Wolfgang Kaleck
Encyclopedia
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
civil rights attorney
Lawyer
A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...
. He is also the General Secretary for the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights. He resides in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
.
Human Rights Cases
On November 14, 2006, Kaleck sought criminal prosecution charges in German court against a number of United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
officials and military personnel in connection with alleged human rights abuses at the prison facilities at Abu Gharib and Guantanamo Bay
Guantanamo Bay detainment camp
The Guantanamo Bay detention camp is a detainment and interrogation facility of the United States located within Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba. The facility was established in 2002 by the Bush Administration to hold detainees from the war in Afghanistan and later Iraq...
on behalf of eleven plaintiffs. Approximately 30 human rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
activists and organizations participated as co-plaintiffs.
Those named in Kaleck's complaint include former United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
Donald Rumsfeld
Donald Henry Rumsfeld is an American politician and businessman. Rumsfeld served as the 13th Secretary of Defense from 1975 to 1977 under President Gerald Ford, and as the 21st Secretary of Defense from 2001 to 2006 under President George W. Bush. He is both the youngest and the oldest person to...
, former Central Intelligence Agency Director George Tenet
George Tenet
George John Tenet was the Director of Central Intelligence for the United States Central Intelligence Agency, and is Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at Georgetown University....
, former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales
Alberto Gonzales
Alberto R. Gonzales was the 80th Attorney General of the United States. Gonzales was appointed to the post in February 2005 by President George W. Bush. Gonzales was the first Hispanic Attorney General in U.S. history and the highest-ranking Hispanic government official ever...
, Major General Barbara Fast
Barbara Fast
Barbara Fast was a general officer in the United States Army and was the senior military intelligence officer serving in Iraq during the period of time when the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse occurred....
, William J. Haynes
William J. Haynes, II
William James "Jim" Haynes II is an American lawyer and former General Counsel of the Department of Defense during President George W. Bush's administration. Haynes resigned as General Counsel effective March 2008...
, John Yoo
John Yoo
John Choon Yoo is an American attorney, law professor, and author. As a former official in the United States Department of Justice during the George W...
, David Addington
David Addington
David Spears Addington , was legal counsel and chief of staff to former Vice President Dick Cheney, and is now vice president of domestic and economic policy studies at The Heritage Foundation....
, Walter Wojdakowski
Walter Wojdakowski
Walter Wojdakowski is a Major General in the United States Army. He has held a number of high positions within the military, including his last post as Commanding General of Fort Benning...
, Stephen Cambone
Stephen Cambone
Stephen A. Cambone was the first United States Under-Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, a post created in March 2003. Cambone first came to the attention of the public at large during the testimony of Major General Antonio Taguba before the U.S...
, Ricardo S. Sanchez, Colonel Thomas Pappas
Thomas Pappas
Thomas M. Pappas is a former United States Army colonel and is currently a high level, civilian intelligence officer with the Army's Training and Doctrine Command at Fort Monroe, Virginia. He was the Brigade Commander of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade in Iraq during the Abu Ghraib prisoner...
, Marc Warrern
Marc Warren, JAG
Marc Warren is currently the Deputy Chief Counsel for Operations at the Federal Aviation Administration, and he has held this position since November 2007. He was previously assigned to the US Army's Judge Advocate General office. He is at the Center for Military Law and Operations...
, Geoffrey Miller
Geoffrey Miller (general)
Geoffrey D. Miller is a retired United States Army Major General who commanded the US detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and Iraq. Detention facilities in Iraq under his command included Abu Ghraib prison, Camp Cropper and Camp Bucca. He is also famous for training soldiers in "improved...
, and Jay Bybee
Jay Bybee
Jay Scott Bybee is a federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He has published numerous articles in law journals and taught law school; his primary interests are in constitutional and administrative law....
. Legal scholars speculated shortly thereafter that the case has little chance of successfully making it through the German court system.
See also
- Command responsibilityCommand responsibilityCommand responsibility, sometimes referred to as the Yamashita standard or the Medina standard, and also known as superior responsibility, is the doctrine of hierarchical accountability in cases of war crimes....
- Enhanced interrogation
- Universal jurisdictionUniversal jurisdictionUniversal jurisdiction or universality principle is a principle in public international law whereby states claim criminal jurisdiction over persons whose alleged crimes were committed outside the boundaries of the prosecuting state, regardless of nationality, country of residence, or any other...