UN: The United Nations human rights commissioner, Louise Arbour, talks to Mary Fitzgerald.
The Government should search US military planes landing at Shannon airport to confirm they are not being used for rendition flights, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour has said.
Ms Arbour was speaking following a day of meetings with Irish Government officials and human rights organisations in Dublin yesterday, during which the rendition issue was discussed.
"I stressed that it's not just the direct complicity that is of significance but also either neglect or wilful blindness to what's going on.
"Certainly my sense is that the significance of the issue is well understood and I suspect that the Government is taking appropriate steps," she said.
Despite assurances from the US that no rendition of terrorist suspects has taken place through Shannon, the UN commissioner said that random searches of aircraft should be conducted as a matter of precaution.
"I think the optimum protection is very much to try to verify, to go beyond assurances. Ideally, there should be random searches just to give some assurance that the commitments made by another country are respected right through the chain of command," she said.
"I don't think it's diplomatically offensive to conduct random or occasional searches to verify."
Ms Arbour, a former chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, was in Ireland for a conference organised by Dublin-based human rights organisation Front Line.
In an interview with The Irish Times, she discussed how measures taken by the US and other governments to combat terrorism since September 11th 2001 had damaged the concept of human rights.
States should be careful to ensure they do not sacrifice fundamental liberties when dealing with security threats, she stressed.
"The danger is to become totally hysterical and have a false measure of our own insecurity or even worse, a false appreciation of what will increase our safety," she said.
Ms Arbour said that while there were signs of a rowing back in the US, some of the damage caused by certain counter-terrorism measures could "be relatively permanent".
One of the main areas of concern, she said, was the attempt to redefine torture.
"The erosion of the standard against torture is very disturbing. More and more there is this discourse that there may be cases where it is okay.
"Also, there is a questioning of what torture really is. I think it's going to take some time to go back to what it was."
Ms Arbour said such conduct had made it more difficult to pressure countries with poor human rights records.
"It's the first thing I hear when I go anywhere in the world to promote human rights initiatives that the government is not particularly receptive to.
"They say to me, 'why are you wasting your time talking to us about this issue, why aren't you in Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo, why aren't you talking to them?'
"There is also this idea that the West/the US promote human rights issues that suit their agenda and they have declared themselves to be in a realm of non-accountability. In human rights promotion, the concept of universality and equal treatment is pretty fundamental and now it's very much jeopardised."
The commissioner deflected criticism that the UN's new Human Rights Council has so far failed to overcome the poor reputation of its predecessor, the much maligned Human Rights Commission.
"I think it is very early [ to say] because some of its most promising features have yet to yield any results," she said, referring in particular to a review process that will scrutinise the human rights records of all UN member states.
Ms Arbour said she would like to see the US reconsider its decision not to join the council.
"One can only hope that at some point the US will be persuaded that it can engage better inside the system than staying on the margins. I know it's not perfect but in the end this is the only body within the context of the UN that looks at human rights issues."
On criticism from human rights groups that the council has so far demonstrated a "disproportionate" focus on Israel, Ms Arbour acknowledged that its status as a separate agenda item made it more difficult to counter accusations of selectivity and politicisation.
"There are many who have collectively said this is not a good signal, that it's a signal of continuing politicisation. I say this is the world in which we live, this is the current composition of the council and the overwhelming majority of council members have decided to prioritise this issue. This is the political reality. So the question is do we write off the entire enterprise because of this particular feature?"
Finally, the commissioner stressed that human rights violations occurring in a non-violent context deserved as much attention as those taking place in conflict situations.
"The temptation is to jump and point at the case that is most blatant. You have massive human rights violations - gender inequality, etc - that are chronic but just under the radar screen because it's not a raging armed conflict. Human rights promotion and protection at early stages is just as important."