DISCLAIMER: I searched for this but couldn't find it. If it's covered elsewhere, I'll delete.
Monday's BBC.com ran a story with the lede:
Anti-terror measures worldwide have seriously undermined international human rights law, a report by legal experts says.
Well, duh, as most of us here would say.
After a three-year global study, the International Commission of Jurists said many states used the public's fear of terrorism to introduce measures.
These included detention without trial, illegal disappearance and torture.
It also said that the UK and the US have "actively undermined" international law by their actions.
I hadn't heard of the ICJ, so I went to their website, www.icj.org. From there:
The Commission was founded in Berlin in 1952 and its membership is composed of sixty eminent jurists who are representatives of the different legal systems of the world. Based in Geneva, the International Secretariat is responsible for the realisation of the aims and objectives of the Commission. In carrying out its work, the International Secretariat benefits from a network of autonomous national sections and affiliated organisations located in all continents.
Awards recognising the ICJ's contributions to the promotion and protection of human rights include the first European Human Rights Prize by the Council of Europe, the Wateler Peace Prize, the Erasmus Prize, and the United Nations Award for Human Rights.
The report continues:
The report remarks upon the extent to which undemocratic regimes with poor human rights records have referred to counter-terror practices of countries like the US to justify their own abusive policies.
You can read the article here: Anti-terror tactics 'weaken law'
A friend in Bahrain reports this has been in the newspaper there and on the BBC all day.
More from the article:
Some of the world's top international law experts served on the ICJ panel, including Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland and former United Nations human rights commissioner, and Arthur Chaskelson, former president of the constitutional court of south Africa.
Mr Chaskelson, chairman of the panel, said: "In the course of this inquiry, we have been shocked by the extent of the damage done over the past seven years by excessive or abusive counter-terrorism measures in a wide range of countries around the world.
This is, hopefully, not the last we'll hear from the world community on the abuses perpetrated in our names by the Bush Administration. Enough pressure like this could help tip the balance with the new Justice Dept.