website] outlining controversial CIA interrogation techniques and their legal rationale. The public release of the memos came in response to a FOIA lawsuit [materials] filed by the ACLU during the Bush administration.

[JURIST] Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website] on Friday urged Libya's ruling National Transitional Council (NTC) [official website] to amend a new law [press release] that protects people who committed crimes during last year's Libya conflict [JURIST backgrounder]. The new law protects from prosecution those whose actions were focused on "promoting or protecting the revolution" against Muammar Gaddafi [BBC obituary; JURIST news archive]. Additionally, the law allows police to detain people who are considered "threats to security" for up to two months. According to HRW, the law should be amended immediately because "[h]olding accountable all those responsible for serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law is critical for the new Libya to be based on the rule of law." HRW is also concerned that the portion of the law allowing for prolonged detention, because they argue that such detentions should be "based on concrete evidence of wrongdoing rather than on past affiliations." The law is set to take effect Saturday.

This is just the latest criticism of the new laws enacted by the provisional NTC since the Libyan revolution. Last week HRW urged the NTC to revoke a new law [JURIST report] that criminalizes criticism of the Libya conflict and prohibits glorification of former leader Gaddafi. Last month UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon [official profile] urged Libyan officials to investigate the allegations of human rights abuse [JURIST report] in the country during the uprising against Gaddafi. In February Amnesty International [advocacy website] accused the ruling NTC of allowing the abuse and torture [JURIST report] of supporters of the former leader by unofficial militias. In January UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay [official website] addressed the UN Security Council [official website] expressing concern over alleged current human rights violations [JURIST report] in Libya. Earlier that month Middle East rights groups alleged human rights violations [JURIST report] and that all parties involved, including NATO, committed acts ranging from use of excessive force against protesters to cruel and inhuman treatment of prisoners during detention.