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[3 October 2006] - During a keynote speech to the 2006 OSCE Human Dimension Implementation Meeting in Warsaw yesterday, Commissioner Thomas Hammarberg urged governments to give the highest priority to the implemention of international standards on human rights. "Human rights treaties should be seen as contracts between State Parties. Governments which have ratified the conventions have pledged to respect its norms. If one government violates the treaty, the others have an obligation to react. If they do not, this might be seen as a sign that the standards are becoming less important," he said. "It is crucial that other governments react to those Washington decisions which undermine important principles such as the “presumption of innocence”, habeas corpus and the total prohibition of torture." "The legal provisions recently adopted by the US Congress allow for an indefinite detention of people in the vaguely defined category of “unlawful enemy combatants”. It is also a concern that these provisions allow for continued secret detention, for giving CIA interrogators exemption from methods outruled by new Pentagon instructions, and for proceedings in military commissions that do not meet the international standards of fair trial. Finally, they make it possible for the President to make his own interpretation of what is meant by torture in the Geneva Conventions, as well as for CIA interrogators to remain immune from future prosecution." "These are steps that gravely undermine the international protection against torture. Other State Parties to the treaties which govern these principles need to react," Mr Hammarberg said.