On Wednesday, Australia voted against a protocol enforcing the international convention on torture. The protocol technically allows for independent, international inspections of prisons and detention centres around the world to ensure that human rights infringements are not occuring. The USA abstained from the vote, which is bad enough, but apparently US diplomats believe allowing such inspections could be unconstitutional. Australia was the only so-called 'western' nation that voted against the proposal, throwing their lot in with countries like China, Iran and Pakistan. Considering the arguments that are going on in this country at the moment between the government and human rights activists regarding the treatment of illegal immigrants being held in detention centres in the middle of the desert, this is an incredibly cynical move by our country. Now it looks like our immigration people may well be hiding something after all. At least Americans have the Constitution to fall back on when they need an excuse for not agreeing with something--no offense meant to my friends across the Pacific, but I sometimes feel that the US does use its Constitution to avoid making hard decisions at times. I'm sorry but I'm extremely angry about this. Our country was just voted at number five on a list of the most liveable countries in the world, but we don't want to allow independent observers into our prisons to make sure we're not breaking international laws. Why should we continue to support calls for Iraq to let the UN in to look at their weapons facilities if we can't agree to let them come and inspect us?

I agree with you 100% Goreripper, especially on the US abstention. How can a country that approves inspecting Third World countries for chemical weapons not be held accountable themselves? And why is it unconstitutional for our own arsenal to be inspected when the lives of people in the US and the World are at stake? It looks like Texas uber alles to me.  

Ouch!
Makes you wonder about the nature of politics though!
Let's face it, if you ask any 'man in the street' (in the UK, US or Austrailia), I think the great majority would think torture was wrong, period!
Who exactly does reject these things?

My opinion is that unless a nation has done something to warrant having third party inspectors come in nosing around, then everyone else should butt out.  I think that in most civilized nations there are enough internal checks and balances to keep things above board in most cases.

I agree with Lester. I think the reason we obstained is because don't want foriegners comming in and telling us how we should handle things. Granted, we should have voted aginst this instead of taking the PC cop out.