UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour, taking aim at the US-led war on terrorism, reminded all states on Friday of their duty to ban torture and give all security detainees a fair trial.
In a speech to the United Nations Human Rights Council, Arbour also voiced concern at the alleged existence of secret detention centres, saying they facilitate abusive treatment.
Her remarks - clearly aimed at the United States and its allies in their "war on terror" launched after the September 11 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in 2001 - drew a quick reply from the US observer delegation.
"It is vital that at all times governments anchor in law their response to terrorism," Arbour told the 47-member state body ahead of the UN's International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, being observed next Monday.
International human rights and humanitarian law imposed a series of constraints on all states "with no exception", said Arbour, a lawyer who formerly served as UN war crimes prosecutor and a Canadian Supreme Court judge.
"These include the absolute ban on torture and the right to a fair trial," she said. The US ambassador to the UN in Geneva Warren Tichenor immediately replied that US policy was to treat al Qaeda and Taleban enemy combatants captured in the conflict "humanely". The United States is holding some 460 security detainees at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba on suspicion of belonging to al Qaeda or the Taleban. Most have been held for years without charges.
SHUT THE PRISON: US President George W. Bush said this week he wanted to shut the prison and return inmates to their home countries, but gave no time frame. Arbour said that, in the context of counter-terrorism activities, there had been a growing challenge to the absolute ban on torture embodied in the UN Convention against Torture.
The treaty, ratified by 141 countries including the United States, prohibits mistreating detainees as well as returning individuals to a country where they face a real risk of torture. This was not a "mere legal nicety", Arbour said. Rights groups have accused the United States and its Central Intelligence Agency of moving suspects to countries that use torture in interrogations, by means of secret transfer flights known as "renditions".
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