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tazzygirl -> RE: Obama: ‘President Does Not Have Power Under Constitution to Unilaterally Authorize a Military Attack (3/25/2011 9:04:34 AM)
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quote:
Truckin', my congressman's staffer didn't know *anything* about any "human rights" treaty with Libya when I called the other day!
The treaties are with the UN. I suggest calling your "congressman" back and telling him to brush up on UN treaties.
The first UN treaty on human rights which the U.S. ratified was the Genocide Convention. This treaty commits the United States to oppose mass murder or attempts at mass extirpation, if the mass murder is directed against racial or religious minorities. After World War II, the United States tried to change the definition of genocide so as to include the mass murder of political opponents, but Stalin's Soviet Union blocked this definitional change. After the treaty was finished in 1948, the United States did not ratify it at once due to concerns over national sovereignty. When the treaty was finally ratified in 1988, the Senate attached a "reservation" (a unilateral modification of a treaty) declaring that, in a departure from the treaty, the U.S. would not accept, except on a case-by-case basis, the jurisdiction of the World Court in genocide cases (the U.S. at the time was angry at the World Court's decision against America in a case brought by Nicaragua). Thus, we won't let the World Court hear genocide charges against this country in the absense of specific agreements allowing such consideration.
Another UN human rights instrument ratified by the United States (in 1992) is the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which protects many of the liberties which we associate with the Bill of Rights, as well as guaranteeing racial and sex equality. The Covenant also requires the suppression of war propaganda and incitement to racial discrimination, but a reservation attached to our ratification indicates that we will not do anything against the First Amendment in dealing with such propaganda. Another reservation reserves the right of the United States to execute anyone it wishes, regardless of restraints placed on capital punishment in the Covenant, such as the 18-year-old minimum age for execution. The Senate graciously agreed, however, not to execute pregnant women (the pro-life lobby may have been at work here, or maybe it was the pro-choicers supporting the right of women on death row to carry their children to term).
Of interest is the Second Optional Protocol to the Civil and Political Rights Covenant. This Protocol abolishes the death penalty, except possibly in certain wartime cases. The United States will probably ratify this treaty within a couple of years...after Hell freezes over.
The United States has also ratified the UN Convention Against Torture. This Convention prohibits torture-something already done by the Civil and Political Rights treaty, and the Convention also makes the extradition of torturers easier.
Finally, the United States has ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. This was in 1994, and I can see how Senators wouldn't want to vote against anything which denounced racial discrimination. The fact is, however, that this treaty is fairly redundant, in that it covers pretty much the same ground as the Civil and Political Rights treaty (which contains anti-discrimination clauses) and the U. S. civil rights laws. Sections of the treaty which forbid racist expression are counterbalanced by a U. S. reservation preserving First Amendment rights.
The Senate, in ratifying the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, declared that the operative paragraphs of the Covenant were not self-executing. This means that, until Congress passes implementing legislation, the courts cannot enforce the rights listed in the treaty unless those rights are already protected by the Constitution or by statute. The Senate attached similar reservations when it ratified the race discrimination treaty and the torture treaty.
There's a little problem here. Article VI of the Constitution declares that treaties made under the authority of the United States are "the supreme law of the land" and binding on state courts. The Fourteenth Amendment declares that no state shall deprive anyone of life, liberty or property without due process of law (the Fifth Amendment contains a similar restriction with respect to the federal government). The meaning of the phrase "due process of law" has been hotly disputed, but pretty much everyone agrees that "due process" includes the requirement in the Magna Carta that anytime the government tries to take away someone's life, liberty or property the government must follow the law of the land, and the law of the land specifically includes treaties. Thus, insofar as the human rights treaties ratified by the Senate protect individual rights from abuse at the hand of the state courts, due process requires that the state courts comply with these treaties.
http://www.essortment.com/human-rights-article-human-rights-treaties-39681.html
You can read the rest there.
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