London Times: US claims the right to kidnap British citizens?

Remove all ads!

Team America: World Police!

Really, though. This can't be legal.

 

Cap'n CJ,
according to international law it isn't legal.
According to English law it isn't legal.
According to US law it is legal.

Strikingly enough, the legal theory that US law would nullify international treaties is carefully not being voiced by the US official. He only refers to the US supreme court, but he certainly implies that. Well, lawyers ( ought to ) get it immediately, anyway. You only hear that explicitly from US right wingers like John Bolton and other certified kooks. Point is, it's simply wrong.

National sovereignty (also over the nation's subjects) is as ius cogens internationally accepted and beyond any doubt. Because that is such a fundamental principle, one of the pillars of the international order, it wouldn't make any sense to allow individual states to circumvent their obligations under ius cogens (or under international treaties they signed) by issuing contradicting national laws. So the national laws are considered irrelevant as far as legality under international law is concerned. That would also apply to US re-interpretations of the Geneva conventions and the like. So the Supreme court can decide all day long about legality under US law, it will yield nothing but a yawn internationally - weren't it for the coincidental fact that they are the US supreme court.

The current US administration's point of view that actions being legal after US law is enough, is legally false, quite outrageous even, but correctly reflects global power relations. Try sue a country that doesn't recognise the jurisdiction of the international court of justice and will veto any UN resolution proposed against them. So what the rest of the world does in response is to protest, and bear it, while quietly starting to be less cooperative, leaving the onus (deservedly so) on the US.

 

I bet you in about 3 months the world will forget about it. Then the US will go after someone else, kidnap them, wait a few months and start again. No one will stand up to the US government, and the US is so used to getting it's own way I bet you they'll be shocked if anyone does. Politics and law? No. Just the USA belief that they know whats best for the world. Goodbye International Law (unless it works in favor of the US, in which case they'll keep it as an excuse )

 

The way it is, the actions described are kidnapping, which is a criminal offence. That's not just political or international-law liability of the government. The agents performing the kidnapping committed, as persons, a crime on the territory of the country from which they abducted the suspect. Therefore, they may be prosecuted and extradition treaties may apply. There's nothing, nothing legal at least, to shield them from this responsibility.

And I certainly would like to know what the US government would say if, let's say, British agents kidnapped someone on American soil. I'm not quite sure it would reflect the rights it claims for itself with regard to rendition of suspects from other countries.

 

Chev,
you led me to an interesting thing: The extradition treaty is an international treaty. I have no doubt that kidnapping is on the canon (just in case there is one) for offences covered by the extradition treaty. So, in case the Brits (or the Italians) would demand the extradition of an American national it would be relevant.

When considering the case, the US court would then have to look at the extradition treaty and the rendition act, both federal laws, and decide which one is pre-eminent. This is a systemic conflict where you have two laws of equal rank, that contradict each other. One of the two, quite obviously, is incompatible with international law, whereas the other conflicts with national law.

The correct answer would be to ignore the rendition act and rule to extradite the US national because there is no escape into national law from obligations under international law. The same will be said about Yoo's and Gonzales' efforts to re-interpret as non-torture what clearly is torture.

Now how come I feel this isn't going to happen?

 

Because you hate freedom.

 

Because he's a Pessimistic person.

 

Nooo, it's trickier than that. He's pessimistic on the wrong issues, so he must hate freedom. If he were pessimist on the right issues, he'd be a realist.

There was a forum I frequented some time ago where it was very easy to see the difference. For example, being pessimist on whether welfare state recipients would use their benefits to improve themselves and look for a job and being a pessimist about a certain administration's capacity and willingness to do a decent job would lead to very different responses and epithets.

Still, AMaster, I'm genuinely surprised. I thought the "you hate freedom" phrase fell out of fashion, like, years ago.

 

Ragusa,

International law ranks above statutory law under the level of the constitution itself. However, extradition treaties generally carry some double-punishability clauses, meaning if the act isn't a crime in the extraditing country, extradition won't happen, or some such. I suppose cops are covered under most laws - what they do at work is protected from national laws, meaning the act is not a crime, therefore it won't fulfil the double-punishability clause, so extradition will be blocked. Absent such provisions, well, yeah, British authorities could apply for the extradition of those agents who kidnapped a British citizen.

Yeah.

 

Chev

You're of course right. Worse, I actually know all that I stand corrected What I had in mind was the implementation act.

Kidnapping ought to be punishable in both Britain and the US. But the US official has been absolutely correct. As there is no criminality in the US as those spies kidnapped on official orders, and the US, as every other country, won't extradite their spies, and double-punishability for spy activity sure doesn't apply, that's the end of the story, unless one of the guys is stupid enough to get himself caught in Europe. 'It's legal according to US law' is a very dry way to say all that.