Research Paper on "Extraordinary Rendition Refers to the Practice"

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Types of Rendition

Rendition, in general, refers to surrender of a fugitive from one state to another; this is typically done through an extradition treaty by which one state surrenders a person within its territorial jurisdiction to a requesting state via a formal legal process (Garcia, p.1). Such transfers made in accordance with treaty or enabling statutes and through a prescribed procedure, may be termed "ordinary" renditions. On the other hand, the term "extraordinary rendition" is the extrajudicial transfer of a person from one state to another, generally for the purpose of arrest, detention, and/or interrogation by the receiving state (Ibid.) Hence, the crucial difference between ordinary rendition and extraordinary rendition is that the former lies within a judicial framework, while the latter is carried out extra-judicially.

The third type of rendition is the deportation of illegal aliens from a country under its immigration laws to the country of their origin. The basic difference between this type of rendition and extraordinary rendition is that such deportations are carried out under immigration laws and their removal is legal under relevant statutory provisions. The immigration laws in most European countries are much more liberal than in the United States as immigrants have the right to judicial review against such deportation orders. In the U.S. undesirable aliens may be removed "expeditiously" from the country under 235 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which allows only limited right of appeal. (Ibid, 3) it is pertinent to mention here that a number of people who have been deported to the country of their origin from the U.S. under immigration laws in the wake of 9/11, have also faced interrogation and incarceration as terror suspects, but it is important to remember that there is a clear difference between deportation under immigration laws and being subjected to extraordinary rendition.

History of Rendition in the United States

The founding fathers of the United States were firmly of the view that the executive had no authority to render a person to a foreign jurisdiction unless it was done pursuant to a treaty, or with the authority of enabling legislation. Thomas Jefferson, then secretary of state, while responding to a French request for the rendition of certain people accused of making war against France, wrote, "The laws of this country take no notice of crimes committed out of their jurisdiction. The most atrocious offender, coming within their pale, is received by them as an innocent man, and they have authorized no one to seize or deliver him." (Quoted by Weaver and Palitto, 104) Such high standards of human rights, of course, did not apply to the black slaves in the early part of American history, and the earliest example of the application of "extraordinary rendition" was the recapture of fugitive slaves from the "free states" to their slave-masters in the South before abolition (Begg, 19).

Another early case of "extraordinary rendition" in U.S. history is the "Arguellas Affair" in 1863, in which President Lincoln ordered the seizure and return of Arguelles to Cuba, despite having no extradition treaty with Spain (Weaver and Palitto, 107).

In more recent times, the need for 'rendering' terrorist suspects was again felt necessary. However, before 11 September 2001, rendition was largely aimed at returning suspected terrorists to the U.S.A. For trial. This rendition program gradually evolved into one in which terrorist suspects were rendered to third countries, where the goal was "not trial, but to keep them in custody, out of circulation, and without access to U.S. courts." ("Below the Radar" -- Amnesty International Report) Other goals of the program were to seize documents, computers and any other information that could be exploited for intelligence (Garcia, 5). George J. Tenet, the former director of CIA, has testified that there were 70 cases before the Sept. 11 attacks, duly authorized by the White House, in which prisoners were transferred from one country to another, without formal extradition proceedings (Jehl and Johnston).

After 9/11, the Bush administration has considerably expanded the scope of the rendition program and what was once an inter-agency operation became largely a CIA operation, i.e., the Americans started to use CIA officials for interrogation of the rendered suspects, instead of leaving the job to foreign interrogators only. This was made possible after the signing of a still-classified directive signed by President Bush within days of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon (Ibid.)

The U.S. View Point on Extraordinary Rendition

The crux of the U.S. argument in support of extraordinary rendition is that the current breed of international terrorists has no compunction about targeting innocent civilians and damaging U.S. interests in any which way they can; therefore, 'niceties' of warfare such as the Geneva Convention for humane treatment of prisoners of war and the UN Convention against Torture does not apply to terrorists. Moreover, the U.S. administration believes that important intelligence about terrorist plots have been (or can be) gathered by employing 'unconventional' interrogation techniques on rendered terror suspects. It is also argued by supporters of 'extraordinary rendition' that the American lives saved due to gathering of such intelligence justify the means to the end.

Due to the secret nature of the extraordinary rendition program and its implication on international law, however, the U.S. administration officials are reluctant to talk about it on record and have been ambivalent about its existence. Condoleezza Rice, the U.S. Secretary of State, for example, while admitting the existence of renditions, claims that renditions do not lead to a risk of torture. She insists that: "the United States has not transported anyone, and will not transport anyone, to a country when we believe he will be tortured. Where appropriate, the United States seeks assurances that transferred persons will not be tortured." (Quoted in "Below the Radar" -- Amnesty International Report) Rice tries to deflect criticism of extraordinary rendition by suggesting that "[f]or decades, the United States and other countries have used 'renditions' to transport terrorist suspects from the country where they were captured to their home country or to other countries where they can be questioned, held, or brought to justice" (Quoted by Fisher, 7). This statement of Rice conveniently forgets to mention that the 'renditions' she is referring to were 'extraditions' made under legal treaties rather than "extraordinary" renditions. President Bush, too, in an interview with "The Times" on January 27, 2005 assured the world that "torture is never acceptable, nor do we hand over people to countries that do torture." (Quoted by Mayer) Statements of other U.S. officials and the overwhelming evidence that has been uncovered since 9/11, however, point to the contrary. Just a few days after the 9/11 terror attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Vice-President Dick Cheney, arguing on the television program "Meet the Press," that the government needed to "work through, sort of, the dark side..." And "...it's going to be vital for us to use any means at our disposal, basically, to achieve our objective." (Ibid.) the Abu Gharib prison scandal has further revealed that the CIA and U.S. Special forces have no compunction about using torture on enemy combatants.

In off-the-record conversation, U.S. officials and supporters of rendition are much more forthcoming about the 'usefulness' of the rendition program. In fact, they privately bristle at the lax European Union (EU) asylum policies and restrictions in the Convention against Torture against extraditing suspected terrorists… READ MORE