Global Policy Forum

By John H. Cushman Jr.

A report to the Humanitarian Committee of the General Assembly criticized tactics used by the U.S., saying those methods allowed for the interrogation and imprisonment of suspected terrorists and so-called "enemy combatants" without paying heed to the Geneva Conventions. Van Boven's report did not mention the U.S. specifically, but he stated unequivocally that "no exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification for torture."

The United Nations official charged with monitoring compliance with international prohibitions against torture has sharply criticized several practices adopted by the Bush administration in its campaign against terrorism, the United Nations said Wednesday. Theo van Boven, director of reports on torture, without singling out the United States by name, denounced any attempt to justify practices like holding prisoners in secret locations, moving them from country to country, holding people in painful positions, or depriving them of sleep for long periods. His report, presented on Wednesday to the humanitarian committee of the General Assembly, expressed "serious concern" over "allegations of attempts to circumvent the absolute nature of the prohibition of torture and other forms of ill treatment in the name of countering terrorism, particularly in relation to the interrogation and conditions of detention of prisoners."

The report seemed to be aimed squarely at the Bush administration's attempts to justify its practices, and was presented just days after disclosures in news reports that administration lawyers had permitted the C.I.A. to move some prisoners from Iraq to other places, circumventing provisions of the Geneva Conventions. "The absolute nature of the prohibition of torture and other forms of ill treatment means that no exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification for torture," the report said. "No executive, legislative, administrative or judicial measure authorizing recourse to torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment can be considered as lawful under international law." Mr. van Boven rejected arguments that some harsh interrogation methods should not be considered torture, and said that the detentions of thousands of people since Sept. 11, if they were held in solitary confinement, could be torture. He said the use of secret detention sites should be a punishable crime.