UN’s International Day in Support of Victims of Torture: North Carolina Citizens Call for Investigations and Reparations.
The University of North Carolina School of Law’s Human Rights Policy Lab (HRPL) has sent a 35-page formal submission to 10 UN human rights experts who oversee treaty obligations. The submission calls upon members of various rapporteurships and working groups to investigate both the CIA’s and Aero Contractors’ human rights violations in North Carolina and urges the United Nations to investigate North Carolina’s continued refusal to acknowledge and take responsibility for its role in the US government’s post-9/11 torture program. The submission to the UN was prepared on behalf of the North Carolina Commission of Inquiry on Torture (NCCIT) and the advocacy organization North Carolina Stop Torture Now. It was delivered on the eve of June 26, the UN’s International Day in Support of Victims of Torture. The day was proclaimed in 1997 when the Convention Against Torture went into effect. The UN calls June 26 an opportunity for member states, civil society and individuals to “unite in support of the hundreds of thousands of people around the world who have been victims of torture and those who are still tortured today.”
Simultaneously, the HRPL has just published a groundbreaking report on reparations owed by the State of North Carolina for its role in the renditions to torture of 49 survivors and victims of the US torture program. The 45-page report was sent to human rights experts in the US and at the UN.
The UN receives the HRPL submission as it considers a complaint by the Center for Constitutional Rights about US interference with a proposed investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC) of US violations including torture. After the ICC decided under US pressure not to proceed with an investigation by its Chief Prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, of US and Taliban war crimes in Afghanistan, Ms. Bensouda appealed that decision. Some cases of rendition and torture discussed in the UNC documents and the 2018 report of the NCCIT bear on the ICC’s proposed investigation because they involve CIA “black sites” in Afghanistan.
The UN says that “torture seeks to annihilate the victim’s personality and denies the inherent dignity of the human being.” Yet North Carolina continues to host Aero Contractors, the CIA-affiliated aviation company, at the Johnston County Airport even though a non-governmental commission and international experts have reported that Aero has used that airport and the Global TransPark in Kinston for at least 69 renditions that in and of themselves amounted to torture.
“Reparations are key mechanisms, not only for healing at an individual or communal level but also for the maintenance of democratic societies,” the UNC reparations report. “Eventually, the sun sets on democratic governments that operate with impunity to carry out human rights abuses.”
The UNC Law team is requesting that the 10 UN mandate-holders work directly with North Carolina’s state and local governments to achieve accountability, even without the agreement of the federal government. As a model, the petition for UN intervention notes, the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Philip Alston, visited Los Angeles in 2017 to examine conditions on Skid Row. Within a year, Los Angeles announced new funding to address the problems highlighted in his report.