Thursday, October 04, 2007

How international treaties work

According the US. Every country gets to decide for themselves what the Geneva Conventions mean. So says the White House --

Q But what's to stop another country from then taking their own definition and interpretation based on the administration's --

MS. PERINO: As I understand it, under the Geneva Conventions, every country was supposed to interpret it for themselves, and now we have.

Q You don't think there's any ambiguity there in the definition of torture for other countries to abuse Americans if they are captured?

MS. PERINO: No, I think that the countries that we deal with that are our allies, that are a party to the Geneva Conventions, follow that, and they follow their laws. And obviously, if any American was tortured anywhere, we would have big problems with that

...

Q Back on Elaine's question about clarity, you said something that if there's a problem with understanding, it's left up to the countries to try to decipher --

MS. PERINO: As I understand it, I believe that the Geneva Conventions, that every country could interpret for themselves what those -- what that language meant. I'm recalling that from the debate that we had in this country from a year and a half ago.


In fact, as a reporter pointed out, questions of interpretation are resolved by an International Criminal Court. Without wanting to seem overly dramatic, we seem to be getting to a point where an ICC indictment of George Bush is not beyond the bounds of possibility.

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