Tag Archives: Executive Orders

What's AI's Take on Obama's Exec Orders?

January 30, 2009 at 5:39 PM

Weekend reading: Amnesty International’s detailed analysis of President Obama’s executive orders on Guantanamo, detentions and interrogations. 

Here’s a taste:

Accountability and remedy

The new administration and Congress should take the necessary measures to ensure accountability and remedy for human rights violations committed by or at the instigation of the USA, including by, among other things:

Setting up an independent commission of inquiry into all aspects of the USA’s detention and interrogation policies and practices since 11 September 2001.

Ensuring that all allegations of particular violations of individuals’ rights under international human rights or humanitarian law are thoroughly and effectively investigated.

Ensuring that all those responsible for crimes under international law are brought to justice, including through criminal prosecution with sentences that take account of the grave nature of the acts concerned.

Amnesty International’s full recommendations on accountability are set out in USA: Investigation, prosecution, remedy: Accountability for human rights violations in the ‘war on terror’.

Exec Orders – Did you see the part about contractors?

January 23, 2009 at 7:22 PM

One positive piece of President Obama’s much heralded executive orders that seems to be overlooked in all the excitement is the unambiguous statement that contractor abuses fall within the scope of inquiry and review and that that work will be done by government employees, not contractors.

Companies hired by Defense, State and other agencies of the US government have been involved in almost every stage of the ‘war on terror’, from escorting convoys to building and maintaining facilities to interrogating detainees and providing security to US officials, and all too often with no accountability when implicated in a range of human rights abuses. As Senator Feingold brought to light, contractors were also hired to oversee other contractors at the State Department.

In his executive orders, President Obama (a champion of regulation of security contractors while in the Senate) made clear that only full-time or permanent employees or officers of the United States would be able to:
– Serve on the special task force to identify lawful options for the disposition of detainees
– Review status of individual detainee cases
– Serve on the special task force on interrogation and transfer policies

At the same time, the orders are comprehensive in covering facilities run by, or acts committed by, “agents” of the United States, ie, contractors, to be reviewed.

In a way, the President has proffered crucial first steps on a number of issues. We wanted Guantanamo closed, he’s set a timeline; we’re calling for investigation and accountability, he gave us a nod to transparency in the face of executive privilege; we documented abuses not only by US government officials, but also by the corporate sector, he’s got them covered and ruled them out of oversight functions.

Now it’s time to keep pushing to ensure that doors that are cracked open don’t swing back and slam shut the hope for an end to torture, indefinite detention and attacks against civilians.