During last week’s American Psychological Association convention in Toronto, the APA’s President James Bray received a letter from the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Manfred Nowak. The letter declared that, in Dr. Nowak’s professional opinion, the Guantanamo detention facility is still in violation of international law. It therefore asked the APA to follow its own policy, as expressed in a member-passed referendum last September, and request removal of psychologists from Guantanamo. It further asked the APA to remove its infamous standard 1.02, which built the Nuremberg “just following orders” Defense into the APA’s ethics code.
Here is a Press Release issued Saturday by the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology, of which I’m a member. The Press Release is followed by Nowak’s letter:
United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture Calls on American Psychological Association to Withdraw Psychologists from Guantánamo Detention Camp
Coalition for an Ethical Psychology demands APA comply with international law, medical ethics and its own policy prohibiting participation in human rights violations
Contacts:
Stephen Soldz
ssoldz@bgsp.edu
Steven Reisner
SReisner@psychoanalysis.net
August 8, 2009, Toronto — In a letter to the American Psychological Association, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, Manfred Nowak, warns that psychologists’ continued presence at Guantánamo Bay and similar detention settings violates international law, medical ethics, and APA’s own policy on psychologists and human rights. Dr. Nowak’s letter, issued during the association’s annual convention in Toronto, calls for both the removal of psychologists from those settings and for changes in the APA ethics code, which currently allows psychologists to follow military orders even if these conflict with medical ethics or human rights.
In 2008 the APA membership overwhelmingly approved a referendum prohibiting psychologists from working at sites that violate international law, specifically referencing the standards of the United Nations. In the wake of the letter from the UN Rapporteur, the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology echoed Dr. Nowak’s call for APA leadership to immediately implement the member-ratified policy.
“Given the crisis arising from Nowak’s findings, the APA leadership must act immediately to implement the members’ wishes as expressed in the referendum and call for the removal of psychologists from Guantánamo and other settings which remain outside of international law. Otherwise the APA and the profession of psychology risk further damage,” stated Stephen Soldz, co-founder of the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology and President-elect of Psychologists for Social Responsibility.
In his letter, Nowak states clearly that, by UN standards, “the overall conditions of detention at Guantanamo Bay continue to be outside of international law.” He goes on to state, “it is incumbent upon the APA to ensure that its standards comport with international law as well as the UN Principles of Medical Ethics [which] require an absolute ethical prohibition of psychologists’ presence or involvement in these operations.” As an accredited non-governmental organization at the United Nations, the APA is mandated to uphold United Nations standards; otherwise that status may be jeopardized.
Nowak’s letter comes in response to APA’s continued failure to prohibit psychologists’ participation in detainee interrogations and conditions, even after recently released Justice Department memos, Senate and Defense Department reports have confirmed that psychologists played crucial roles in helping to design, implement, and provide training for the Bush administration program of detainee abuse and torture.
“Even today, long after the end of the Bush administration, detainees continue to be held in abusive conditions and psychologists continue to lend their expertise to legitimize these abuses,” said Steven Reisner, advisor on Psychological Ethics for Physicians for Human Rights and a co-founder of the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology. “It is time to investigate and hold to account both the psychologists who devised and implemented the Bush administration programs of abuse and torture, and the APA for continued support of these psychologists, even after their essential role in the torture program was exposed.”
The Coalition further calls upon the APA to inform psychologists serving at Guantanamo and Bagram Air Base that they are serving in violation of APA policy.
As Nowak stated in his letter:
“Every day that you delay the referendum is another day where psychologists are, by their presence and participation in these operations, acquiescing in human rights violations. Following the APA’s own policy, on the other hand, would send a message that the health professionals maintain the highest ethical standards, refuse to participate in such violations, and do their part, with the support of their professional leadership, to bring these abuses and violations to an end.”
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The Coalition for an Ethical Psychology is an organization committed to putting psychology on firm ethical foundation. It has been at the forefront of the efforts to change APA’s policies regarding detainee abuse.
Here is Nowak’s letter:
Dear President Bray,
In 2007, the American Psychological Association’s Council of Representatives passed a ‘Resolution against Torture, Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment.’ That resolution states:
[T]he American Psychological Association is an accredited non-governmental organization at the United Nations and so is committed to promote and protect human rights in accordance with the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights…[and] consistent with international human rights instruments, as well as guidelines developed for health professionals, including but not limited to: Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions; The United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment; The United Nations Principles of Medical Ethics Relevant to the Role of Health Personnel, particularly Physicians, in the Protection of Prisoners and Detainees against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment; and The World Medical Association Declaration of Tokyo: Guidelines for Physicians Concerning Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment in Relation to Detention and Imprisonment.
This was followed by a referendum passed overwhelmingly by the APA membership and approved as APA policy by Council in February 2009. The referendum states, in part:
Whereas the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Mental Health and the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture have determined that treatment equivalent to torture has been taking place at the United States Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba….Be it resolved that psychologists may not work in settings where persons are held outside of, or in violation of, either International Law (e.g., the UN Convention Against Torture and the Geneva Conventions) or the US Constitution (where appropriate), unless they are working directly for the persons being detained or for an independent third party working to protect human rights.
Clearly, the APA takes its obligations as an accredited NGO at the United Nations and its responsibilities to follow international instruments regarding the treatment of detainees and the ethical guidelines for health professionals seriously.
This is why I am writing to you now – to inform you that I consider the very fact that detainees have been and still are kept at Guantanamo Bay detention facilities, to constitute arbitrary detention and, therefore a violation of Article 9 ICCPR. It is definitely good news that these facilities are going to be closed at the latest by January 2010, and that the conditions of detention have certainly improved. Nevertheless, force feeding of hunger strikers with cruel methods is continuing, and I am very concerned about the mental conditions of some of the long term detainees. Apart from sporadic visits by the ICRC and their lawyers, the detainees have been in total isolation from their families and the outside world for many years, and they are kept in total uncertainty about the length of their detention. Together with the rough physical treatment and past practice of torture I certainly conclude that the overall conditions of detention at Guantanamo Bay constitutes to be “outside, or in violation of, international law”.
Given the now public record of psychologists’ involvement in the design, supervision, implementation, and legitimization of a regime of physical and psychological torture at US military and intelligence facilities, including Guantánamo, it is incumbent upon the APA to ensure that its standards comport with international law as well as the UN Principles of Medical Ethics Relevant to the Role of Health Personnel. These instruments require an absolute ethical prohibition of psychologists’ presence or involvement in these operations.
Thus, in keeping with both the APA’s own policy and relevant international law and ethical guidelines, I request that you do all that is necessary to:
a) invoke the referendum and immediately request that the Obama administration, the Department of Defense, and the US intelligence agencies remove psychologists from Guantánamo and any other sites where international law is being violated or where inspectors are prohibited from assessing that conditions are in compliance with international law.
b) Amend the APA ethics code (standards 1.02 and 1.03) where it permits psychologists to follow domestic law and military orders and regulations even when these conflict with international law, the United Nations Principles of Medical Ethics and the APA’s own ethics code.
Every day that you delay invoking the referendum is another day where psychologists are, by their presence and participation in these operations, acquiescing in human rights violations. Following the APA’s own policy, on the other hand, would send a message that health professionals maintain the highest ethical standards, refuse to participate in such violations, and do their part, with the support of their professional leadership, to bring these abuses and violations to an end.
Sincerely,
Manfred Nowak
Univ.-Prof. Dr. Manfred Nowak, LL.M.
Professor for International Human Rights, University of Vienna
Director, Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Human Rights
UN Special Rapporteur on Torture
Freyung 6, 1. Hof, Stiege II.
1010 Wien, Austria
Tel: +43 1 42 77 27 456
Fax: +43 1 42 77 27 429
Web: www.univie.ac.at/bim
See also the Center for Constitutional Rights press release on Nowak’s letter.
August 12th, 2009
There were two major events at the American Psychological Association in Toronto last week relevant to the interrogations-torture issue. The first event, discussed in this post, is that two human rights groups, the Center for Constitutional Rights [CCR] and the Canadian Centre for International Justice (CCIJ), jointly called on the Canadian government to initiate an investigation of certain participants in the APA Convention for possible involvement in torture or war crimes in the “war on terror.” In particular they focused upon Col. Larry James and his actions during his time as a senior member of the Guantanamo Behavioral Science Consultation Team [BSCT] in January to May, 2003.
To accompany their letter to the Canadian Minister of Public Safety, CCR prepared a background document supporting their call for an investigation. Tis document combines James’ claim in his book Fixing Hell: An Army Psychologist Confronts Abu Ghraib, that he was a central figure in interrogation policy at Guantanamo during his tenure with extensive evidence that numerous abuses occurred during the time that James claims to have been in charge. Given James’ claims in his book and the documentary record, only three possibilities are reasonable. (1) James is telling the truth about his command responsibility and is thus responsible for terrible abuses that deserve investigation; (2) James is lying about his important role at the detention facility; or (3) James is lying about his role and is also responsible for or complicit in severe abuses. Only an investigation can determine which of these possibilities is the most accurate.
The one possibility that is inconsistent with all other evidence is that, as he claimed, James played a major role in ending abuses at Guantanamo as systematic abuses often amounting to torture continued long after his 2003 deployment there.
At the PA Convention last week, Col. James assumed his duties as the elected President of the association’s division of Military Psychology. Evidently, while others within the military are confronting and repudiating abuses committed against detainees, the military psychologists so far maintain the fiction that such abuses had nothing to do with their members. How any one of them can read Col. James’ book and take his claims of Fixing Hell seriously is beyond me. For those claims to be true, the Red Cross, the FBI, the Defense Department Inspector General and the Senate Armed Services Committee must all be lying or massively deceived, as essentially James suggests his book. One can only hope that the honorable military psychologists will eventually join their JAG and interrogator colleagues in vigorously repudiating any involvement in the dark side and stop protecting those of their colleagues who acted dishonorably.
Here is a press release from CCR on their call for an investigation as well as on court action by Dr. Trudy Bond to attempt to force the Louisiana psychology licensing board to investigate her complaint of possible involvement in detainee abuses by Col. James. The Board had previously refused to investigate, as did the APA Ethics Committee when confronted with a similar complaint by Dr. Bond. Following the press release is the CCR/CCIJ letter to the Canadian Minister of Public Safety.
Rights Groups Call on Canada to Investigate Guantanamo Psychologist for Possible Torture Complicity
Legal Battle Continues Against Louisiana Psychology Board for Refusing to Investigate Professional Misconduct Allegations Against Dr. Larry James
CONTACT: press@ccrjustice.org
August 6, 2009, Ottawa and New York – Human rights organizations are calling on the Canadian government to investigate retired U.S. Army colonel and psychologist Dr. Larry C. James, a former high-ranking advisor on interrogations for the U.S. military in Guantanamo Bay. According to his own statements, Dr. James played an influential role in both the policy and day-to-day operations of interrogations and detention at the base. Publicly-available information suggests that while Dr. James was at Guantanamo in the spring of 2003, abuse in interrogations was widespread and cruel treatment was official policy.
Responding to reports that he would travel to Toronto this week, the Canadian Centre for International Justice (CCIJ) and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) sent a joint letter yesterday to Canada’s Minister of Public Safety requesting an investigation into whether Dr. James had a role in war crimes or torture at Guantanamo Bay in 2003. Dr. James, who currently serves as the President of the American Psychological Association’s Division 19 for Military Psychology is expected to attend the APA’s Convention beginning today in Toronto.
Also today, a motion for appeal was filed in Louisiana, in the case Dr. Trudy Bond v. Louisiana State Board of Examiners of Psychologists (LSBEP). In compliance with her ethical obligation to report abuse by other psychologists, Dr. Bond, a Toledo-based psychologist, filed a complaint against Dr. James before the LSBEP, the agency that issued and now regulates his psychology license. Dr. Bond alleged that Dr. James breached professional ethics by violating psychologists’ duties to obtain informed consent, to protect confidential information and to do no harm. As Chief Psychologist of the Joint Intelligence Group and a senior member of the Behavioral Science Consultation Team (BSCT) at Guantanamo, Dr. James had access to the confidential medical records of people he was charged with exploiting for intelligence. Reports issued after his departure alleged that BSCTs used information from patients’ records to help identify physical and mental vulnerabilities of detainees for the purposes of interrogation. Dr. James denies that claim.
Following the LSBEP’s summary dismissal of the complaint without investigation, Dr. Bond filed suit against the LSBEP in Louisiana’s 19th Judicial District Court, which dismissed her case last month. Today’s motion signals Dr. Bond’s intention to continue her pursuit of accountability at the state appellate level.
Allegations of abuse during Dr. James’ January to May 2003 deployment include beatings, religious and sexual humiliation, rape threats and painful body positions. Canadian citizen Omar Khadr is one of the prisoners who has alleged brutal treatment in the spring of 2003 when he was only 16 years old.
Based on this information, the CCIJ and CCR called on the Canadian government to investigate whether action should be taken against Dr. James or other attendees of the APA Convention who may have been involved in abuse of detainees.
The organizations have appealed to Canadian officials because the United States government, despite the change in administration, has failed to take proper steps to investigate people in positions of military, intelligence and political leadership who may have been involved in crimes related to the torture and abuse of detainees.
Canada’s Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act gives the federal government power to prosecute war crimes regardless of where they were committed if the alleged perpetrator is later present in Canada. A similar provision of the Criminal Code applies to crimes of torture.
Said CCIJ Legal Coordinator Matt Eisenbrandt, “Any time there is credible information that someone on Canadian soil may have been involved in torture or war crimes, the Canadian government should investigate. The fact that a Canadian citizen says he was abused during the time Dr. James was at Guantanamo only makes the case stronger for the government to conduct a full inquiry into the evidence.”
Said CCR Fellow Deborah Popowski, “”The Louisiana Board should investigate Larry James to find out whether he hurt people using the license it issued him to heal. No one can afford to ignore evidence that a psychologist may have been complicit in torture. When politics trump the rule of law, everyone suffers: survivors of torture, the health profession, and all patients.”
James was also stationed in Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison in 2004 and returned to Guantanamo in 2007.
For more information on the involvement of health professionals in torture and abuse visit the Center for Constitutional Rights website www.whenhealersharm.org.
The Center for Constitutional Rights is dedicated to advancing and protecting the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Founded in 1966 by attorneys who represented civil rights movements in the South, CCR is a non-profit legal and educational organization committed to the creative use of law as a positive force for social change.
The Canadian Centre for International Justice/Centre Canadian pour la justice internationale (www.ccij.ca) is a charitable organization that works with survivors of genocide, torture and other atrocities to seek redress and bring perpetrators to justice.
Here is the CCR/CCIJ letter to the Canadian Minister of Public Safety.
The Honourable Peter Van Loan
Department of Public Safety Canada
269 Laurier Avenue West
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0P8
August 5, 2009
By fax: (613) 992-8351
Dear Minister Van Loan,
The Canadian Centre for International Justice and the Center for Constitutional Rights call on you to launch an investigation to determine whether visitors to Canada were complicit in war crimes and/or torture. Retired U.S. Army colonel and psychologist Dr. Larry C. James and others may be traveling to Canada this week to attend the American Psychological Association (APA) Convention in Toronto from August 6 to 9. Publicly-available information, summarized in the attached appendix, indicates that Dr. James, formerly a high-ranking advisor on interrogations for the U.S. military in Guantanamo Bay, should be investigated to determine whether he was complicit in war crimes and/or torture. Faced with this information, the Canadian government has the authority and duty to investigate whether Dr. James acted in violation of the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act and/or section 269.1 of the Criminal Code.
We note that a Canadian national, Omar Khadr, was among those tortured in Guantanamo during the time Dr. James was deployed as Chief Psychologist for the intelligence command at Guantanamo. Khadr has alleged two specific incidents of abusive treatment during interrogation in the spring of 2003, when Dr. James says he served at the detention facility.
The War Crimes Program, in which the Canadian government takes such rightful pride, is most needed in situations like this one, in which there is “no reasonable prospect of fair and real prosecution” (1) in the country that would otherwise be most likely to assume jurisdiction. We appeal to the Canadian government because the United States government, despite the change in administration, has failed to take proper steps to investigate those in positions of military, intelligence and political leadership who may have been involved in crimes in the so-called “War on Terror.”
Although the public has had difficulty gaining full access to all the relevant documentation, Freedom of Information Act litigation and a U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee inquiry into the treatment of detainees in U.S. custody (2) have yielded documents that shed light on the role of military intelligence psychologists. Additionally, Dr. James published his own account of his involvement in a 2008 book titled, Fixing Hell: An Army Psychologist Confronts Abu Ghraib, (3) which covered his first deployment to Guantanamo in 2003 as well as his subsequent deployment to Iraq.
The publicly-available information from these documents shows that from January to May 2003, Dr. James served as Chief Psychologist and a senior member of the Behavioral Science Consultation Team (BSCT) of the Joint Intelligence Group at Guantanamo. (4) According to Dr. James’ own statements, outlined in the appendix, he played an influential role in interrogation and detention policy, procedure and practices at Guantanamo during his deployment. In this period, documents indicate that men and boys detained in Guantanamo were subjected to interrogation tactics and conditions of detention that amounted to torture or other forms of cruel,
inhuman or degrading treatment.
We believe Dr. James is likely to attend the conference because he has been elected president of the APA’s Division 19 for Military Psychology.5 We also suspect that other APA members who may have had a role in abusive interrogations in Guantanamo, Afghanistan or Iraq may travel to Canada.
The publicly-available documentation provides sufficient information to warrant further investigation about Dr. James and others who might attend the APA convention in Toronto. We call on you to launch such an investigation, through the War Crimes Program, to determine if sufficient evidence exists for action to be taken against them.
Sincerely,
William Quigley
Legal Director
Center for Constitutional Rights
Jayne Stoyles
Executive Director
Canadian Centre for International Justice
Cc: William J.S. Elliott, Commissioner, Royal Canadian Mounted Police (by fax)
James Bray, President, American Psychological Association (by fax)
NOTES:
1 Department of Justice, Canada, War Crimes Program website, http://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/pi/wc-cg/mwcppcgc.html (last visited Aug. 5 2009).
2 S. Rep. INQUIRY INTO THE TREATMENT OF DETAINEES IN U.S. CUSTODY (Nov. 20, 2008) [hereinafter SASC Report (Nov. 20, 2008)].
3 Larry C. James, Fixing Hell: An Army Psychologist Confronts Abu Ghraib (2008) [hereinafter Fixing Hell].
4 Dr. James returned to Guantanamo in 2007, and he also served as Director of the Behavioral Science Unit, Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center at Abu Ghraib in 2004. Although the evidence presented in this letter relates to Dr. James’ 2003 deployment, additional information may exist that would warrant further inquiry into these other roles.
5 American Psychological Association website, http://www.apadivision19.or/leadership.htm (last visited Aug. 5, 2009).
August 12th, 2009