20141103

failure to investigate also breaches the convention against torture

Should have posted this "Shadow Report to the United Nations Committee Against Torture on the Review of the Periodic Report of the United States of America" a month ago.

No doubt you are already familiar with the subject matter, and the long failure to investigate and prosecute those who made torture the policy of the United States, as is required of signatories to the UN Convention Against Torture, dear reader.

Here is some more: From the "Advocates for U.S. Torture Prosecutions," a project of Harvard Law's International Human Rights Clinic, comes this compelling, and thoroughly footnoted, piece of advocacy toward just that necessary end. Really thoroughly footnoted.

My favorite part:
[T]he attorneys who authored the legal memoranda authorizing the use of torture in the interrogation of detainees cannot claim reliance on their own legal advice. Moreover, in authorizing torture through distorted and clearly flawed interpretations of a State Party’s obligations under the Convention Against Torture, the issuing of the legal advice itself was a violation of the Convention. (emphasis mine).
The rest of the discussion within the Shadow Report is similarly potent.

Here's Murtaza Hussain from TheIntercept.

Also:

"The report describes the waterboarding program as 'breathtaking in scope,'" Tom gasped between stifled, shameful chortles.