The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al-Hussein (a member of the Jordanian royal family and the first Muslim to serve in that role) stated that the US now has an obligation under the UN Convention against Torture to prosecute those individuals identified in the recent Senate report. The US signed the Treaty in 1988 and ratified it in 1994. Under the Treaty, the US is obligated to prosecute individuals accused of committing torture under its national law. Those obligations include:
| (i) Each State party shall take effective legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent acts of torture. The prohibition against torture shall be absolute and shall be upheld also in a state of war and in other exceptional circumstances (article 2); | |
| (ii) No State party may expel or extradite a person to a State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture (article 3); | |
| (iii) Each State party shall ensure that acts of torture are serious criminal offences within its legal system (article 4); | |
| (iv) Each State party shall, on certain conditions, take a person suspected of the offence of torture into custody and make a preliminary inquiry into the facts (article 6); | |
| (v) Each State party shall either extradite a person suspected of the offence of torture or submit the case to its own authorities for prosecution (article 7); | |
| (vi) Each State party shall ensure that its authorities make investigations when there is reasonable ground to believe that an act of torture has been committed (article 12); | |
| (vii) Each State party shall ensure that an individual who alleges that he has been subjected to torture will have his case examined by the competent authorities (article 13); | |
| (viii) Each State party shall ensure to victims of torture an enforceable right to fair and adequate compensation (article 14). |
Under the Convention, torture is defined as:
“For the purposes of this Convention, torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.” (Article 1, Section 1)
By the terms of this Treaty, the US Government cannot choose to not prosecute individuals implicated in committing torture.
India has been an important player in world politics since its independence in 1947. Yet its overall power has never been sufficient for it to be an active participant in anything other than a regional balance of power. As Indian power grows, that role will certainly change. In the past, India has relied heavily on moral suasion; in the future it will be expected to rely more heavily on its economic and military power. The shift will pose some problems for India’s domestic population which has never been ask to play the realpolitik game.
Of all the oil-exporting countries. Venezuela has suffered the most from the recent collapse of petroleum prices. Even before the price collapse, the Venezuelan economy was suffering from very high rates of inflation and shortages of goods and services due to the economic mismanagement of President Maduro. Recent data suggests that Venezuela may be close to an outright default on all its foreign obligations, and the political repercussions of such a failure would create chaos.
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