Mr President, one of the interesting things in the discussion on Guantanamo Bay concerns language, not least the new definitions of war that we begin to hear, which have no legal basis in any international jurisdiction.
Mention has already been made of the UK releases today, and of course I welcome that development, but I am also interested in who is defending the interests of the remaining detainees, whose governments may not have a special relationship with the United States. I welcome this report because I think it is very important to keep the whole issue within the international arena.
As others have said, we have seen a deliberately created legal limbo here, which has provided a green light for other regimes to act in similar ways now, not least China, Yemen, Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia and other well-known democracies, with their policy of internment of so-called fundamentalists. We have seen the United Kingdom derogate from Articles of the European Convention on Human Rights in order to legitimise the internment in Belmarsh of UK residents. It is important to respect the rule of international humanitarian law, even when it is inconvenient for governments.
Jean Lambert |