Terrorism-- crime against humanity

Recently there has been much scholarly discussion about the international law definition of terrorism and exceptions to it. While understanding the complexity of possible exceptions and exemptions, I have no difficulty of defining terrorism as a crime against humanity. And a crime against humanity is defined in Article 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. I do not feel the need for another separate definition for an act of terror. I understand the scholars' concerns about the abuse of the term to include also acts of political dissidence or claims for self-determination. Guerrilla warfare used as a tool to defend one's country against 'occupiers' potentially is exempt. For example, I do not think the Palestinians fighting for their land or seeking self-determination are 'terrorists.' It would be absurd to claim that. But who is the target? That is the question. Essentially an act of terror is violence against civilians, not armed forces, therefore it is a crime against the whole humanity, not a particular nation. For example, the 9-11 was a crime against humanity and that is the reason that the whole world not only the US was shaken by it. The difficulty arises when during an armed conflict civilians also die because of deliberate lack of differentiation. How do you then draw the line? During the Lebanon-Israeli crisis last year the Human Rights Watch was disturbed by Israel's lack of differentiation resulting in many civilian deaths on the Lebanese side. Is that an act of terror or an unhappy by-product of war/armed conflict? After all, we all know that war means deaths not only of armed soldiers but unfortunately and most dreadfully of innocent civilians. The 9-11 and Benazir Bhutto's killing were classic acts of terror but other events are really harder to pin down. My issue is not how to define terrorism, but how to classify certain events under its column (related issues). Another problem is how to attribute terror acts to states? When certain states covertly assist various terrorist organizations by sponsoring, financing, giving them refuge on their territories, aren't they also responsible? But then isn't that a dangerous road to take? Then we would authorize ourselves to attack these states in 'preemptive self-defense'. How reasonable is that? Is that right? Should innocent civilians pay the heavy price of acts done by certain criminals?

Now another challenge is to find an appropriate international criminal forum for trying individuals/groups charged with this crime. Similar to ICTY and ICTR we need an impartial tribunal to try these folks. Then we would eliminate the whole problem/unlawfulness of Guantanamo-like detentions. I think we already have such a tribunal-- the ICC. The only problem is to convince the United States that ICC should be the appropriate place for trying these individuals. The next step for the United States is to ratify the Rome Statute and deliver these detainees to the Hague...

Hardline on secession in the name of anti-terror...

In China the public has welcomed the death sentences handed down to five Muslim Uighurs from Xinjiang region. The Uighurs are Indo-European people who comprised 90 per cent of Xinjiang when the People's Republic of China was established in 1949. Since then they have been reduced to a 45 per cent minority in a region now dominated by Han Chinese. The control is in the hands of the latter in a region rapidly growing economically. The ethnic links of this group to Turkmenistan and other Central Asian former Soviet republics and the rapid dissolution of the Soviet Union prompted the Uighurs to seek self-determination, not welcomed and quenched at every step by Beijing.

China's official story is that these groups set up terrorist camps as of August 2005 in attempts to achieve their goals. There were also official promulgations linking these groups with Al-Qaida. How true are these official proclamations? Is this intolerance towards minority groups? or is it a hardline stance on secession? As far as the global war on terror, China and Russia through their partnership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, reiterate their commitment in that regard at every meeting. This is because both Russia and China have large Muslim populations, either as neighbors or as minority groups within their respective territories. (for more on this see here, and here)

As to the death sentences, China is perhaps taking advantage of its remoteness to Europe... Russia did not have that luxury and abolished the death penalty against the widespread public support for it...

Collapse of Humanism and Faulkner

The Convention Against Torture went into force on June 26, 1987. The US ratified it on October 21, 1994 with a declaration:

... nothing in this Convention requires or authorizes legislation, or other action by the US prohibited by the Constitution of the US as interpreted by the US.

As I mentioned before, this was a characteristic style of US ratifications of treaties--always, posing the US Constitution as interpreted by the US to be superior, if in clash with the specific Convention.

Furthermore, the US made few well-known today reservations. One was in the form of limiting the definition of torture for its purposes (here):

(1) (a) That with reference to article 1, the United States understands that, in order to constitute torture, an act must be specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering and that mental pain or suffering refers to prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from (1) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering; (2) the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality; (3) the threat of imminent death; or (4) the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the administration or application of mind altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or personality.

This was an important reservation because it basically imposed a specific intent requirement for torture. If torture is inflicted without intent, it does not count as a violation of the Convention.

Furthermore, the US also was worried about protecting its officials:

(d) That with reference to article 1 of the Convention, the United States understands that the term `acquiescence' requires that the public official, prior to the activity constituting torture, have awareness of such activity and thereafter breach his legal responsibility to intervene to prevent such activity.

So, if the public official ignores to learn about the activity, he is shielded from liability.

These reservations and the way the US understands its international obligations came very handy during the tragedy in Abu Ghraib and all the time in Guantanamo. While the US Supreme Court gave certain red lights to the Bush Administration, Congress reacted by enacting the Military Commissions Act of 2006 which was not very helpful. So, nothing happened to reinforce the lessons of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. "Torture" has a very limited definition when it comes to anti-terrorism.

It is quite enlightening to compare the beginning of the 20th century with that of the 21st. It was the collapse of humanism that led to genocides and the two world wars... Now we have terrorism and 'anti-terrorism' wrongs that culminated in another collapse of humanism. William Faulkner, one of the greatest American minds, then warned people not to fight evil with the help of evil... Evil cannot destroy the evil... Only kindness and justice can destroy the evil... Today all should heed very carefully to these words by Faulkner.