Assessing Damage, Urging Action In addition, the Panel recalls that secret and unacknowledged detention itself constitutes a violation of some of the most basic tenets of international law, including the prohibition of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. When a rendered person is held in secret detention, or held for interrogation by authorities of other States, with no information supplied to family members or others regarding the detention, this constitutes an enforced disappearance – a crime under international law.189 Where renditions are part of a widespread and systematic government policy, they may also amount to crimes against humanity. A raft of international human rights and international criminal law standards apply to such situations. 3.2 Complicity in human rights violations It was clear to the Panel that the practice of rendition and extraordinary rendition was not a problem of the US administration alone, but (in the words of Swiss Senator Dick Marty) involved a “spider’s web” of cooperative endeavours. Participation in various forms in the programme of renditions was raised in many places, notably the Hearings in Canada, the European Union, the Middle East, the Russian Federation, South East Asia, the UK and the USA. Many States have allegedly facilitated extraordinary renditions including Bosnia, Canada, Indonesia, Italy, Macedonia, Pakistan, Poland, Romania, Spain and the UK, to mention only a few. Still other States, including Afghanistan, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Syria, Thailand and Uzbekistan have assisted in the rendition process by taking custody of rendered individuals after they were transferred out of the State where they are abducted. Receiving States on occasion engaged in torture and other forms of ill-treatment of these detainees.190 189 The UN Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (UN Convention on Enforced Disappearance), adopted by the UN General Assembly on 20 December 2006, in Article 2, defines disappearances as: “the arrest, detention, abduction or any other form of deprivation of liberty committed by agents of the State or by persons or groups of persons acting with the authorisation, support or acquiescence of the State, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or by concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person, which place such a person outside the protection of the law.” The UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances concluded that incommunicado detention for an indefinite period of time does not per se constitute an enforced disappearance but, if the authorities do not acknowledge that the person is in detention and no information is provided to family or others regarding the detention, it is likely to amount to an enforced disappearance. See Report of the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, UN. Doc. E/CN.4/1435, 26 January 1981; UN. Docs. E/CN.4/1492, 31 December 1981; E/CN.4/1983/14, 21 January 1983. 190 See, Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly, Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, Rapporteur Dick Marty, Alleged secret detentions and unlawful inter-state transfers involving Council of Europe member states (hereinafter: 2006 Marty report), Doc. 10957, 12 June 2006. This report, prepared by an investigation committee presided over by Swiss Senator Dick Marty, and released in June 2006, revealed a global “spider’s web” of CIA detentions and transfers and alleged collusion in this system by 14 Council of Europe Member States. In 2007, new evidence of detainees being held in secret CIA prisons in Poland and Romania between 2002-2005 was released by his second report. The report also suggests that NATO may have been implicated in the practice of renditions by virtue of a secret agreement allowing over-flight clearance. Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly, Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, Rapporteur Dick Marty, Secret Detentions and illegal transfers of detainees involving Council of Europe member states: second report (hereinafter: 2007 Marty report), Doc. 11302 rev., 11 June 2007. 81