EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION IS NEW LOW FOR INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY

The three suicides reported from Guantanamo, combined with the continuing use of extraordinary rendition by the CIA on behalf of the United States and with the cooperation and collusion of many European governments, who are violating their own charter as to Human Rights, and the peremptory killing of a family on a beach in Gaza, mean we have sunk to an appalling level where one must question the viability of International Law.

Any government that believes in the fundamental principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, or in such statements as that of the European Convention on Human Rights, must not just unequivocally condemn what is happening in Guantanamo but must campaign for its immediate closure.

No campaign against international terrorism is served by operating outside of international law in its most fundamental aspects. Indeed the United States Supreme Court itself has spoken in the past on the importance of not using tyrannical methods in dealing with what was suggested as the threat of tyranny.

The whole nexus of extraordinary rendition, often with an endpoint of detention in Guantanamo, or of such interrogation in third countries as creates the real fear of inhuman, and degrading, punishment, or torture itself, is an appalling indictment of international practice at the present time by some of the most powerful nations.

The protection of the person by law itself is receding daily. Even as to torture itself, there is an attempt by the most powerful states to redefine its meaning despite a universal abhorrence and rejection of the practice at the time of the passing of the United Nations Convention.

The three suicides that have taken place in Guantanamo have occurred in the context of there having been 41 attempted suicides in recent years. There must be no doubt in anyone’s mind that enforced disappearance, the hooding, kidnapping, and detention of persons, outside of any legal protection and in indeterminate circumstances is an oppression of such a scale that it can be regarded as torture.

The international community is tested by its willingness to achieve the closure of Guantanamo and related facilities immediately. It is these events that make it imperative for smaller nations to vindicate the fundamental principles of international law. Such vindication requires not just a rhetorical assent to the principles but practices ands compliance that are transparent and sufficient given the fundamental issues that are involved.

Extraordinary rendition is a clear breach of the norms of Public
International Law. Such norms require a positive compliance. In the case of landings at Shannon by planes on leases to the CIA there is an obvious requirement that Human Rights law is not being broken. The Irish government is not in a position to give us any assurance on this. It has neither put such conditions to its permission to use the facilities at Shannon nor has it executed such inspections as would monitor basic compliance with International Law.

The purpose of our Motion this evening is to ensure that Ireland is seen by the International community and even moiré importantly, by its own citizens, to have fulfilled its positive obligations in relation to such fundamental principles of International Law as are contained in:

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights 1966, the Convention against Torture, and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment 1984, the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms 1950.

The context in which I move this Motion on behalf of the Labour Party is one in which there is a serious erosion of commitment to International Law.
Extraordinary Rendition is part of the new extra-legal environment that has been created in the name of combating international terror.

Taken together with the establishment of places of detention such as Guantanamo, the acceptance of the principle of pre-emptive strikes and assassination, and the absence of care for the rights of civilians, as exemplified by the killing in the last week of a family on a beach in Gaza, the snatching of persons, their transmission without legal protection to places of detention outside of the law, represents the lowest point to which respect for International legal principles has sunk in recent decades.

Ireland at this juncture has to clearly establish its position in relation to such developments. It has to clarify its own position immediately and without equivocation. Indeed Irish people are appalled that we have been pout in the position of defending ourselves from the finding of being part of an extra-legal process rather than having been seen to have given a lead in defending international law.

On such issues as torture, enforced disappearance, or illegal detention, which are of the first order of importance in International law, we are required, I repeat, to be unequivocal, not only in relation to our condemnation of such practices, but in relation to the procedures we put in place to clearly show that we are not part of any process of facilitating such extra-legal activity.

So far the Irish Government has not done so. It has not carried out inspections of aircraft on lease to the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States which have landed in Shannon. Some of these aircraft have been identified through their registration number as the very aircraft that were involved in Extraordinary Rendition.

The Irish Government had the capacity, of course, to inspect such aircraft under the Civil Aviation Legislation of 1988 and 1998. It did not exercise this right. Indeed in Ireland’s reply to the questionnaire of the Secretary General of the Council of Europe it stated that it had the legislation referred to but it omitted to state that it had not boarded any plane.

The Irish Government has chosen instead to rely on assurances given by the United States that Shannon had not been used for Extraordinary Rendition.
It has, however, never sought information as to why the very planes on lease for use by the CIA, and working in clear breach of International Law, were landing in Shannon, being serviced on their flights to or from such places as Rabat in Morocco, Cairo in Egypt, and Amman in Jordan, all places where abductions or illegal detentions have taken place, and where there is a real fear that interrogations would involve cruel, inhuman or degrading conditions, and even torture itself, taking place.

Diplomatic assurances have been rejected as a satisfactory compliance with the UN Convention against Torture by nearly all of the International Authorities who have engaged with this subject. These include the European Court of Human Rights who as long ago as 1996 in the Chahal v UK case decided that diplomatic assurances were not adequate.

The United Nations Committee against Torture has stated a similar view in the more recent case involving Sweden. The Secretary General of the Council of Europe, the authoritative Venice Commission in its Report on the International legal obligations of Members of the Council of Europe of March 2006, the Report of the Temporary Committee of the European Parliament, the Irish Commission on Human Rights last December, have all stressed the inadequacy of diplomatic assurances on what was taking place.

Diplomatic assurances were never sufficient, are not now sufficient, nor will they meet our positive obligation in international law. The acceptance of this fact by the Irish government is one of the requirements of our
motion. Neither is it acceptable that insistence on inspection or
monitoring of such conditions as we might impose for the protection of Human Rights, could in any sense be regarded as an unfriendly act.

We are required to ensure that ‘extraordinary rendition’ do not occur on our territory, or over our airspace. We are required to investigate any claims that such have taken place. The burden of evidence in such claims does not lie with the civilians who are making them, but with the state itself. It is the state that has the legal capacity to investigate claims.

On foot of diplomatic assurances the state has not sought to board planes or to establish the fact of compliance or otherwise with the permission which it has given for the landing and service of civilian planes which may be used by the CIA for extra-legal purposes.

The Irish government has put itself in the position of not being able to say it can show that it was not silently collusive in the sense of the Marty Report.

It is important for the motion to be passed this evening so that an investigation can be initiated as to the purpose of such landings as have taken place by aircraft whose registration numbers have been associated with extra-legal landings in Europe and elsewhere in the last number of years; to ensure that adequate conditions in the sense of human rights and Public International Law may be placed in such permission which may be granted in the future; and that adequate monitoring mechanism be put in place.

We need to take these measures so as to restore our credibility in the international community. We are thus calling on the government:

1. to accept its legal and constitutional responsibility to ensure that the territory and facilities of this State are not used for illicit purposes and especially not for human rights violations by any other state;

2. to support the recommendations outlined in the draft resolution of the Legal Affairs Committee before the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe;

3. to establish a credible independent investigation into the existence of any secret and extralegal arrangements, agreements or understandings, whether formal or informal, between the Irish authorities and the authorities of any other State, including at senior political level, as regards over-flights, stopovers and extraordinary rendition;

4. to use the full powers available under the Air Transport and Navigation Act, and to make such amendments as are appropriate in such Acts for the vindication and guarantee of human rights, and to use such powers and powers under the Chicago Convention to introduce an appropriate regime of inspection of civilian aircraft, rather than relying solely on Garda powers relating to crime investigations, and

5. to outline what further proposals it has in order to honour its commitments in this regard under constitutional, domestic and international law.