LONDON (AP) — The former commander of American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan says the United States' military cooperation with the U.K. could be threatened by the growing use of human rights laws to target British soldiers.
Writing Friday in the Times of London, retired Gen. David Petraeus says the European Court of Human Rights is increasingly extending domestic human rights legislation to the battlefield. This has led to British soldiers being charged with human rights abuses decades after the events in question.
Petraeus says this "fog of law" may undermine the ability of Britain to operate in multinational coalitions and threaten the "very special relationship between our two militaries."
He says Britain's fighting capacity will be reduced if it can't reform the legal framework under which it operates.
