Opposition Summary

The proposition in this debate had to show us two fundamental things: 1. Why does extra-territorial rendition constitute a war crime? 2. Why should the leader of the state be responsible? 3. It would have also been nice if they had brought proper definitions and established a model for the debate (answering questions such as which courts/international institutions do they have in mind, the leaders of which specific countries if any should be brought before justice, etc.?) We feel that they failed on all these points throughout the debate. First of all, the proposition did not explicitly define what they mean by “extraterritorial rendition”. We were lead to draw our own conclusions from what they implied through their arguments. What we understood from their copy pasted bits is that what they meant by extra-territorial rendition was the abduction, detention and interrogation of suspects in a territory other than the rendering state. Though most of the examples brought by the proposition were about the U.S using this method, they never stated that they wanted this to be a debate about the US, therefore we debated this on a principle level. In claiming that extra-territorial rendition is a war crime the proposition brought to the table various conventions which extraterritorial rendition violates. From this they implied that it is a war crime. If this were true and extraterritorial rendition would be genuinely outlawed then we would not be having this debate right now. We on the other hand have shown you that extraterritorial rendition is more in a gray area in terms of legality [[http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=961048]], where there have been calls to create a framework to regulate this behavior. They never analyzed what a war crime is nor why extra-territorial rendition should be considered a war crime within the situation that we outlined, namely in the conflict between states and violent non-state actors, such as terrorist organizations. The term “war crime” is used to denote something absolutely extremely vile, if the proposition wants to tag something as a war crime they take upon themselves a great burden to prove why this specific act is so evil to be declared a war crime. War crime is and should be a very serious matter, currently some war crimes are punishable by death. We pointed out the danger of throwing this term on acts without a solid justification, it undermines the notion of a war crime, makes it somehow lighter. But even extraterritorial rendition is currently illegal by some treaties, simply saying “It is in the law” is saying no more than “It is written on a piece of paper somewhere”. In our substantive material we explained how the nature of war and the threat to the security of nations have changed since the establishment of the Geneva convention. Things that may have been considered unpermissible in past situations need to be considered as legitimate tools for self-defense in the new situation of proliferation of terrorism. The proposition goes on to claim that extraterritorial rendition should be declared a war crime because people have been tortured, and bring examples of such cases. By saying this they are not saying that extraterritorial rendition is bad, but they are saying that it is bad when it leads to torture of the captive. We on the opposition side also despise torture, but is the proposition then saying that extraterritorial rendition is alright as long as the captive does not get tortured? The proposition has not proven that extraterritorial rendition always inevitably leads to torture. The examples they bring are of extreme cases. In our substantive proved that extra-territorial rendition has utility to states even if they don't torture the rendered, this is because extra-territorial rendition disarms the combatant and removes his leadership and experience from the organization. On the second issue the proposition claim that if extraterritorial rendition was a war crime, then the leaders of states that use it must be held accountable for the same reason that Hitler was responsible for crimes committed by Nazis. They never showed us why the level of complicity of leaders in extra-territorial rendition is the same as the complicity of leaders in genocide. But moreover, we say it would not be reasonable to hold accountable the leader of the state for actions committed by some of its institutions. The proposition claim here that “If governments could (that/this easily) remove themselves from their duty to signed convents conventions, and their OWN local laws then it would be impossible to try any one/leader/Country for WAR CRIMES.” But we say the kinds of acts that we are talking about are not analogous to what we normally consider war crimes. As we have already argued, operations of extraterritorial rendition are conducted on an incredibly small scale. It is unlikely that they are all carried out with explicit authorization. Therefore it is unreasonable to expect the leader of the state to be fully responsible. The matter that we brought to the debate is the following: 1. Extraterritorial rendition is a legitimate tool in the conflict between states and non-state actors 2. Extraterritorial rendition is effective in saving lives We claimed first of all that extraterritorial rendition is a legitimate tool to use in modern warfare. We showed that a state to guarantee the bodily security of their citizens, as civilians have given up all means to defend themselves and surrendered the monopoly of violence to the state. In normal circumstances the police force is used to grant security within the state and the armed forces protect citizens from other states that might want to harm them. We are however now facing a new kind of threat: that of non-state actors engaging in organized and prolonged conflicts against states. Here conventional methods do not suffice as terrorists are almost impossible to negotiate with, are difficult to capture and target because they operate as individuals and amall groups rather than an army, do not respond to nuclear deterrent (this is an important nuance for terrorist organizations who seek to acquire nuclear weapons). Extraterritorial rendition is not a common method of law enforcement. It is something only used in extreme circumstances, the only suspects caught and held this way are people believed to be high ranking or other key figures in terrorist groups. These are people who have a malicious intent toward the state and it's citizens, they plot and commit surprise attacks that intentially target civilians. It is of utmost importance that they be caught and interrogated for doing this can prevent great harm to thousands of people. Of course, it is desirable to catch these people by conventional methods. If it is possible that the police catch a terror suspect and take them to jail, we think that’s great. The problem arises, when a suspect cannot be caught by conventional methods. This can happen if the suspect is hiding in a state that does not have the ability to go after him or does not want to arrest him (as in the case of Mohammad Ali Hamadi, a suspect hiding in Lebanon, the government of which denies him being there). Or it can happen if the suspect uses loopholes in our own laws to evade capture (as in the case of Mohammed Haydar Zammar, who had to be released by German authorities, but could be captured later by unconventional methods). The proposition point out that mistakes can occur. We do not deny this, however we claim that damage done to innocent people mistaken for terrorists is both reversible and proportional to the lives that can be saved through extra-territorial rendition. The example that the proposition brought of Lakhdar Boumediene - who was wrongfully detained and later released – shows that our justice system can correct these mistakes. Extraterritorial rendition can also be considered a proportional tool if one takes considers the other options that a state facing a threat from a non-state actor hiding in another country has to defend itself. If extra-territorial rendition were not an option, then the only other options the state would have to deal with threats posed by terrorists hiding in another country would be too ineffective (diplomatic means that have failed in the case of Lebanon) or too extreme (going to war against a country that does not want to hand over a terror suspect or applying economic sanctions). The first of these means the state is not fulfilling its duty to protect its citizens; the second will mean long term large scale violence and needless suffering for many people. In order for the opposition to win this debate we also had to justify the incursion on the sovereignty of another state in order to eliminate a threat to it. First of all we showed that extra-territorial renditions are surgical operations that do not have an aim to damage the autonomy or instititutions of another state, but merely to eliminate the threat posed by a non-state actor. That non-state actor is acting independently of the foreign policy of the state that he is hiding in and hence his persona cannot be considered to be synonymous with that state. But furthermore when a nation is unable, or occasionally unwilling, to administer certain forms of justice to its people, namely that which prevents them from plotting or engaging in acts which take place beyond its borders, the effect is very much the same as a willful violation of our sovereignty, and should be responded to as such, by targetting those people directly whom the negligent state has failed to target. There is no moral justification for suggesting that the failure of a State to control its people should be paid for with the lives of our citizens, and we have every right to prevent that criminal transaction within the bounds of proportionality, even where this requires disregarding the sovereignty that the other state has cast aside through negligence. Secondly we claimed that extraterritorial rendition is an efficient tool in fighting terrorism. In the last 8 years 150 people have been rendered by the US in this fashion. [[http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/02/14/050214fa_fact6?currentPage=all]] The kinds of people captured this way, as we have argued are people with suspected ties to terrorist organizations and are therefore extremely dangerous persons. The method of extraterritorial rendition is efficient because it allows us to quickly capture and detain dangerous individuals who by conventional methods we could neither arrest nor detain. By this method we have caught key figures in terror organizations, such as Mohammed Haydar Zammar of al-Qaeda. Removing these figures from their organizations harms the organizations by depriving them of the leadership, experience and recruitment power of these figures. The proposition make the claim that extraterritorial rendition has not foiled any attempted terror act and has increased terrorism. We say it is an unfounded claim. The proposition themselves claim that arresting terrorists reduces terror (“Local espionage, the local capture and detention of a suspect HAS worked in this”, No point 3). The reasons why any kind of arrest works are the same: we incapacitate a dangerous person and remove his influences. We claim that arresting people we otherwise could not arrest has reduced terror. The information we get from interrogating them has been helpful. It is hard to bring proof of events that did not happen, it is reasonable to believe that we have foiled plans of terror. In conclusion, the proposition did not set the debate up in a clear way. They did not explain why extraterritorial rendition is analogous to war crime. They did not explain why the leader of the country should be held responsible for all acts committed by its institutions. We on the opposition side attempted to elucidate why extra-territorial rendition is justified, that there are times when states have no other effective option except resorting to this tactic. Extra-territorial rendition is a proportional tactic and it can save lives. We stand proudly in opposition.