The South African Civil Society Information Service

Mary Robinson: War on Terror Erodes International Human Rights Standards

17 Sep 2011

Speaking on the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, former President of Ireland and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights from 1997-2002, contends that "there were many mistakes made in response to those terrible attacks. The worst in my view was to start a war on terrorism. I pleaded at the time that we should treat these terrible atrocious acts as crimes against humanity and focus on going after the criminals."

"When you declare a war, its easier to erode standards, particularly standards of international human rights and the United States fell below those standards - and it had a terrible knock on effect elsewhere in the world, as I saw first hand," argues Robinson.

Read more articles filed under Videos.

Read more articles tagged with: War on Terror, United States of America.

You can find this page online at http://sacsis.org.za/site/article/429.19.