These reports take stock of the state of individual and collective rights that are enjoyed or not enjoyed by peoples in various countries. Perhaps it is just as well that such an exercise is undertaken. If nothing else, at least it serves as a mirror for governments to see their probity reflected upon it. Although most governments reject the reports out of hand, it nonetheless serves as a progress report of the state of governance in countries where the political dispensation varies from democratic to pseudo-democratic to outright autocratic rule.

Not surprisingly, it is the third world countries that come in for a good deal of stick from these bodies for, in some of these countries, the abject state of individual rights defies one's imagination. But it is not only the third world countries that have been singled out, but also many developed countries, among which is the US, that have received a fair bit of mention in the latest AI report. The report highlights the deed or the misdeeds of various governments, related to human rights in their respective countries, or outside their borders, euphemistically characterized as, "the failure of national governments and international organisations to deal with human rights violations." Besides Bangladesh, several other South Asian countries have been criticised for their handling of human rights.

Interestingly, about the same time that the AI report, wherein the US was particularly criticised for its prisoner abuse, was being presented, there was also a US Congressional briefing on Bangladesh in Washington DC, which was to determine the fate of several million dollars of US handout to us, and where Bangladesh came in for censure, among other things, for its handling of human rights.

While one must accept the fact that our human rights state is not without blemish, it is a travesty that one has to bear with the scrutiny of one's state of human rights from those whose own standards of human rights have been called to question and whose actions around the world, particularly post 9/11, have done the most to degrade human rights worldwide.

While one does not question the moral authority of HRW and AI to probe human rights issues across the globe, it is when the US takes it upon itself as the self-appointed world policeman and releases its Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, pointing fingers at human rights situation in other countries while conveniently overlooking its own record in this field, that one cannot but question its moral authority to do so. For every finger it points at others, it hardly notices that three of its other fingers are pointing back at it.

Only those that have the moral high ground can speak on moral and human rights issues of other countries. The record of US performance in this regard, now as well as in the past, points to the contrary.

Post 9/11 US actions have been justified on grounds of national security and US national interest. But, pursuit of one's national objective cannot be bereft of principals and morality. The art of diplomacy may have stopped at the cliffs of Dover, unfortunately, the art of deceit, falsehood, and double standards have not. It is the use of falsehood and double standards that has caused the US to forfeit the right, which it has arrogated to itself, to judge others.

Let us see what the two HR watchdogs have to say about the US.

The Secretary-General of AI in her report released last week says that the US administration's role in weakening the "absolute ban on torture" is the primary and the most significant source of the year's set back on human rights. These are indeed very strong accusations against a country that credits itself as the purveyor of freedom and democracy around the world. The AI indictment of the US stems from the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. In fact AI has accused the US of running an "archipelago of secret prisons" around the world.

But it is not just the treatment of prisoners that cast doubts over US credentials, the fact that torture was rationalised by the US as a state policy is what reinforces our image of America being a violator of international laws and conventions. For the record, it was Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld who approved the illegal interrogation methods.

According to analysts, "the US administration developed a policy on interrogation methods that clearly violated the terms of various international conventions that absolutely and unconditionally ban torture." The AI report suggests that coercive interrogation has been justified by the US administration, which argued that it did not have to abide by the Geneva Convention while dealing with these categories of prisoners.

Guantanamo has been compared to the gulag; other practices related to the prisoners like the "ghost detainees," is a replication of a common practice in countries like Chile under Pinochet, who, by the way, was put there by the CIA. The practice of "rendering," which involves handing over of suspects to intelligence agencies of friendly countries that are known to practice torture, and setting up military tribunals to try suspects, according to the AI, have made a mockery of justice and due process. This puts the US in the same category as those that violate international laws and conventions, and which the US chooses to refer to as "rogue states."

Not surprisingly, the US administration has dismissed these reports out of hand. Mr. Bush termed the AI report as absurd, being based on declaration of some people who are "cultivated for not telling the truth." The irony is that it is the AI facts and figures that the US most often relies on for its claims in its Country Reports on Human Rights.

Human Rights Watch in its annual report published in January says that when a country as dominant as the US openly defies the law, it invites others to do the same. According to it, abuses committed by the US have significantly weakened the world's ability to protect human rights.

For many years now the US has been passing verdict on other countries' state of human rights, while at the same time actively supporting many of those countries guilty of violating it. Its use of Human Rights is merely a means of control -- where US corporate interest plays a very big part.

No doubt human rights is a universal good that is deserved by all. Its dispensation can neither be selective nor depend on the goodwill or whims of any particular country, certainly not on those who stand accused of running secret prisons around the world, and whose own human rights record is severely tainted.

The author is Editor, Defence and Strategic Affairs, The Daily Star.