CEDAW calls Switzerland to account for effects of its tax policies on women’s rights

INEQUALITIES

CEDAW calls Switzerland to account for the effects of its tax policies on women’s rights

[The week of November 20, 2016], the UN’s top women’s rights body, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, made tax justice a women’s rights issue in its recommendations to renowned financial secrecy jurisdiction, Switzerland. Prompted by a coalition report and factsheet co-authored by the Global Justice Clinic, the Center for Economic and Social Rights, and partner organizations, the Committee called upon Switzerland to assess the impacts of its financial secrecy and corporate tax policies on women’s rights abroad.

Download Materials

In its final report on Switzerland’s compliance with the CEDAW Convention, the Committee expressed concern about how the State’s current laws and policies on banking secrecy and corporate taxation adversely affect the ability of other governments, especially in developing countries, to mobilize the maximum available resources for the fulfillment of women’s rights. Switzerland, which ranks as the number one country for financial secrecy, plays an outsized role in preventing other governments from upholding their obligations under CEDAW and other human rights treaties. A coalition of human rights and tax justice advocates that brought this issue before the Committee—comprised of Alliance Sud, the Berne Declaration, the Center for Economic and Social Rights, the Global Justice Clinic, and the Tax Justice Network—warmly welcomed the Committee’s recommendation that Switzerland “undertake independent, participatory and periodic impact assessments of the extraterritorial effects of its financial secrecy and corporate tax policies on women’s rights and substantive equality.” Global Justice Clinic student, Lauren Flanagan, stated that “the Committee’s engagement with these issues represents an essential step toward ensuring that States are held accountable for the effects of their taxation policies on human rights beyond their own borders.”

As explained in the coalition factsheet and submission, taxation remains the most significant and reliable source of public revenue for States around the world. Each year, however, governments lose hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue as a result of corporations and wealthy individuals shifting their profits and assets to financial secrecy jurisdictions where they are taxed at low rates or not at all. Substantial revenue losses lead to budget shortfalls, which impede government efforts to fulfill human rights. When a state is unable to close the budget deficit, it is often women who feel the pinch the most. Cuts to essential services like healthcare and education exacerbate the feminization of poverty and further confine women to caregiving roles—phenomena which represent a major roadblock to achieving substantive equality.

CEDAW’s recommendations to Switzerland come at a time when there is growing momentum across human rights institutions and within civil society movements to address tax as a human rights issue. In June 2016 the UN Committee that presides over economic, social and cultural rights called on the UK to address the human rights impacts of its financial secrecy policies, while in May 2016 the UN Committee on children’s rights recognized the importance of combating tax evasion as a way to mobilize resources for fulfilling children’s rights. These developments also coincide with the growth of activism in opposition to abusive tax practices. A recent sit-in at a branch of BNP Paribas in protest against the bank’s involvement in offshore secrecy accounts held by French elites highlighted citizen concern over the social costs of enabling corporations and wealthy individuals to avoid paying their fair share.

Co-instructor of the Global Justice Clinic, Nikki Reisch, applauded “the emerging consensus that abusive tax practices and policies must be met with a zero-tolerance policy in order to truly vindicate human rights and to meet the targets laid down in the Sustainable Development Goals.” She added that “the Clinic recognizes the importance for both women’s rights and human rights more broadly, of continuing to build international pressure to combat tax abuses, and therefore remains committed to supporting research and advocacy efforts in the area of tax and human rights.”

This post was originally published as a press release on November 28, 2016.

November 28, 2016 Youssef Farhat Uncategorized

Human Rights and Tax in an Unequal World

INEQUALITIES

Conference on Human Rights and Tax in an Unequal World

Over 200 people gathered at NYU School of Law on September 22 and 23, 2016 to explore the intersections between tax law and human rights law. The event brought together leading practitioners and scholars from the fields of tax and human rights to discuss the ways in which tax policy can be viewed as a form of human rights policy, and how the international human rights framework might contribute to bringing greater equity and focus to the global tax regime.

The Center planned this conference with an aim to serve as the beginning of an ongoing interdisciplinary dialogue and lead to future exchanges and collaborative research and writing between tax and human rights scholars.

Conference materials

Keynote

Keynote address: Winnie Byanyima

Winne Byanyima, Executive Director, Oxfam International, kicked off a challenging and important dialogue about the human rights implications of tax policy and tax abuse, and the human rights imperatives to challenge and change the tax system at both the domestic and international levels.

Session 1

Are Human Rights Really Relevant to Tax?

Allison Christians (McGill University Faculty of Law)
Reuven Avi-Yonah (University of Michigan Law School)
Edward Kleinbard (USC Gould School of Law)
Mitchell Kane (NYU School of Law)

Session 2

The Human Rights Dimensions of Tax and Tax Abuse

Kathleen Lahey (Queen’s University Faculty of Law)
Ahmed Kayum (Columbia University)
Sandra Fredman (University of Oxford Faculty of Law)
Alex Cobham (Tax Justice Network)
Olivier De Schutter (U.N. Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights)

Keynote

Keynote address: Gabriel Zucman

Gabriel Zucman, an author and professor of Economics at UC Berkele, is best known for his studies of inequality with Thomas Piketty and his book, The Hidden Wealth of Nations: The Scourge of Tax Havens, laid bare the role of corporate income tax policy and offshore tax evasion in spiraling economic inequality, reminding human rights and tax scholars alike of their shared obligation to address the growing gap between the haves and have-nots

Session 3

Beyond “Spillover”: North-South Dimensions of Tax and Tax Abuse

Attiya Waris (University of Nairobi, Kenya)
Niko Lusiani (Center for Economic and Social Rights)
Steven Dean (Brooklyn Law School)
Mary Cosgrove (J. E. Cairnes School of Business & Economics)

Session 4

Private Actors and the Public Purse: The Roles of Corporations, Lawyers, Accountants in Tax Abuse

Dan Shaviro (NYU School of Law)
Joe Bankman (Stanford Law School)
Radhika Sarin (Oxfam GB)
Celine Braumann (NYU School of Law, LLM program)

Session 5

The Responsibilities of Governments: The Case of Transparency

Miranda Stewart (Australian National University)
Joshua Blank (NYU School of Law)
Arthur Cockfield (Queen’s University Faculty of Law)
Tracy Kaye (Seton Hall Law)
Alessandro Turina (IBFD)

Session 6

The Role of International Organizations: The Architecture of International Tax Reform

Michael Lennard (Chief, International Tax Cooperation and Trade, U.N. Financing for Development Office);
Erika Siu (NYU School of Law, Tax LLM program, ICRICT consultant)
Annet Wanyana Oguttu (University of South Africa)
Monica Iyer (NYU alum; independent consultant)
Matti Ylonen (Fulbright PhD student, Yale)

Session 7

Tackling Inequality: Synergies between Tax and Human Rights Agendas

Beverly Moran (Vanderbilt Law School)
Ricardo Martner (CEPAL)
Andre Smith (Delaware Law School)
Bridget J. Crawford (Elizabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University)
Carla Spivack (Oklahoma City University School of Law)
Daniel Hemel (University of Chicago)

September 25, 2016 Youssef Farhat Uncategorized

Byen Konte, Mal Kalkile? Human Rights and Environmental Risks of Gold Mining in Haiti

CLIMATE AND ENVIRONMENT

Byen Konte, Mal Kalkile? Human Rights and Environmental Risks of Gold Mining in Haiti

Until now, most discussions about mining have occurred behind closed doors among government officials, company stakeholders, and international financial institutions. There is a dearth of information in the public domain about what gold mining entails, what challenges it poses, what opportunities it presents, and what it may mean for communities and the country as a whole. The purpose of this report is to help fill that gap.

Download Report

Haiti stands at a crossroads: The prospect of gold mining glitters on the horizon, while the reality of an uncertain political future, weak institutions, and widespread impoverishment glares in the foreground. Celebrated as the only nation in the world born of a successful slave revolution, but known today as the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, Haiti is a fragile, if resilient, place. Rights are precarious, and basic resources are scarce. As of 2014, only 62 percent of all households in Haiti had access to safe drinking water, while less than 50 percent enjoyed such access in rural areas. The cholera epidemic that erupted in 2010, which has taken more than 9,000 lives to date, has revealed the vulnerability of the Haitian population amid inadequate water, sanitation, and health infrastructure. But it has also highlighted the power of popular protest. Haiti has a longstanding tradition of peasant movements, in which ordinary Haitians have mobilized to challenge and overcome injustice. It is in this context—against the backdrop of the country’s complex history with foreign intervention and investment—that efforts to develop a mining industry in Haiti must be understood.

Minerals can be exploited only once. The current moment, before mining has begun, presents a unique opportunity for the Haitian people to engage in a robust public debate about the risks and benefits of mining and for the Haitian State to implement preventive measures to avoid future human rights abuses and environmental harms. Such a debate requires transparency, public education, and active engagement of Haitian communities.

Report Objectives and Approach

Recognizing the important decisions that Haiti faces, the Global Justice Clinic at New York University School of Law (GJC) and the University of California Hastings College of the Law have prepared this Report concerning the risks and realities of modern gold mining and its implications for human rights and the environment in Haiti. The Report is the fruit of collaboration between environmental law experts and human rights lawyers, informed by the Justice in Mining Collective, a platform of Haitian organizations and individuals committed to promoting the interests of Haiti’s rural, northern communities and prompting a national dialogue about the future of Haiti’s mineral resources. Consistent with best practice in the field of international human rights, this Report is based on intensive documentary research and review of primary and secondary materials on gold mining in Haiti; interviews with community members, Haitian government officials, and representatives of mining companies and international organizations operating in Haiti; field investigation; and discussions with members of communities in areas where companies hold permits for activities related to gold mining. The Report is a product of more than 100 days of interviews and participant observation in more than fifty meetings held in communities affected by mining-related activities in Haiti (see infra).

All Report-related research in Haiti was undertaken using a human rights-based approach, which supports the power and capacity of people and communities to change their own lives, both independently and through institutions that represent or affect them. This approach takes respect for human rights as its starting point and end objective, emphasizes the informed engagement of rights-holders in both the analysis of factors affecting their own lives and the design of solutions, and stresses accountability, by including evaluation of both the process and outcomes of the research.

The Report addresses four main issues:

the process of modern gold mining, through an examination of its mechanics around the world and a history of extractive activity in Haiti;
the experiences and concerns of communities in Haiti that have hosted mineral exploration in the past ten years, including community members’ allegations that mining companies have failed to respect human rights and the communities’ fear of future human rights violations;
the environmental and social risks of mining gold in Haiti;
the institutional, legal, and regulatory frameworks that will shape the economic, social, and environmental consequences of mining in Haiti.

September 1, 2016 Dev Account Uncategorized

GJC Applauds UN Committee for Calling UK to Account Over Impact of Unjust Tax Laws

INEQUALITIES

GJC Applauds UN Committee for calling UK to account over impact of Unjust Tax Laws

Following a joint report issued by the Global Justice Clinic (GJC) , the Center for Economic and Social Rights (CESR), and the Tax Justice Network (TJN), the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has called on the single largest financial secrecy jurisdiction in the world—the United Kingdom and its Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies—to account for the human rights impacts of its unjust tax policies, both at home and abroad.

Submission & Communique

The Committee, which oversees compliance with the International Covenant on Economic and Social Rights, voiced concerns that the UK’s financial secrecy legislation and permissive rules on corporate tax are undermining the proper resourcing of human rights, thereby affecting the ability of other States to mobilize resources for the implementation of economic, social and cultural rights. In advance of the UK’s review at the Committee’s 58th Session in June, GJC, CESR and TJN co-authored a submission to the Committee concerning the UK’s responsibility for the impacts of cross-border tax abuse on economic, social and cultural rights.

The Committee’s message to the United Kingdom follows on the heels of another pioneering effort to hold tax havens to account. An earlier submission co-authored by GJC, CESR, TJN, and Berne Declaration asked the UN’s principal women’s rights body—the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW)—to hold Switzerland to account for the impacts of its financial secrecy and corporate tax policies on women’s rights and gender equality, especially in low and middle-income countries. CEDAW did so, calling on Switzerland to “provide information on the measures taken to ensure that [its] tax and financial secrecy policy does not contribute to largescale tax abuse in foreign countries, thereby negatively impacting on resources available to realize women’s rights in those countries.” Together, these recent initiatives by UN treaty bodies to scrutinize the tax policies and practices of member States illustrate the important role of human rights norms, principles and institutions, in reshaping the international tax regime.

“By facilitating tax abuse, the UK—like other financial secrecy jurisdictions such as Switzerland—is shirking its legal obligations to respect and protect human rights,” said Nikki Reisch of the Global Justice Clinic. “As a party to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the UN Charter, and other international agreements, the UK has committed to cooperate internationally to create an enabling environment for the fulfillment of economic, social and cultural rights. Its current conduct flies in the face of those commitments.”

July 6, 2016.

July 6, 2016 Youssef Farhat Uncategorized

World Bank Refuses to Consider Haitian Communities’ Complaint about New Mining Law

CLIMATE AND ENVIRONMENT

World Bank Refuses to Consider Haitian Communities’ Complaint about New Mining Law

Complaint Office Recognizes “Legitimate” Concerns, Rejects Complaint on Technical Grounds

Last week, the World Bank Inspection Panel refused to consider a complaint from Haitian communities about the Bank’s support for development of the mining sector in Haiti. Communities affected by mining activity and the Justice in Mining Collective, a group of six Haitian civil society organizations, submitted the complaint in early January, alleging violations of their rights to information and participation and threats of human rights abuses and environmental harms. The Inspection Panel—an office established to address complaints from people affected by World Bank-sponsored projects—recognized that the complaint raised “serious and legitimate” concerns and that the mining industry presents significant risks. The office nevertheless denied the complaint on narrow, technical grounds. The complainants expect to receive a copy of the decision in French today.[1]

Communities’ concerns about the development of the mining industry stem in part from their experiences with mineral exploration to date. Farmers report that they have lost crops and watched fertile land turn barren; they allege that companies have entered and operated in their communities without seeking permission; and they contend that they have nowhere to bring their concerns. Now, the World Bank’s complaint office has declared that it will not investigate their grievances. “For the Panel to recognize that our concerns are legitimate and yet refuse to register the case, it is as if the lives of Haitian people do not matter to the World Bank,” said Peterson Derolus, Co-Coordinator of the Justice in Mining Collective.

The farmers and families in rural communities where mining companies have explored for gold have been systematically excluded from conversations about the mining industry. In 2014, the World Bank crafted a new mining law in close consultation with mining company executives and Haitian government authorities. The reforms largely have taken place behind closed doors. “To date, even Parliament has been excluded from the process of drafting the new law,” Derolus said. “But the Haitian Constitution states that mineral resources belong to the State, meaning not only the government, but also the Haitian people.”

The World Bank’s own policies normally require it to ensure transparency and meaningful public consultation and to adhere to environmental and social standards in all its operations. The Inspection Panel found that those safeguards do not apply to the “Bank-Executed Trust Fund” used to finance the revision of Haiti’s mining law, even though they do apply to similar Bank projects funded in different ways. Noting this inconsistency, the Panel called for reforms to ensure that the Bank applies its safeguards to technical assistance projects like this one based on the risk of environmental and social harm, rather than the particular financing mechanism used.

“The World Bank is providing assistance that will change the entire legal regime for mineral mining in Haiti. It chose to do so in a way that exempts the project from the Bank’s own safeguard policies, including those that require community participation,” said Sarah Singh of Accountability Counsel, an organization representing affected Haitian communities. “The Bank should not have discretion to avoid community complaints regarding a project that poses such clear human rights and environmental risks.”

The risks are particularly acute today in Haiti—a country known for its devastated environment, poor infrastructure, and lack of rule of law—as the state is in the midst of a major political crisis. Since January, President Martelly has ruled by decree. Parliament, which had objected to the way the Executive was developing the mining industry, has been dissolved. The past few weeks have seen increasing protests and multiple days of nationwide transit strikes. “We call on the World Bank to recognize the grave risks it incurs in developing the mining industry in Haiti and to endorse a moratorium on mining until a meaningful national debate is held and other community demands have been met,” said Margaret Satterthwaite, Director of the Global Justice Clinic, which represents affected Haitian communities. “If the Bank-backed mining law is passed by decree, Haiti will be open to the gold mining business without the consent of its people.”

[1] The World Bank’s complaint office, the Inspection Panel, is an independent office that investigates allegations by people who claim to have experienced harm or who fear future harms as a result of World Bank projects. The Notice of Non-Registration is available in English. The Panel indicated that the Notice of Non-Registration would be made available in French on February 17, 2015. The complaint is also available in English and in French.

This post was originally published as a press release on February 17, 2015.

February 17, 2015 Dev Account Uncategorized

Haitian Communities File Complaint about World Bank-Supported Mining Law

CLIMATE AND ENVIRONMENT

Haitian Communities File Complaint about World Bank-Supported Mining Law

Sound Alarm about Lack of Participation, Environmental and Social Protections

Haitian communities and organizations filed a complaint with the World Bank regarding Bank-supported activities to develop Haiti’s mining sector today.The complaint has been submitted to the World Bank Inspection Panel, an independent office that investigates allegations by people who claim to have experienced harm or who fear future harm as a result of World Bank projects. The complaint alleges that the Haitian populace has been left out of World Bank-funded efforts by the Haitian government to draft new mining legislation intended to attract foreign investors to exploit Haiti’s gold and other minerals. Complainants contend that the Bank has failed to follow its own social and environmental safeguard policies or ensure that the new legal framework adheres to international best practices. They fear that allowing the mineral sector to develop without much-needed human rights and environmental protections and without public consultation could harm rather than help Haiti. The complaint can be read in English and French.

“The mining law will attract investment from foreign mining companies and yet the government does not have the ability to monitor environmental impacts or to promote the interests of the affected communities,” said Nixon Boumba, a representative of the Kolektif Jistis Min (Mining Justice Collective), a group of six Haitian organizations and dozens of communities who filed the complaint. Haitian people who have had the chance to learn about the government’s efforts to develop the sector share serious reservations about the new mining law and the broader effort to encourage mining: over 400 people in Haiti have signed a petition stating their concerns with mining sector development and demanding access to accurate information about mining and its potential impacts on Haitian people and the well-being of the country. The petition also requests a national debate and a full, public review of this strategy before the proposed mining legislation is finalized.

Some communities in Haiti have already had negative experiences with companies exploring for minerals on or near their land. “We have seen impacts that make us worry,” explained a complainant and community leader from northern Haiti. “People who have begun to understand what mining could mean, what an open-pit mine is, they are worried about how it will affect the environment and the way we live now.” Communities also claim that companies have already drilled and excavated on their land without seeking proper consent.
Complainants also fear the consequences of encouraging mining without ensuring the Haitian government’s ability to enforce social and environmental protections. The government has suffered from inadequate resources and failed regulatory processes for years, and the country’s recent protests and governmental instability underscore ongoing capacity issues.[1] “The World Bank is backing a law to promote investment in mining at a time of growing political turmoil,” said Professor Margaret Satterthwaite of the New York University School of Law Global Justice Clinic, which represents affected Haitian communities. “It would be irresponsible to open up the sector in the context of such governmental instability and without a full analysis of its impacts.”

“The World Bank’s assistance aims to change the entire legal regime for mineral mining in Haiti,” said Sarah Singh of Accountability Counsel, an organization representing affected Haitian communities. “Given the serious social and environmental risks associated with this industry, the Bank must ensure that the new law is developed with participation from civil society and includes provisions to protect human rights and adhere to international best practices.”

This post was originally published as a press release on January 7, 2015.

January 7, 2015 Dev Account Uncategorized

Minimum Standards for Transfer: International Law Concerning Rendition in the Context of Counter-Terrorism

PREVENTION AND CONFLICT

Minimum Standards for Transfer: International Law Concerning Rendition in the Context of Counter-Terrorism

This Legal Advisory sets out the minimum baseline standard to be applied whenever the United States carries out the extraterritorial transfers, articulating threshold standards, substantive norms, and procedural requirements; and concludes with a discussion of human rights norms applicable to the United States’ use of diplomatic assurances.

Download Report

In January 2009, President Obama promulgated a number of Executive Orders that created several Task Forces to advise him on certain aspects of U.S. counter-terrorism policy. One of the key issues under review is the U.S. practice of rendition. Several bodies of international law binding on the United States set out rules relevant to the transfer of individuals outside the United States to U.S. territory or to the custody of another state in the context of counter-terrorism operations. International refugee law, international human rights law, and international humanitarian law apply extraterritorially and concurrently.

Examining human rights, refugee law, and humanitarian law norms together allows for the identification of a minimum baseline standard to be applied whenever the United States carries out the extraterritorial transfer of an individual within its effective control. The transfers to which this minimum standard applies include, for example, “renditions to justice” to the United States or a third state; renditions pursuant to an international arrest warrant or request for surrender by an international court; transfers carried out at the close of hostilities in the context of armed conflict (i.e. repatriations of prisoners of war or security detainees); and transfers across borders of individuals detained in the context of armed conflict.

This Legal Advisory sets out this minimum baseline standard, articulating threshold standards, substantive norms, and procedural requirements. As a threshold matter, formal transfer processes may not be intentionally bypassed and the United States must have a valid basis for apprehending an individual in contemplation of transfer. Substantively, the U.S. government may not transfer an individual to the custody of a state where he/she is at a real risk of: torture or ill-treatment; persecution; enforced disappearance; or arbitrary deprivation of life. Procedurally, an individual facing transfer must have the ability to challenge the basis for his deprivation of liberty in contemplation of transfer prior to transfer before an independent decision-maker. This challenge must allow the individual to contest the transfer on the basis of fear of being subject to any of the risks protected against by international law. This Legal Advisory concludes with a discussion of human rights norms applicable to the United States’ use of diplomatic assurances.

June 10, 2009 Youssef Farhat Product

On the Record: US Disclosures on Rendition, Secret Detention, and Coercive Interrogation

PREVENTION AND CONFLICT

On the Record: US Disclosures on Rendition, Secret Detention, and Coercive Interrogation

This report is a joint effort between the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice and Amnesty International, Cageprisoners, the Center for Constitutional Rights, Human Rights Watch, and Reprieve.

This report aims to shed light both on what has been revealed and what has been obscured by the U.S. government. It also seeks to demonstrate the enormous range of information that is in the public sphere about the nature and scope of the U.S. rendition, secret detention, and coercive interrogation activities. This exercise makes it increasingly evident that the threats of disclosure of “state secrets” and harm to national security are ill-founded, and that the real concern lies in the very fact that a program of this nature exists and continues to operate.

Download Report

According to the United States (U.S.) government, shortly after September 11, 2001, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was tasked with planning a “separate” program to begin secretly detaining and interrogating individuals outside of the United States. At that time, the CIA was also reportedly authorized to forcibly transfer individuals to foreign countries for interrogation in a practice commonly known as “rendition” or “extraordinary rendition.” Starting with the rendition of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi to Egypt in January 2002, and the detention and interrogation of Abu Zubaydah in March 2002,4 the U.S. post-9/11 rendition, secret detention, and coercive interrogation program has since swept up many individuals, the vast majority of whom are still unaccounted for by the United States.

Between 2001 and September 2006, information about CIA rendition, secret detention, and coercive interrogation operations emerged piecemeal. The U.S. government was the source of some of this information: officials discussed rendition in the media and on Capitol Hill, but gave only partial accounts; they announced the capture of individuals, but refused to disclose their whereabouts; and they informed the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the U.S. (the 9/11 Commission) that certain individuals were “currently in U.S. custody,” but refused to give the Commission the access it sought to the detainees themselves. The U.S. government also provided “statements” culled from interrogations on behalf of certain secret CIA detainees in the cases of United States v. Paracha and United States v. Moussaoui. Media, inter-governmental bodies (such as the Council of Europe and the United Nations (UN)), human rights organizations, and former detainees also provided comprehensive insights into the CIA’s activities.

In an effort to obtain further information from the U.S. government about its rendition, secret detention, and coercive interrogation activities, in 2004, 2006, and 2007, Amnesty International USA (AIUSA), the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), and the International Human Rights Clinic at NYU School of Law Center for Human Rights and Global Justice submitted Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to several U.S. agencies, including the CIA. Following a refusal to disclose the majority of the information sought, AIUSA, CCR, and NYU IHRC filed suit in June 2007 in federal court in the Southern District of New York. In spring 2008, the CIA admitted that it had more than 7,000 relevant documents, but sought a ruling that it did not need to disclose the vast majority of those documents, arguing, inter alia, that it cannot be compelled to disclose information it argues is properly classified. In response, on June 26, 2008, AIUSA, CCR, and NYU IHRC filed an opposition to the CIA’s motion for summary judgment and a memorandum of law in support of a cross-motion for partial summary judgment.

August 14, 2008 Youssef Farhat Product

Surviving the Darkness: Testimony from the U.S. “Black Sites”

PREVENTION AND CONFLICT

Surviving the Darkness: Testimony from the U.S. “Black Sites”

This report is a condensed version of the Declaration. It omits references to, and copies of, most exhibits to the Declaration but is otherwise unchanged. After more than eighteen months of being held “off the record” by the U.S. government, the Declaration and this report is Mohamed Bashmilah’s opportunity to tell his own story. Here, he puts back on the record the truth about the extensive human rights violations he and his family have suffered as a result of his enforced disappearance.

Download Report

On September 6, 2006, President George W. Bush acknowledged that the United States operates a program of secret detention in the “War on Terror.” In the same statement, President Bush indicated that fourteen of the individuals held in the program had been transferred to Guantánamo Bay and that “…there are now no terrorists in the CIA program.” President Bush did not disclose the fate and whereabouts of the other individuals known or believed to have been secretly detained at some point by the U.S. government, and he left open the possibility that the CIA program would be used again.

A number of the individuals known or suspected to have been held secretly by the United States are still missing. The fate and whereabouts of a smaller number is known as a result of the efforts of human rights organizations.

Since 2006, the International Human Rights Clinic at New York University School of Law has represented two such individuals—Yemeni nationals Mohammed Abdullah Saleh al-Asad and Mohamed Farag Ahmad Bashmilah. Their stories exemplify the nature and breadth of the U.S. system of detention in the “War on Terror,” as well as the treatment that individuals targeted in the “War on Terror” suffer.

December 2007.

December 24, 2007 Youssef Farhat Product

Off the Record: US Responsibility for Enforced Disappearances in the ‘War on Terror’

PREVENTION AND CONFLICT

Off the Record: US Responsibility for Enforced Disappearances in the ‘War on Terror’

Based on research by six major human rights groups—Amnesty International, Cageprisoners, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at NYU School of Law, Human Rights Watch and Reprieve— this briefing paper identifies individuals believed to have been held at some point by the United States in secret sites, all of whom remain missing.

Download Reports

On September 6, 2006, President George W. Bush revealed that the United States runs a system of secret detention in the “War on Terror,” but he did not disclose how many individuals were secretly detained. While only the U.S. government knows exactly who remains missing, Off the Record provides the most comprehensive list of these individuals, who are believed to have been subject to an enforced disappearance for which the United States bears responsibility.

This briefing paper provides information about detainees already identified as “disappeared” (for example, Ali Abdul-Hamid al-Fakhiri, commonly known as Ibn al-Shaykh alLibi) and names four missing detainees for the first time. It reveals the extent to which the United States illegally uses “proxy detention” to empty its secret sites and demonstrates that far from targeting the “worst of the worst,” the system sweeps up low-level detainees and even involves the detention of the wives and children of the “disappeared,” in violation of their human rights.

Off the Record also documents allegations concerning the treatment of detainees while in secret detention, including torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

The briefing paper is available in Arabic, Spanish and English.

June 7, 2007 Youssef Farhat Product