Terrorism and Human Rights at the UN

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay & Osama bin Laden

The UN High Commissioner spoke out on the death of Osama bin Laden to worry that his killing might have been illegal. May 3, 2011

The United Nations' top human rights official called on the United States Tuesday to give the U.N. details about Osama bin Laden's killing and said that all counter - terrorism operations must respect international law.

But Navi Pillay, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, said that the al Qaeda leader, killed in a U.S. operation in Pakistan , had committed crimes against humanity as self - confessed mastermind of "the most appalling acts of terrorism," including the September 11, 2001 attacks on America.

It was always clear that taking bin Laden alive was likely to be difficult, she said, noting that U.S. authorities had stated that they intended to arrest him if possible.

"This was a complex operation and it would be helpful if we knew the precise facts surrounding his killing. The United Nations has consistently emphasized that all counter - terrorism acts must respect international law," Pillay said in a statement issued in response to a Reuters request.

In Washington, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder defended as lawful Tuesday the U.S. operation to go into Pakistan that resulted in the death of bin Laden and the taking of his body.

"If he was captured and brought before a court, I have no doubt he would have been charged with the most serious crimes, including the mass murder of civilians that took place on 9/11, which were planned and systematic and in my view amounted to crime against humanity," said Pillay, a former U.N. war crimes judge.

UN human rights boss questions U.S. on legality of bin Laden killing, May 3, 2011

The UN's chief human rights official led calls by rights activist organizations on Tuesday for Washington to explain whether U.S. forces lawfully killed Osama bin Laden.

The request by Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, came even as the world body continues to falter over its multi-year bid to define terrorism.

Pillay's bid also appeared to contradict the position held by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who on Monday described the U.S. action as a "watershed moment in our common global fight against terrorism."

The mixed messages are likely to heighten critics' claims that the UN's human rights apparatus is frequently quick to probe for abuses by Western democracies - even as it appears to limit its criticism of some of the world's established human rights abuser states.

In an example of UN human rights scrutiny involving Canada, the UN's Working Group on People of African Descent announced this week it will visit the country May 16-20 to probe for discrimination against African-Canadians. In recent years the committee has visited the United States, Ecuador and Belgium - but shunned such destinations as Libya, where independent human rights groups such as UN Watch have said black Africans face persecution, and Sudan, where the United States has accused the Arab-led government of committing genocide in Darfur.

On the U.S. action in Pakistan Sunday, Pillay agreed that bin Laden was a "very dangerous man" who had acknowledged having "command responsibility for the most appalling acts of terrorism" - including the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in the United States that killed almost 3,000. But she also said the United States had always "clearly stated they intended to arrest bin Laden if they could."

Admitting that taking bin Laden alive was "always going to be difficult," Pillay nevertheless signalled the United States needs to explain more about what happened in the compound.

"This was a complex operation and it would be helpful if we knew the precise facts surrounding his killing," Pillay said. "The United Nations has consistently emphasized that all counter-terrorism acts must respect international law."

Amnesty International said it was seeking "greater clarification" about what went on, while New York-based Human Rights Watch said "law enforcement" principles should have applied.

"If he wasn't shooting at the soldiers, the killing should be investigated," Brad Adams, Human Rights Watch Asia director, said in Bangkok at the launch of a report on Thailand. "People are saying that justice has been done, but justice has not been done. Justice is when you arrest someone and put them on trial."

The White House on Tuesday scrambled to release a so-called "narrative" of the events leading to bin Laden's death after various government sources a day earlier suggested the al-Qaida leader had both been armed and used a woman as a human shield.

While the narrative said bin Laden had not been armed, it recounted a fierce firefight with others as the special operations forces fought their way to the compound's second and third floors, where the al-Qaida leader and family members were located. Bin Laden was also said to have offered resistance, while a woman identified as a wife lunged at the operatives, leading to her being wounded with a shot to the leg.

"There was concern bin Laden would oppose the . . . operation, and indeed he did resist," said Jay Carney, White House spokesman. "Bin Laden's wife rushed the U.S. assaulter, but was not killed. Bin Laden was then shot and killed."

Carney stated that "resistance does not require a firearm" after a reporter pressed him on how bin Laden could have posed a threat.

Speaking earlier, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder stated that the operation was "lawful, legitimate and appropriate in every way."

"The people who were responsible for that action both in the decision making and in the effecting of that decision, handled themselves, I think, quite well," he told the judiciary committee of the U.S. House of Representatives.

A U.S. executive order signed in 1981 prohibits the United States or anyone acting on its behalf from conducting assassinations, but U.S. officials have argued there is legal latitude to target individuals in an ongoing conflict - including the current one in which bin Laden himself declared war on the United States and other nations.

"The principles of distinction and proportionality that the U.S. applies are . . . implemented rigorously throughout the planning and execution of lethal operations to ensure that operations are conducted in accordance with all applicable law," Harold Koh, legal adviser at the U.S. State Department, told a meeting of the American Society of International Law last year.

The UN and bin Laden's Human Rights, May 9, 2011

The response to the death of Osama bin Laden by the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, and two "experts" appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council ought to be ringing a lot of alarm bells right now.

Just last month, Susan Rice, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations told Congress that "when we meet our financial obligations to the U.N., we make Americans safer."

On the contrary, U.N. reaction to Bin Laden's death indicates that the Obama administration's warm embrace of the organization is endangering American lives.

The U.N.'s top human rights official took time this past week to concern herself about the treatment Bin Laden received as he was killed. She demanded to know "the precise facts surrounding his killing" for the purpose of determining its legality. According to Pillay, "counter-terrorism activity...in compliance with international law" means "you're not allowed...to commit extra-judicial killings." And this requirement would only be satisfied if the Americans had stuck by what she claimed was their "stated...intention...to arrest bin Laden if they could."

On Friday, two professors and part-time U.N. "experts," Christof Heyns and Martin Scheinin, issued a joint statement on Bin Laden's killing. The two academics claimed that "the norm should be that terrorists be dealt with as criminals, through legal processes of arrest, trial and judicially-decided punishment." They also insisted that the U.N. was entitled to receive "more facts" "to allow an assessment in terms of international human rights law standards." Those standards would be violated, they claimed, unless "the planning of the mission allowed an effort to capture Bin Laden."

The suggestion from these U.N. authority-figures that America is criminally at fault for killing Bin Laden if their terms have not been satisfied is both offensive and legally false.

Under the laws of war, combatants are a "legitimate" target for attack. A protocol to the Geneva Conventions defines a legitimate military target as one "which...makes an effective contribution to military action and whose...destruction...offers a definite military advantage." This description fits Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden's killing was, therefore, a justifiable homicide and incurs no liability. There was no necessity that the Navy SEALs must have intended to arrest him or make an effort to capture him alive.

In the minds of those at the U.N, however, the life-and-death struggle to defend freedom from Islamic terrorists is occurring in a vacuum. They insist that the applicable legal regime is international human rights law which considers the single individual and prohibits the arbitrary deprivation of life, requires due process and condemns anything else as "extrajudicial" killing. Their response to the laws of warfare is: "what war?"

So here we are. The world's most wanted terrorist is finally dead and U.N. actors are questioning his death in the name of human rights.

Scheinin's full U.N. job title is self-explanatory. He is the "rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism." Promoting human rights is one side of the ledger and countering terrorism is allegedly on the other side.

Finding the United Nations on the opposite side from the effort by democracies to protect human rights in the real world is not an isolated phenomenon.

The United Nations still has no definition of terrorism. Standing in the way of a universally-agreed definition are the 22 members of the Arab League and the 57 members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference. Each of these groups has signed on to an "anti-terrorism" treaty that represents the culmination of their agreed ideology on the subject. The Arab Terrorism Convention, for example, exempts from its idea of terrorism everything from suicide-bombing to slitting the throats of 3-month old babies under the umbrella of "all cases of struggle by whatever means...against foreign occupation and aggression for liberation and self-determination."

As a result, on May 2, 2011 the Security Council issued a unanimous presidential statement on Bin Laden's death which was very careful to "reaffirm...other applicable international counter-terrorism instruments." After all, Council members currently include a representative of a terrorist organization, since Lebanon's government is controlled by Hezbollah.

The U.N.'s post-9/11 counter-terrorism centerpiece is its "Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy", adopted by the General Assembly in 2006. Its very first section is a promise "to undertake...measures aimed at addressing the conditions conducive to the spread of terrorism." More specifically, the U.N. worried first and foremost about "youth unemployment, ...marginalization and the subsequent sense of victimization" of terrorist wannabes.

Consequently, the Security Council presidential statement on Bin Laden's death immediately changed the subject from his demise to demanding the world "address the conditions conducive to the spread of terrorism." And they weren't talking about hate, intolerance, antisemitism, and just plain evil acts.

Of course, Bin Laden, himself puts the lie to this diplomatic claptrap since the world's number one terrorist was a man of wealth from a privileged background.

U.N. double-talk on terrorism has reached a new low with the grotesque suggestion that the killing of Osama bin Laden violated his human rights. And handing the U.N. more than 6 billion dollars of taxpayer money each year, leaves Americans far less safe.