Reaffirming America's Commitment to Humane Treatment of Detainees

[struggle4progress]

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Office of the Spokesman
March 7, 2011
STATEMENT BY SECRETARY CLINTON

Today the Obama Administration is taking .. steps regarding Additional Protocols of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 .. to treat humanely all detainees in our custody and .. encouraging compliance with global legal standards for the conduct of armed conflict.

These steps are part of our broader commitment to the goals President Obama laid out .. January 22, 2009 and his speech at the National Archives: to close Guantánamo consistent with our values, by prosecuting Guantánamo detainees where possible, by transferring them abroad when it can be safely done, and by asserting clear, defensible and lawful standards for those Guantánamo detainees who cannot be prosecuted for past crimes, but still pose a threat to the security of the United States. The State Department has worked closely with the Defense Department to transfer 67 Guantánamo detainees to third countries, and those .. efforts continue ...

Today we are informing .. the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that we intend to seek .. Senate advice and consent to ratification of the Additional Protocol II to the 1949 Geneva Conventions, which .. includes more detailed standards regarding fair treatment and fair trial.

Ratifying Protocol II .. is fully consistent with current military practice and would improve America's ability to maintain strong coalition cooperation in ongoing and future operations, as 165 other countries have now ratified the treaty.

The second step .. is to declare that as of today, the United States .. will adhere to the set of norms in Article 75 of Protocol I in international armed conflicts. Article 75 sets forth humane treatment and fair trial safeguards for certain persons detained by opposing forces in international armed conflict and was praised by President Reagan's Joint Chiefs of Staff as "militarily advantageous insofar as it might make mistreatment of captured U.S. military personnel more difficult to justify in future conflicts." ...

http://www.america.gov/st/texttrans-english/2011/March/20110307163133su0.3200604.html?CP.rss=true

[jwirr]

1. Does that include the one being held at Quantico?