The United Nations has released a new report on accountability for human rights abuses by the United States, focusing mostly on transgressions during the Bush administration's so-called war on terror. In a word, accountability in the U.S. has been "deplorable."
The May 26, 2009, report by Australian law professor Philip Alston, the U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, does praise the United States for establishing compensation payments for civilians accidentally killed by U.S. forces in the heat of battle. But Alston quickly adds the following: "However, there have been chronic and deplorable accountability failures with respect to policies, practice and conduct that resulted in alleged unlawful killings -- including possible war crimes -- in the United States' international operations."
A summary from the report follows below. But the body of the document doesn't pull any punches either.
U.N. calls U.S. human rights record "deplorable"
Immigration officials detained a US citizen for nearly 10 days in Arizona, according to court records...
An Indonesian father of an infant with special needs, who was detained by federal agents at...
A federal judge in Massachusetts has ordered the State Department to issue passports to six transgender...
The justice department’s civil rights division is shifting its focus away from its longstanding work protecting...
