Compensating victims of torture should be a two-way street

When American citizens are victims of torture and other cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment by foreign governments, the United States sometimes presses their claims to compensation aggressively, under the Convention Against Torture (CAT) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), insisting on large settlements from the governments that abused them. A good example was in the agreement, announced on September 11, between the United States and Iraq. Neither side would publicly disclose the amount of the payment, designed to provide reparations to Americans who were imprisoned, abused, and tortured by the government of Saddam Hussein, but the Christian Science Monitor reported that it amounted to $400 million. When the tables are turned and the United States is the torturer or abuser of the citizens of foreign states, things are different. Recently, the Justice Department has vigorously opposed all efforts by victims of its torture and abuse policies to obtain compensation for their mistreatment. It does so even when acknowledging the abuse and even when the victim was completely innocent"witness the cases of the Canadian computer engineer Maher Arar and the German greengrocer Khaled El-Masri. Salon's Glenn Greenwald calls this "American exceptionalism"; I would call it the American doctrine of asymmetrical lawfare"we use international law instruments to secure compensation for our own citizens and steadfastly refuse to be held to the same standards ourselves. Now the International Center for Transitional Justice has released a new study, "After Torture: U.S. Accountability and the Right to Redress," which unravels the United States' defensive posture with respect to claims by victims of torture step by step.