Sunny Guantanamo (Re: Speaking of the Geneva convention)

[Jim Dixon]

On Thu, 18 Dec 2003, J.A. Terranson wrote:

> > Why does the US military have
> > to treat them as though they had US constitutional rights?  They are not
> > citizens or physically present in the United States.
>
> In a nutshell, our Constitution *recognizes* universal human rights.  It does
> not *establish* these rights.  If we are going to be faithful to this
> premise, physical location is a non-sequitor.

This is a valid and probably commendable political position.  I do not
believe, however, that it reflects current practice in the USA or
elsewhere.

I say "probably" because it seems likely that adopting this as a practice
would have very high costs.  How far would you have this go?  Is the US
government to be obligated to ensure these rights to everyone everywhere?
Does this mean liberating slaves in China and Saudi Arabia, for example?
Opening up Russian jails?  Forcing countries everywhere to grant the vote
to women, to educate children?

Hmmm.  Does the application of this principle mean that the US government
is going to require the British government to recognize the right to keep
and bear arms?  ;-)

--
Jim Dixon  jdd at dixons.org   tel +44 117 982 0786  mobile +44 797 373 7881
http://jxcl.sourceforge.net                       Java unit test coverage
http://xlattice.sourceforge.net         p2p communications infrastructure