Saturday, October 03, 2009
John Yoo
John Yoo, welcome to the United Nations’ human rights report, compliments of Berkeley, California. The leftist city’s leadership decided this week to become the first non-country to join the UN’s human rights convention, requiring it to file biennial reports with the international body on Berkeley’s own human rights record. Such accounting could include mentioning the presence of Yoo, a University of California, Berkeley School of Law professor and local resident who authored the Bush administration’s justification for torturing suspected terrorists and ignoring the Fourth Amendment.
The decision to become a party to UN human rights treaties was promoted by Ann Fagan Ginger, head of the Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Institute in Berkeley. “It’s critical that cities and counties, not just nations, make these reports to the UN,” she told the Bay Area media.
Although the Berkeley City Council voted unanimously on the issue, some members questioned the move. “I’m not sure what the upside for us is,” said City Councilman Gordon Wozniak. “To prove we’re good guys because we don’t torture people in Berkeley? I think we need to read these treaties a lot more closely.”
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Berkeley Agrees to U.N. Rights Treaties (by Carolyn Jones, San Francisco Chronicle)
Berkeley to Own Up to Its Torture Sins (by Joe Rosato and Jr., NBC Bay Area)
Berkeley May Sign onto U.N. Treaties (by Carolyn Jones, San Francisco Chronicle)
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