”The fact that internal law does not impose a penalty for an act which constitutes a crime under international law does not relieve the person who committed the act from responsibility under international law.” -- Nuremberg Principle II
Yesterday’s Washington Post column by Walter Pincus asserted that:
”Congress passed legislation that immunized former interrogators and others in the program….Those calling for another federal criminal investigation based on the Senate panel’s report should realize they are not only dealing with an incomplete record but forgetting history.”
Actually, it is Pincus that is forgetting history. When President Ronald Reagan asked the Senate to ratify the Convention Against Torture and Inhuman Treatment or Punishment in 1988, he wrote the following:
”The core provisions of the Convention establish a regime for international cooperation in the criminal prosecution of torturers relying on so-called ‘universal jurisdiction.’ Each State Party is required either to prosecute torturers who are found in its territory or to extradite them to other countries for prosecution.”
Pincus’ assertion that torturers have been granted immunity from prosecution within the U.S. by an act of Congress does not preclude prosecution of those implicated in the CIA report outside the U.S. If a case were brought, the U.S. would be obligated, under the Convention Against Torture, to extradite the defendants. According to a December 10th article in the New York Times:
”The United States is obliged by international law to investigate its citizens suspected of engaging in torture, but even if it does not, Americans who ordered or carried out torture can be prosecuted abroad, by legal bodies including the International Criminal Court, legal experts say.”
Even if the U.S. judicial system’s hands are tied by a prior act of Congress, that does not tie the hands of foreign courts. However, the very premise of Pincus’ piece is cast into doubt by one of the authors of the memos that authorized “enhanced interrogation,” John Yoo, who indicated in a CNN interview that:
”if these things happened as they are described in the report, as you describe them, those were not authorized by the Justice Department. They were not supposed to be done and those people who did those are at risk legally because they were acting outside their orders.”
If it is confirmed that individuals exceeded their (already morally bankrupt) mandate, those culpable should be prosecuted. As a society, it would be tragic to have even less of a moral compass than John Yoo.