UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - A U.N. committee dealt the United States a heavy defeat on Thursday in its bid to block or cripple a draft anti-torture treaty that has been a decade in the making, paving the way for the pact's final approval next month.
Overriding opposition from Washington, the U.N. General Assembly's Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Committee approved the draft treaty by a vote of 104 to eight, with 37 abstentions.
Joining Washington were
China,
Cuba,
Israel,
Japan,
Nigeria,
Syria and
Vietnam.
The pact next goes to the full 191-nation U.N. General Assembly, where routine approval is expected next month, as the assembly and the committee have identical memberships.
To come into force, the pact must be signed and ratified by at least 20 governments, a number set by the treaty itself.
The treaty, which the United States has opposed since the drafting process began 10 years ago, would set up an international system of inspections for all sites where prisoners are held to insure that torture was not taking place.
Washington argued the pact would divert limited U.N. resources from other, more effective, anti-torture mechanisms and enjoyed only limited support from the U.N. membership.
It has also argued that opening state prisons to international inspection would violate states' rights under the U.S. Constitution .
But it has also been stung by widespread criticism of its embrace of the death penalty and its treatment of alleged al Qaeda and Taliban detainees at a base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The campaign against the anti-torture pact was the latest in a wave of go-it-alone actions that have infuriated many of Washington's closest allies at the United Nations , including rejection of the Kyoto pact on global warming and the new International Criminal Court aimed at combating genocide and war crimes.
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