US defends rights record to United Nations panel

By Laura MacInnis

GENEVA (Reuters) – The United States defended its record on
prisoner treatment, racial profiling, immigration and the death
penalty on Monday in its first appearance before a top United
Nations human rights panel in 11 years.

Matthew Waxman, who lead the U.S. delegation to the U.N.
Human Rights Committee, submitted a 66-page document offering
legal justifications for policies ranging from renditions of
foreign detainees to juvenile sentencing in the United States.

Acknowledging an “intense international interest” in U.S.
activities abroad since the September 11, 2001, attacks
propelled Washington into wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and
sparked an overhaul of many U.S. laws, Waxman said geopolitics
had recently made rights protection more complicated.

“Although the threat from al Qaeda presents tough legal
challenges, our guiding principle is that our actions must be
consistent with our Constitution, our laws and our
international obligations,” the principal deputy director for
policy planning of the State Department told the committee.

Referring to the Bush administration’s reversal of policy
to allow application of the Geneva Conventions to those
detained in its “war on terror,” Waxman said Washington was
trying hard to properly balance its legal protections.

“We are constantly reviewing our policies and practices to
ensure their compliance with the law. Sometimes course
corrections are needed,” he said.

Representatives of some 142 U.S. non-governmental groups,
including the American Civil Liberties Union, Human Rights
Watch and National Organization of Women came to Geneva to
press the U.S. delegation on a range of domestic and
international issues.

In the first session of the two-day hearing, held in a
packed meeting room in the U.N.’s European headquarters, legal
experts making up the Human Rights Committee raised concerns
over the alleged mistreatment of Hurricane Katrina victims,
aboriginal land rights, U.S. law enforcement methods.

The hearing was part of a regular cycle for signatories to
the U.N.’s convention on civil and political rights. The United
States last came before the committee in 1995. Countries
normally appear before the panel about every four years.

The latest U.S. report to the committee on its rights
performance, submitted in October, was seven years late.

The United States has argued “extra-territorial” issues,
including the treatment of detainees in Afghanistan, Iraq, and
the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are not covered
under the civil and political rights covenant monitored by the
committee.

“It is our firm belief that those issues in large part lie
beyond the scope of the treaty,” said Mark Lagon, deputy
assistant U.S. secretary of state for international
organizations.

“Nonetheless, the United States will answer those
controversial questions as a courtesy to the committee and as a
matter of openness to the international community,” he added.

The committee is expected to release its recommendations to
the United States, which carry moral and symbolic weight but
are not legally binding, later this month.