Category: Punishment

UDHR@75: Dignity Brings About Change

Crime and Criminal Law, Global Justice Academy, Human Dignity, Human rights, incarceration, Punishment, UDHR

This blog forms part of a series celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Recognising the numerous conflicts and the daily breaches of human rights taking place across the globe, this series aims to highlight both the challenges and the opportunities to respect, protect and fulfil the human rights elaborated in the UDHR.

 

 

 

Dignity Brings about Change 

Article 1 of the UDHR 

‘All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.’ 

When I was a prisoner at 19 in Taiwan, I slept on the floor of my cell between two other men. We did not have running water and so filled buckets to use for cleaning and washing. Twice a week we were allowed 20 minutes of exercise. We had no rights which I was aware of, but I felt deeply that this was not how people should be treated and convinced it would not reduce reoffending.  

I was eventually transferred to prison in the United Kingdom which had its own challenges. Prisoners would queue at a shuttered window clutching a stinking prison jumper or wet pair of joggers to trade for a fresh one, only to be told there weren’t enough to go around. During the Beast from the East, I piled everything I had around me, including a damp towel, so I wouldn’t freeze to death as there weren’t enough blankets. Days would sometimes pass without being let out of our cells, and when we were, we had to choose between a shower, posting important forms, or exercise. Grime and slime coated the showers, with only the foolhardy or unfortunate braving them barefoot. Dignity was nowhere to be found.

I reached an open prison and was elected by my fellow prisoners to lead the Prison Council. I was determined to act with reason and conscience to change the injustices which had so grated on me – and to discover new injustices and fight those also. Previously the Council had been viewed as self-serving, but I endeavored to change that, and proceed in the spirit of brotherhood.  

Alongside my co-leader, we set up targeted forums to identify issues affecting prisoners. Black, Asian, and minority ethnic offenders felt they were being overlooked for jobs within the prison. We drafted, negotiated, and implemented a new employment policy which ensured that all jobs were properly advertised and interviewed for. Prisoners complained of swarms of rats, lack of heating in winter, and broken showers. We liaised with the works department and put-up posters informing people of how to report such issues, which resulted in faster fixes. We held regular meetings with senior management, sat on the prison equalities board, and lobbied for better access to work and education. Essential forms for day or overnight release were overcomplicated, creating barriers to rehabilitation for those offenders with poor literacy. We leveraged the goodwill we had built up with management and were permitted to rewrite the forms ourselves to be far more accessible. The improvements I secured made the prison safer, more effective, and not by coincidence – more dignified.  

Despite what some in Government would have us believe, we should not be meeting demand for prisons, but reducing it. When we take a person’s freedom that they were born into, we must not rob them of their dignity also. For it is dignity which inspires hope, and hope which inspires change. 

 

As part of the GJA UDHR@75 celebration, we invited present and past students to contribute their personal reflections on the relevance of the UDHR today. This blog is by Chris Walters. Chris is a law student and Longford Trust scholar.

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Comparing Police Discipline in the US and the UK: Lessons for American Law Enforcement – Part 1

American law enforcement, Conflict, Labour rights, Police and Policing, Punishment, Security, UK, US Politics, USA

This post is the first of a two-part blog by Prof. Paul Clark comparing police discipline in the US and the UK. Part I focuses on the relevant similitudes and differences between police discipline in the two countries and highlights the connections between police trade unions and police discipline.

Paul F. Clark is Professor and former Director, School of Labor and Employment Relations at Penn State University in the United States.  His research has focused on employment relations, labor unions, and the globalization of labor markets.  His current focus is on police unions and police disciplinary processes in the UK and the US.  He has authored or edited six books and his research has appeared in the leading scholarly journals in industrial and labor relations, applied psychology, and international labor issues.  He has served as a visiting professor at universities in Scotland, Australia, and New Zealand and is currently President-elect of the U.S.-based Labor and Employment Relations Association.

 

Recent high-profile cases of police misconduct in the U.S. have heightened racial tensions and increased public awareness of systematic problems in American law enforcement.  The deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor at the hands of Minneapolis and Louisville police in 2020 were met by widespread protest around the world and for calls for police reform.

Photo by Gayatari Malhotra on Unsplash

The fact that Derek Chauvin, the officer who knelt on Floyd’s neck causing his death, had 18 complaints regarding serious misconduct filed against him since 2001 and was still working as a police officer, has contributed to the impression that American police are not being held accountable for their actions.

In the wake of these concerns, the movement to reform American policing has gained momentum.  This reform movement is looking at all aspects of American law enforcement including oversight, funding, training, use of force, hiring, pay, and recruitment.  However, one important element that has received minimal consideration in discussions about reform are the processes for disciplining police officers accused of misconduct.

While the British public has concerns about police misconduct, police are viewed more favorably in the UK than in the US.  In surveys conducted in 2020, 74 percent of people aged 16 and over in England and Wales reported having confidence in their local police, while only 48 percent of Americans held that view.

A preliminary examination of the UK police complaint and discipline processes indicates that these processes differ significantly from, and work more effectively than, those in the US.  This suggests that there may be elements of the British system of police discipline that could be adapted and adopted by American law enforcement.

To learn more about the UK police complaint and discipline processes, I spent the spring of 2022 in residence at the University of Edinburgh’s Global Justice Academy and the University of Oxford Law School.  Because England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland each have their own systems of law enforcement, they each have their own police complaint and discipline processes.  In the course of my work, I gathered information about the three processes and conducted 37 interviews with parties involved in these processes—police forces, police federations representing officers, independent public oversight agencies, and neutral hearing officers.  An analysis of the data collected identified a few elements that differ significantly from the discipline processes in the US and that, in my view, have potential to improve what is now, in many cases, a problematic process in the US.

Police disciplinary processes in the UK and the US have some elements in common.  Disciplinary processes are utilized to deal with both public complaints about officer conduct and internal charges made by police colleagues or supervisors.  Public or internal charges can result in an investigation into an officer’s conduct.  The results of the investigation are considered by police administrators and the charged officer (and the officer’s representatives) are given opportunities to respond.  If the charges are not resolved, the case can go before a neutral third party who renders a decision.

Photo by King’s Church International on Unsplash

One significant difference between the US and UK systems of law enforcement is that the majority of police officers in the US belong to trade unions (57.5 percent in 2019) that have the right to collective bargaining. Some of these police unions, mostly in large cities, have used their bargaining power to negotiate contract clauses that make it harder to discipline their members. These unions also generally take a more adversarial approach when advocating for their members in the discipline process than their counterparts in the UK.  For these unions, “defending the member at all costs” is the priority, even when the officer or officers involved have engaged in problematic behavior.

A recent analysis found that in 624 police discharge cases heard by arbitrators (neutral third parties) nationwide between 2006 and 2020, police officers were reinstated to their jobs 52 percent of the time. During the same period, in Minneapolis, in six of eight cases involving the discharge of police officers, the charges were overturned, and the officers returned to their jobs.

In the UK, police are not permitted to be represented by a trade union.  Instead, officers at all ranks are represented by professional associations that advocate for the good and welfare of their members (for example, constables, sergeants, and inspectors in England and Wales are represented by the Police Federation of England and Wales), but do not engage in collective bargaining.  While these federations and associations fight for their members when they feel they have been treated unfairly, they also tend to look more broadly at what is good for the policing profession and for the community.  In some instances, they may put the interests of the profession and the community ahead of those of an individual member.  For example, they might try to counsel a problematic officer into resigning from the force, rather than fight to get their job back.  One long-serving police federation representative told me he thought “he might be responsible for getting rid of more bad cops than the police force had.”

Certainly, some police unions in the US do what they can to make sure that officers not suited to policing do not continue to serve.  But in some notable cases where unions have won reinstatement for officers accused of excess force, racism, or corruption, these officers have continued to engage in misconduct. If they want to increase the public’s confidence in their members, the more aggressive police unions need to moderate their approach to representing their members and emphasize what is good for the profession and the community.

In addition to moderating their defense of “bad cops,” some US police unions need to consider rethinking existing contract language that makes it difficult for police departments to discipline officers (while still ensuring that they receive appropriate due process).  Both changes would have a positive impact on how the public views the police.

Finally, it should be noted that an additional reason that police officers fired for misconduct in the US (and sometimes in the UK) are put back on the job is that police management sometimes does a poor job of investigating and building discipline cases against officers.  Bringing a weak case before a neutral third party greatly increases the chances that a union will win the case and enable an undeserving officer to retain their job.  Where this happens, police managers need to improve their performance.

Continue reading part 2 of this two-part blog.

 

 

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‘We Need to Talk About an Injustice’: Bryan Stevenson delivers Ruth Adler Lecture at University of Edinburgh

Crime and Criminal Law, death penalty, Democracy, Edinburgh, Global Justice Academy, Globally Just Leadership, Human rights, incarceration, Inequalities, Law and Legal, liberty, Punishment, race, USA, Victimisation

Law PhD Candidate, Vivek Bhatt

In this guest post, Law PhD Candidate, Vivek Bhatt, reflects on Bryan Stevenson’s visit to Edinburgh Law School to give the 2019 Ruth Adler Memorial Lecture, and to receive an honorary doctorate as part of the School’s summer graduation ceremony.

Bryan Stevenson (c) Nick Frontiero Photography 2019

 

 

 

On 8 July 2019, the Global Justice Academy hosted a lecture by Bryan Stevenson, recipient of an honorary doctorate at the Edinburgh Law School.  Stevenson is founder of the Equal Justice Institute (EJI) in Montgomery, Alabama, and a clinical professor at the NYU School of Law. Stevenson works as a legal representative for disadvantaged and marginalised individuals, particularly young and poor people who are on death row or serving life sentences. He and his colleagues at the EJI have achieved the exoneration or release of over 125 individuals on death row. Stevenson is also the author of Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption,[1]  which was a New York Times bestseller and won the Carnegie Medal for the best nonfiction book of 2014.

Stevenson’s lecture circulated around a question that is as succinct as it is complex: how do we, as human rights advocates, address injustice? Firstly, he said, we must create justice by becoming proximate to those suffering inequality and injustice. Recounting his relationship with his grandmother, who wished that Stevenson would always be able to feel her embracing him, the skilful orator argued that we must know and seek to understand those who suffer injustice in order to affirm their humanity and dignity. Thus, human rights practice is not about the deployment of legal arguments from afar, but rather about stepping away from one’s legal expertise and embracing those who suffer violations of dignity.

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Off the Record: Medical Records in the 9/11 Military Commission

Blog, Global Justice Academy, Guantanamo, Health, Human rights, Inequalities, International Law, Law and Legal, Punishment, Terrorism, Torture

This post continues the blog series by Dr Kasey McCall-Smith which examines some of the contentious legal issues raised in the US v. Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, et. al. military commission proceedings against the five men charged with various war crimes and terrorism in relation to the 11 September 2001 attacks on the US. The series is a continuation of her project ‘Torture on Trial’ which was funded by a grant from the Royal Society of Edinburgh and is supported by the Edinburgh Law School.

Personal Data and National Security: Medical Records in the 9/11 Military Commission

Almost since the inception of the 9/11 military commissions, defense lawyers have fought to obtain the full medical records of their clients. In any normal court, a client’s ownership and access to their personal medical records would go unchallenged. The right to privacy is fairly clear on this. Whether relying on the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments of the US Constitution or article 17 of the ICCPR, individuals have the right to control their personal medical information with some exceptions (notably those outlined in HIPAA in the US). However, in the largest criminal justice trial in US history, access to medical records is shrouded in secrecy and national security privilege is reinforced through redactions to files covering even the simplest of medical treatment, such as providing ibuprofen for pain relief.

Joint Task Force Guantánamo, the cross-branch military force created by the US Department of Defense to run detention operations in Guantánamo, is responsible for assessing and delivering care for the medical needs of all detainees. As a result, it maintains full medical records on the 40 men still held in the detention facility. Government prosecutors also have copies of the full records. However, neither the defendants, nor their attorneys, are able to gather a full account of their medical information because full access is consistently rejected by the Government in the name of national security.

The complete medical records sought begin with those documenting the intake of the defendants in 2006 when they arrived in Guantánamo following years on CIA black sites. The records covering the medical treatment of the five 9/11 defendants is crucial to the case due to the systematic torture they endured at the hands of the CIA and the statements of guilt some are alleged to have given to the FBI shortly after arriving in Guantánamo. The physical and psychological impact of the enhanced interrogation techniques on the men, as documented in the Senate Intelligence Committee Study on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program (SSCI Summary Report) further speaks to a range of issues that are highly relevant to the trial, not the least their ability to participate in their own defence and their competence to even be in the dock.

A primary point of contention comes in response to the public availability of the record of torture, inhuman and degrading treatment the defendants suffered on black sites. The SSCI Summary Report is very clear on the issue of the defendants’ treatment. The CIA shredded all pretence in terms of legality with regard to the treatment of these five men and many others. Constructing an understanding of their physical and mental states in the lead up to the FBI interrogations in January 2007 will shed light on whether those statements may be excluded as torture evidence, an issue that remains unclear at the close of the 35th round of pre-trial hearings.

Redacted medical records

While there is a great amount of writing and authority on the issues of confidentiality, privacy and security of medical records, those discussions are predominantly focused on keeping personal records closed for the benefit of the patient. In the 9/11 case, the reverse is true. Defense teams have spent years trying to gain full access to their clients’ personal medical files. In many instances it is not only about their variable litigation strategies but also about helping explain their client’s individual health issues to them more fully. As has often been raised in court, a number of the defendants suffer conditions akin to post-traumatic stress disorder and there have been suggestions of brain damage following MRI scans, all indicia of the ill-treatment they endured in CIA captivity.

Trial counsel for the government has turned over 47.000 pages of medical history to the defendants relating to medical, psychological, dental or therapist visits since their arrival in Guantánamo. The problem is that all of the documents are redacted to some extent and predominantly it is medical personnel identifiers that are removed. With the exception of seven real name examples Government counsel acknowledged as ones he had ‘missed’ in error, all names have been replaced by unique medical identifiers (UMIs) or redacted to obscure the identification. The UMIs include designators such as Dr Shrek, SMO (Senior Medical Officer) and Dr 10. More vexing for defense counsel is the fact that several of the UMIs are not unique at all. As counsel argued before the commission, in the course of their examination of the records provided by the Government, it has become clear that the same UMI was used by different medical professionals in some cases and in others individuals had used different UMIs in a haphazard way. This inconsistency frustrates defense efforts to piece together a clear picture of their clients’ physical and mental states when they arrived fresh from their years on black sites as they are unable to corroborate the information derived from the incomplete reports.

Persistent threats to medical personnel?

The Government contends that these men pose a direct threat to the safety of medical personnel and their families. It is an interesting argument considering the defendants’ long-term address in the top-secret, maximum security Camp 7 where the very limited communication they have with the outside world is subjected to extensive security and classification reviews. Government counsel went as far as to claim that threats against medical personnel are made ‘practically every day, certainly at least once a month’, suggesting that they were made by the men for whom the military medical corps has provided care for roughly 11 years. It is unlikely that evidence of these ‘threats’ will ever be seen by the public. Such evidence, if it exists, may be proffered through ex parte submissions to the judge anytime prosecution invokes the national security privilege. Defense efforts to substantiate claims of the threats have been fruitless and, according to counsel, none of the few medical personnel that have been tracked down have suggested that they were ever threatened in the course of their treatment.

In-court exchanges suggest that all government explanations of medical records are to be taken at face value despite multiple proffers of error by defense counsel. The more bizarre fact is the Government admission in previous commission exchanges that medical records including the names of medical professionals, is not classified material. Even if classified, or marked as sensitive, the legal team members all have the clearance to view the full documents. In a case heavily dependent on classified material, it is not uncommon for the cleared lawyers to access materials for investigation purposes without sharing the information with their clients. It, therefore, boggles the mind that the Government continues to deny defense counsel information necessary to fully investigate each defendant’s case. It seems solely obstructive that defense counsel is forced to argue for access to full medical records bit by bit as the responsive records provided after each successful motion provides only a bit more information than before. Very simply, the Government should provide unclassified information when requested through discovery.

The tussle over complete medical records appears to be a circular exercise. No logic can explain the stalemate in relation to complete medical records for the 9/11 defendants. And with a third judge due to assume control of the case at the 36th round of hearings in June 2019, the issue is likely far from over.

Off the Record: 9/11 Military Commission in its 7th Year

Blog, Conflict, Crime and Criminal Law, death penalty, Global Justice Academy, Guantanamo, Human rights, incarceration, Law and Legal, Punishment, Terrorism, Torture

This is the third post in a blog series by Dr Kasey McCall-Smith which examines some of the contentious legal issues raised in the US v. Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, et. al. military commission proceedings against the five men charged with various war crimes and terrorism in relation to the 11 September 2001 attacks on the US. The series is a continuation of her project ‘Torture on Trial’ which was funded by a grant from the Royal Society of Edinburgh and is supported by the Edinburgh Law School.

Whatever Happened to the Alleged 9/11 Terror Plotters? 9/11 Military Commission in its 7th Year

The largest criminal justice trial in US history is currently taking place on Naval Station Guantánamo Bay. For the most part, the general public has no idea. Apart from consistent media coverage by a small handful of journalists, including Carol Rosenberg (formally of The Miami Herald and now with the New York Times) and John Ryan of Lawdragon, the US public and the formerly vocal academy have forgotten that five men, Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, Khallad bin Attash, Ammar al-Baluchi, Ramzi Bin Al-Shibh and Mustafa al-Hawsawi, are charged with conspiracy to commit various war crimes and terrorism in relation to the September 11th attacks under the Military Commissions Act 2009 (MCA) in United States v. Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, et al. (9/11 case). In previous blogs I have explained the choice of venue for the detention facility, law of war detention, details on some of the detainees, and addressed issues relating to torture. This series looks in more detail at specific issues in the trial and why controversial legal stand-offs may not go away.

The first incarnation of the military commissions were replaced by the MCA following the US Supreme Court decisions in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld and Boumediene v. Bush. The MCA applies to alien terrorist suspects and members of al Qaida, defined as alien ‘unprivileged enemy belligerents’, rounded up from 2002-2008, though recently there has been talk of the potential use of the statute to detained ISIS fighters.

 

The MCA sets out its applicability to offences before, on and after 11 September 2001 and raises questions about the long-standing principle of no ex post facto laws and the creative addition of ‘conspiracy’ to accepted war crimes definitions. The statute combines different and overlapping issues of military law, constitutional law and international law. Observing the 9/11 hearings, the failure to thoroughly evaluate the relationship between these different legal systems is proving problematic in every aspect of the trial’s slow progress. The only clarity lies in the fact that legislative responses to 9/11 were walled off from the realities of the outrageous conduct of the CIA during its Rendition, Detention and Interrogation programme.

According to the Senate Intelligence Committee Study on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program (SSCI Report), it is well documented that Khalid Shaikh Mohammad was subjected to combinations of ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’, so-called EITs, equating to torture designed to exercise total control over the victim. Notably, he suffered periods of sleep deprivation lasting up to 180 hours and was ultimately waterboarded 183 times. The other four defendants were similarly treated. Bin Al-Shibh was subjected to EITs for approximately 34 days and kept in social isolation for almost 2.5 years. Bin Attash and al-Baluchi were subjected to EITs over a period of months. The CIA waterboarded al-Hawsawi and further subjected him to such brutal bodily treatment that he suffers irreparable physical damage. In short, US agents subjected each of them to a sustained and systematic programme of torture in direct violation of US and international law.

The illegal actions by the US were defended by the then Bush Administration as necessary to national security. When rumours and then evidence of ill-treatment began to leak out of US military bases abroad, international civil society and US civil rights groups called for the US, as well States working in concert with the US, to maintain detention and treatment standards demanded by the law. In particular, the customary Law of War and standards outlined in the Geneva Conventions as well as the Convention Against Torture were frequently invoked. Yet as the first detainees arrived in Guantánamo on 11 January 2002 these well-established rules appeared to be the furthest thing from the US government’s mind. For anyone watching as the first goggled and shackled jumpsuit-clad men dropped to their knees in the Cuban heat it was clear that this would be a long game. Of the approximately 780 men that were detained in Guantánamo since it opened the doors to the now defunct Camp X-Ray (pictured below), only 40 remain. One man (Balhul) is serving his sentence following conviction by military commission, 26 are known as ‘forever prisoners’ and eight are currently under charge, including the 9/11 defendants. The 9/11 charge sheet alleges that the defendants committed conspiracy, attacked civilians, and committed murder in violation of the Law of War, intentionally caused serious bodily harm, hijacked an aircraft, and committed acts of terrorism resulting in the deaths of 2.976 along with countless injuries. Following their arraignment on 5 May 2012, intentionally causing serious bodily injury was struck from the charges in the early months of the case. From the outset, issues regarding public access to the trial were raised. Limited public access to close circuit broadcast sites was offered to families soon after the litigation commenced. Though now only a trickle of viewers attend the 40 second delayed live-streams at Fort Meade, Fort Devens and Fort Hamilton. The roster of media and civil society observers at Camp Justice, too, can only be described as small when compared to the original outpouring of attention on the detention activities in Guantánamo.

In its 7th year of pre-trial proceedings, the 9/11 case is bogged down in a range of issues (see subsequent posts) that challenge the rule of law to its very core. How to reconcile the defendants’ status as both alleged terrorist war criminals and torture victims? Does US ‘reinterpretation’ of war crimes definitions square with the law of war? Can an appropriate balance between the alleged crimes and victimhood be achieved? Will the victims of 9/11 ever get the justice they deserve and, if so, at what cost? Seventeen years after the horrendous acts that markedly shifted western governments into a new era of aggressive national security pursuits, it seems that only time will tell. At the conclusion of the 35th round of hearings, we are left only with questions. 

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Why torture? Exploring our Perceptions of Torture, and What Causes It

Atrocities, Crime and Criminal Law, Global Justice Academy, Human rights, Police and Policing, Punishment, Students participate!, Torture

In this post, our Communications Intern, Jee-Young Song, reports from the second day of the recent GJA-sponsored GREYZONE summer school.

26 June 2018 was the second day of the GREYZONE Summer School, and starting the day’s session was Danielle Celemajer, Professor of Sociology and Social Anthropology at the University of Sydney. Titled ‘The worlds that produce torture’, the main question put to us was:

“What causes torture?”

The straightforward answer to this would of course be obvious: doesn’t torture occur because a malignant perpetrator decided to inflict such an act on the victim?

However, this is an over-simplistic approach, as Professor Celemajer professed her view that there is in fact a complex map of causality for torture, with many contributory factors which extend beyond the scope of the individual perpetrator.

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Incarceration in Scotland: a system with positive evolutions in need of a generalisation of its good practices

Crime and Criminal Law, incarceration, Inequalities, Innovative Initiative Fund, Law and Legal, Punishment, Scotland, UK, United Kingdom

In this guest post, Coline Constantin reflects on the recent seminar that tackled issues around incarceration in Scotland. Coline is reading for an LLM in Human Rights at Edinburgh Law School, and applied for funding for this event from the Global Justice and Global Development Academies’ Innovative Initiative Fund.

Scotland has the second highest imprisonment rate in Europe. Although English headlines for issues of overcrowding, under staffing, rising rates of self-harming cases do not find an echo north of the border, the statistic still makes it worth taking a closer look at its system. On Thursday 26 April, an engaged audience gathered at the University of Edinburgh to hear more about the positive developments and challenges of the Scottish system of detention.

Three panellists from different fields of expertise and different view angles on the Scottish situation were invited to cover topics from policy-making, to the implementation and analysis of these policies. Professor Richard Sparks, Convenor of Howard League Scotland and criminologist specialised on the different systems of detention in the UK, took us through his analysis of the particularities of the Scottish case within the UK and European context. Tom Halpin, Chief Executive of Sacro and prominent figure in the reduction of inequalities in the Scottish criminal justice system, gave us a sense of the work that is being done with communities and specific groups of people with convictions to go towards better mentoring and guidance throughout the process. Pete White, Chief Executive of Positive Prisons? Positive Future and fascinating storyteller, treated the audience with a story of his personal experience from his time inside and the aftermath of this life-changing event.

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The Shadows of Torture: Reporting from Guantánamo

Human rights, incarceration, International Law, Law and Legal, Punishment, Terrorism, Torture, USA

This series of blogs presents a number of the legal issues raised at the April – May 2018 military commission proceedings against the alleged plotters of the 11 September 2001 (9/11) terror attacks against the US in the case of US v. Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, et. al. taking place at Camp Justice, Guantánamo Bay Naval Station, Cuba.

The author, Dr Kasey McCall-Smith, is conducting a research project entitled Torture on Trial, which is funded by the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

1. The Shadows of Torture

When people speak about torture and the war on terror, the most egregious and publicly decried acts generally pop to mind: waterboarding, walling, sleep deprivation, and so on. As the military commission proceedings in case of US v. Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, et. al. (KSM case) unfold, less examined examples aspects of torture reveal the irreversible physical and mental impacts on victims of such abuse.

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Getting to Grips with Guantánamo IV: Person Zero & Camp 7

Atrocities, Evidence, Human rights, incarceration, Law and Legal, liberty, Punishment, Terrorism, Torture, USA

KMSThis post is by Kasey McCall-Smith: a lecturer in Public International Law and programme director for the LLM in Human Rights at Edinburgh Law School.

This post is the fourth in a series of blogs that chronicle the history and current state of play regarding the US rendition and detention programme in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. They were written during the author’s visit to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to observe military commission proceedings in the case of USA v. Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, et. al.  30 May – 3 June 2016, which is the initial phase of her project Getting to Grips with Guantánamo.

In my last post, the use of evidence obtained through torture in the case of US v. Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, et. al. (KSM case) was introduced. This post further considers how torture impacts detainees held at Guantánamo and the 9/11 trial. An interesting addition to the already complex pre-trial considerations is the possible appearance of a detainee who has not been seen in public since he was rendered into the custody of the CIA. Abu Zubaydah, a Palestinian, is believed to have been taken into CIA custody in 2002 following his capture in Pakistan. After three years on a CIA ‘black site’, he was delivered to Joint Task Force-Guantánamo (JTF-GTMO) in 2006 where he remains a High Value Detainee (HVD) despite never having been charged with a crime. As characterised by former FBI agent, Ali Soufan, Zubaydah is the ‘original sin’ of the US in its post-9/11 anti-terror campaign.

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Getting to Grips with Guantánamo III: Torture Evidence

Atrocities, death penalty, Evidence, Human rights, incarceration, Law and Legal, liberty, Punishment, Terrorism, Torture, USA

KMSThis post is by Kasey McCall-Smith: a lecturer in Public International Law and programme director for the LLM in Human Rights at Edinburgh Law School.

This post is the third in a series of blogs that chronicle the history and current state of play regarding the US rendition and detention programme in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. They were written during the author’s visit to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to observe military commission proceedings in the case of USA v. Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, et. al.  30 May – 3 June 2016, which is the initial phase of her project Getting to Grips with Guantánamo.

Right now, on a small island in the Caribbean, what will ultimately be one of the most comprehensive examinations of torture is taking place in the form of a military commission proceeding in the case of US v. Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, et. al. (KSM case). A common understanding among the observers that are witnessing KSM is that half are there to see the 9/11 trial and half are there to see the torture trial. In anticipation of what many view as a foregone conclusion, the defence lawyers are diligently representing their clients in order to ensure that if the ultimate penalty, death, is pursued in the sentencing phase of the trial; then the brutality that they suffered at the hands of the CIA is in the trial record. This record will be instrumental to mitigation of the death penalty and speak to the reality that much of the evidence presented may have been extracted or derived through torture, which is prohibited under international law.

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