Assessing Damage, Urging Action from violence, including murder, cruel treatment, and torture. Taking of hostages is forbidden, as are “outrages upon personal dignity” including humiliating and degrading treatment. Legislative initiatives have also somewhat curtailed assertions of carte blanche executive authority in questions regarding the treatment of detainees. However, these measures have still not brought US law and policy entirely into line with the international standards governing humane treatment. The Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, for example, while prohibiting cruel, inhuman degrading treatment by US officials, does not provide for any standard governing the conduct of CIA officials and others beyond the Department of Defense.133 The Act also denies victims of torture and other ill-treatment access to a remedy, and allows for broad defences to be invoked by alleged perpetrators, so promoting near impunity.134 In September 2006 the Department of Defense issued a directive ordering the application of Common Article 3 to detainees in the custody of the military.135 The new Army Field Manual on intelligence interrogations includes specific references to Common Article 3.136 However, this Field Manual does not extend to action by the CIA. An Executive Order issued by President Bush in July 2007 appears to allow officials of the Central Intelligence Agency to continue using abusive interrogation techniques and secret detention, in violation of Common Article 3 and human rights law.137 A legislative initiative aimed at applying the Army Field Manual restrictions to the CIA was vetoed by President Bush in 2008.138 The MCA purports to incorporate the protection of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention, but fails to do so in its entirety. For example, the Act narrows the extent that violations of Common Article 3 would be punishable as a war crime under US law; it excludes “outrages upon personal dignity, including humiliating and 133 According to Section 1002 (a) of the Detainee Treatment Act (DTA) of 2005, signed into law on 30 December 2005, the prohibition on treatment or an interrogation technique not listed in the US Army Field Manual on Intelligence Interrogation is applicable only to those detainees in the custody or under the effective control of the Department of Defense or under detention in a Department of Defense facility. 134 Section 1005(e)(1) of the DTA, and Section 7 of the MCA. 135 Department of Defense, Directive on detainee programme, 5 September 2006; Army Field Manual 2-22.3 (Human Intelligence Collector Operations), 6 September 2006. 136 At the EJP United States Hearing, former military officers stressed the US military tradition of the humane treatment of detainees and argued that there was no lack of clarity among the military regarding the standards of treatment to be followed. See, for example, written submissions by John D. Hutson, Dean and President, Franklin Pierce Law Center (former Judge Advocate of the US Navy) and James P. Cullen, Esq., Brigadier General, retired, U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps. 137 US President, “Executive Order: Interpretation of the Geneva Conventions Common Article 3 as Applied to a Program of Detention and Interrogation Operated by the Central Intelligence Agency”, 20 July 2007, Section 3 (b) (iii) and 3 (c) (iv), with restrictive interpretations of torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. See also UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Terrorism, Mission to the United States of America, UN Doc. A/HRC/6/17/Add.3, 22 November 2007, para. 35. 138 White House, “Message to the House of Representatives”, 8 March 2008; www.whitehouse.gov/news/ releases/2008/03/20080308-1.html. 63