Tainted Legacy: 9/11 and the Ruin of Human Rights

by William F. Schulz

Have human rights as we once understood them become obsolete since 9-11? Aren't new methods needed to combat the apocalyptic violence of al-Qaeda? Shouldn't we sacrifice some rights to make us all safer? And if we can kill a combatant in battle, why shouldn't we torture them if it will save lives? William Schulz, Executive Director of Amnesty International USA, examines these and other fundamental questions through the prism of our new consciousness about terrorism in this provocative new book. It questions America's own ambivalent record—its tainted legacy—and addresses recent human rights violations: the imprisonment without charge of non-citizens and the violation of the Geneva Convention at Guantanamo Bay. Schulz writes, "One of Osama bin Laden's goals is to destroy the solidarity of the international community and undermine the norms and standards that have sustained that community since the end of World War II. The great irony of the post-9/11 world is that, when it comes to human rights, the United States has been doing his work for him."

Genres: Politics

208 pages, Paperback

First published September 28, 2003

Reviews

[Justin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is pretty a pretty intense examination of ... well it's in the title. Schulz is the executive director at Amnesty, so he knows what he's talking about. What's really interesting, however, is that his portrait is layered. Schulz acknowledges that some rights may be temporarily revocable if circumstances require it. And that the "war on terror" in general, and 9/11 in particular, should provoke intense thoughtfulness as to whether certain rights needed to be reconsidered. The best examples I think he gives are subway security cameras and national ID cards, both of which I'm totally fine with personally.

Beyond these cases, however, Schulz is pretty unforgiving (and for good reason) in his portrayal of the willingness of the Bush's administration (and a healthy chunk of the U.S. population) to revoke a wide variety of what Schulz views as irrevocable rights (habeus corpus, etc.). And not just for academic reasons - this book should be required reading because it contains a simple, but effective, argument that when we stomp on human rights (both domestically and internationally) in the "war on terror" we are really only adding more fuel to the fire.