A/HRC/22/52 III. Framework principles for securing the accountability of public officials for gross or systematic human rights violations committed in the course of States-sanctioned counter-terrorism initiatives A. Introduction 14. The Special Rapporteur considers that the attacks that were perpetrated on the territory of the United States on 11 September 2001 can properly be characterized as crimes against humanity. Soon after those attacks, and in response to them, the Government of President George W. Bush embarked upon a systematic campaign of internationally wrongful acts involving the secret detention, rendition and torture of terrorist suspects.3 15. On 17 September 2001 President Bush authorized the CIA to operate a secret detention programme which involved the establishment of clandestine detention facilities know as “black sites” on the territory of other States, with the collaboration of public officials in those States.4 At about the same time, he allegedly authorized the CIA to carry out “extraordinary renditions” (the secret transfers of prisoners outside any lawful process of extradition or expulsion) enabling them to be interrogated whilst in the formal custody of the public officials of other States, including States with a record of using torture.5 At the beginning of August 2002 the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel purported to authorize a range of physical and mental abuse of terrorist suspects known as “enhanced interrogation techniques”.6 The Bush administration has since publicly acknowledged the use of “waterboarding” on “high value detainees” on the personal authority of the President.7 16. In July 2006, the United Nations Committee Against Torture expressed concern at the apparent impunity enjoyed by the United States personnel involved in these practices and recommended that the involvement of public officials in acts of torture and other forms of inhuman and degrading treatment should be promptly and thoroughly investigated.8 17. Two days after his inauguration, on 22 January 2009, President Obama passed an executive order which prohibited the use of secret detention, banned the use of torture and other forms of serious abuse, and required all detainees to be treated in accordance with the 3 4 5 6 7 8 See Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms while Countering Terrorism, A/HRC/104, 4 January 2009, at paras. 38, 51 and 60. Declaration of Marilyn A Dorn, Information Review Officer, CIA, 5 January 2007 available at http://www.aclu.org/pdfs/safefree/20070110/cia_dorn_declaration_items_1_29_61.pdf; Memo to DOJ Command Centre – Background Paper on CIA's Combined Use of Interrogation Techniques, 30 December 2004, available at http://www.aclu.org/torturefoia/released/082409/olcreGlobalizing Torture, CIA Secret Detention and Extraordinary Renditionmand/2004olc97.pdf). Globalizing Torture, CIA Secret Detention and Extraordinary Rendition, Open Society Justice Initiative, 5 February 2013, p. 15 and footnotes thereto. United States Justice Department, Office of Legal Counsel, Memorandum for Alberto Gonzales, Counsel to the President, Re: Standards of Conduct for Interrogation under 18 USC paras. 23402340A, 1 August 2006; United States Justice Department, Office of Legal Counsel, Memorandum for John Rizzo, Acting CIA General Counsel, Interrogation of an al Qaeda operative, 1 August 2006, available at http://media.luxmedia.com/aclu/olc_08012002_bybee.pdf. George W. Bush, Decision Points, 2010, at pp. 169-171. Committee Against Torture, Concluding Observations on the United States, United Nations Document CAT/C/USA/CO/2, 25 July 2006, para. 25. 5