Your stories on this will always be welcome on the  front page. We need more.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

Stormy,

do you have an account at Daily Kos? If so would you be willing to crosspost?

To my knowledge this has not been covered there, which of course is unfortunate.  This is an issue that needs to be raised.

Or if you don't mind, would it be ok if I take some of what you've written here and post it there?


And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg

Yeah, I wondered that too.  Could be concern about residual responsibility for the actions of previous governments, or it could just be the thing about needing to jump through some hoops at home before they can sign.  I hope someone here might be able to clear that up for us...

And we always believe everything our governments say...

The truth is that there are degrees of complicity in this policy, but all of those listed countries have been implicated to one degree or another.  (Spain the least seriously.)

I've been trying to get a list of actual signatories to the treaty off the UN website but it keeps crashing, or acting weird, and I didn't have tons of time today.  I'm curious to know exactly who didn't sign.

Well, even if not, it certainly puts agents of the government involved in renditions (whether they initiated it or just co-operated) under legal threat. And also the governments would have to pay compensation for recent sins.

Not to mention that it opens up possibilities of further investigations. You can see why some with guilty consciences would not want to sign it. (Thinking particularly of Tony Blair here, since I'm from there, but presumably similar issues apply in other countries.)

From the treaty:

Article 5

The widespread or systematic practice of enforced disappearance constitutes a crime against humanity as defined in applicable international law and shall attract the consequences provided for under such applicable international law.

But it would only apply to disappearances that took place after the treaty came into effect.  Which makes it a ban on future disappearances, but not applicable to past ones.

The fact that the Bush administration is worried about this is a sign that they don't intend to stop what they're doing.

But we already knew that....

Britain has a virtual mini-Guantanamo in the shape of Belmarsh prison. People detained under secret terrorism charges without proper judicial oversight.

I should imagine that even if they've done enough paperwork for it to technically pass the treaty it would give the lawyers working for these people a new angle of attack, so that Tony would steer clear of this treaty...

<sigh>

Le Monde explains that France was a prime mover in a first treaty during the 1970s, particularly "inspired" by the disappearances in Argentina. This time, France and Argentina have worked closely together on the new treaty, and presented it together yesterday in Paris. (France and Argentina are playing football right now, Argentina just scored).

Here's a bit more from an editorial:

Mais, pour entrer en vigueur, le traité doit être ratifié par vingt Etats. Il faut souhaiter qu'il le soit le plus rapidement possible. Le texte a été adopté à l'unanimité par l'assemblée générale de l'ONU, mais de nombreux pays étaient réticents. S'ils ont finalement dit oui, c'était avec l'espoir, sans doute, de limiter ultérieurement les retombées du texte. Parmi ceux-ci figurent la Russie, l'Algérie, la Colombie, Etats où les forces de l'ordre sont accusées d'être impliquées dans de nombreux crimes et disparitions forcées. La convention pose indirectement la question des "prisons secrètes" américaines de la CIA, une pratique employée par l'administration Bush dans sa lutte antiterroriste. Certaines prisons auraient été situées en Europe, ce qui met en cause la responsabilité des gouvernements concernés. Les grands pays démocratiques seraient donc bien inspirés de donner l'exemple, avant de faire la leçon au reste de la planète.

But, to be applied, the treaty must be ratified by twenty states. It's to be hoped that it will be as quickly as possible. The text was unanimously approved by the General Assembly of the UN, but numerous countries were reticent. If they finally said yes, it was in the hope, no doubt, of limiting fall-out later on. Among them were Russia, Algeria, Colombia, states where the police are accused of involvement in many crimes and forced disappearances. The convention indirectly poses the problem of the American "secret prisons" of the CIA, a practice used by the Bush administration in its anti-terrorise struggle. Some of these prisons were allegedly situated in Europe, which engages the responsibility of the governments concerned. So the major democratic countries would be well-inspired to give an example, before handing out lessons to the rest of the planet.

Not that it gets us far on the motives of Spain and Italy, for example.

"... it is clear that France was the only country whose territory and airspace was avoided by the CIA in its secret flights/prisons and rendition operations."

Which is why, no matter how puritanical and anti-smoking that once-great nation gets, I'll always be a gallophile.

Vive la France!

Ditto.  I want to know if the New Zealand government signed it, or whether we sided with the Merkins...

What GDR instincts? It's the Atlanticism that does it.

"It's the statue, man, The Statue."

Countries like Germany and New Zealand have nothing to worry about this treaty, and still they didn't sign. There probably was some kind of agreement not to support this motion in exchange for something else down the line, maybe coming from the US. It might even be that they are going to sign it later, as not to give too much credit to France, or to get something from France. It's just speculation anyway. Laws and sausages and all that.

Ghana and half of Cameroon are Anglophone.  And then there's India.  But yes, it's very clear on the map how many more Francophone countries than Anglophone ones have signed....