Navi Pillay Quotes

Human-rights advocates, for example, claim that the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners is of a piece with President Bush's 2002 decision to deny al Qaeda and Taliban fighters the legal status of prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions.

In light of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, critics are arguing that abuses of Iraqi prisoners are being produced by a climate of disregard for the laws of war.

The concept of war crimes is an American invention.

Al Qaeda doesn't abide by the Geneva Conventions, so in my opinion, they should not be afforded the protections of them.

The world must know that America holds to the highest standards of military conduct and human rights protections. Anything less is unacceptable.

The photographs of Iraqi prisoners being subjected to degrading and humiliating treatment by their captors, and the reports of acts of sexual abuse, physical abuse, and other acts of maltreatment shock the conscience.

Some international law specialists compare the invasion of Iraq to the 'crimes against the peace' for which Nazi leaders were indicted at Nuremberg.

What's happened at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq is one of the grossest violations of human rights under the Geneva Conventions that we have record of. It is simply monstrous.

I knew that the Hague Convention prohibited the use of poison in war. I didn't know the details of the terms of the Convention, but I did know of that prohibition.

Indiscriminate attacks on civilians ought, under all circumstances, to be illegal in war as in peacetime.

Perhaps the most basic rule of the law of armed conflict is that civilians and civilian objects must not be made the object of direct attack, although incidental injuries caused to such persons or objects in the course of a legitimate attack must be proportionate to the purpose of the attack.

You should declare the Taliban and Al Qaeda outside the coverage of the Geneva Conventions. That would keep American officials from being exposed to the federal War Crimes Act.

A decision that the Geneva conventions do not apply to the conflict in Afghanistan in which our armed forces are engaged deprives our troops there of any claim to the protection of the conventions in the event they are captured

The main problem with applying the Geneva Convention to detainees is that it would interfere with effective interrogation.

Until now, when powerful men committed crimes against humanity, they knew that as long as they remained powerful, no earthly court could judge them.

According to the laws of war, a warring party can just walk away from civilian harm that they have caused.

You don't torture people. You don't indiscriminately attack civilians. You protect as good as you can the impact of your warfare on women and children.

We need to understand that the Geneva Conventions are not just some historical documents born of another time, created for another purpose.

Europe was not as outraged by Auschwitz as by Guantanamo Bay.

I do support the effort to investigate for crimes, war crimes committed by the Syrians and the Russians and try to hold them accountable.

It is important to recognize the differences between the war in Iraq and the war on terrorism. The treatment of those detained at Abu Ghraib is governed by the Geneva Conventions, which have been signed by both the U.S. and Iraq.

President Bush and his commanders announced early in the conflict that the Conventions applied.

No, the United States does not target civilians.

Regrettably, it has become clear that torture of detainees in United States custody is not limited to Abu Ghraib or even Iraq. Since Abu Ghraib, there have been increasing reports of torture.

More and more, we have been able to present the argument that recruitment of child soldiers is a social breakdown that leads to atrocities, because that's why they get them.