CIA v The World

A recent article in the Harvard Political Review offers an interesting commentary on the controversial indictment of CIA agents earlier this year by Italian and German prosecutors. It is worth noting that while there is no provision under American law to prosecute torture as a specific crime, the same does not go for Italy and Germany, with both these countries allowing for universal jurisdiction over torture cases at the domestic level. The following paragraph is telling:

"Because they involve important issues of transnational political justice, these cases highlight America’s stance against any international court system, particularly the International Criminal Court, to which U.S. President George W. Bush has consistently voiced his opposition. Yet the prosecutors have deliberately brought suit not in international court, but in specific national courts that claim jurisdiction over such torture cases."

But so far the U.S. has refused to comply with extradition requests for the agents in question, citing harm to both intelligence gathering and diplomatic relations. In that vein, this article suggests that despite the fact that Italy and Germany should be wary about how far they push these cases, nevertheless powerful states in Europe and elsewhere, by showing that they are not afraid to put diplomatic relations on the line, can help shape a U.S. interrogation and anti terror policy that is more in line with internationally accepted norms of behavior. This is an encouraging argument and will be interesting to see how it unfolds in the current debate over U.S. interrogation policies and extraordinary rendition.