A week ago the U.S. State Department released its annual report on human rights around the world, which acknowledged Jamaica as a plural democracy where there is largely respect for the rule of law and individual freedoms, but with challenges in several areas.

That report didn't tell us anything we didn't know. For we know that elements of the Jamaican constabulary behave with impunity; that our judicial system is overburdened; that prisons are over-crowded; that there is, from time to time, homophobic violence in Jamaica, and so on. The human rights records of other countries are similarly assessed by the State Department, receiving varying degrees of ratings for their respect of civil liberties.

But many will argue that this is a bad time for such a report to come from the United States and for America to be trumpeting its self-assigned role as arbiter of decent behaviour. Unfortunately for the Bush administration, the report is published at a time when it is under scrutiny, domestically and abroad, for its own attitude to civil liberties and the rule of law.

Indeed, within days of the unveiling of the document a former senior member of the Bush White House, I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, was convicted for lying to investigators probing the exposure by White House officials of a CIA undercover agent, Valerie Plame. The exposing of Ms. Plame was an act of revenge and to undermine the findings by her husband, former ambassador Joe Wilson, that Saddam Hussein did not buy uranium from Niger, as had been claimed by the White House in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq.

Then came the report by the Inspector General of the Justice Department accusing the FBI of abusing an administrative process, without judicial oversight, to get the telephone, business and financial records of thousands of Americans.

All this is happening when there is already disquiet in Congress and elsewhere over the perceived undermining, and even abuse, of due process in the so-called War on Terror. For instance, there is concern over a perceived lack of respect for habeas corpus rules regarding people designated illegal combatants, who have been imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay since the invasion of Afghanistan. American civil libertarians worry, too, over the process of 'rendition', where foreign nationals suspected of complicity in terrorism are plucked from the streets and carted off to secret prisons. Some are tortured. Congress is under pressure to change the rules, including amending the Patriot Act, to make the administration more accountable for its behaviour. On this score, it may be argued that the United States would not look particularly good if it were subject to its own human rights report.

It would be wrong, however, to use the discomfiture in which the U.S. administration finds itself to dismiss the State Department's observations about Jamaica's shortcomings on human rights on the basis that America is being hypocritical.

The fact is that Jamaica has genuine problems, The issue, therefore, is for Jamaica to commit itself to a redoubled effort to fix the problems, which we know and acknowledge to exist.

Indeed, there is sufficient leeway in the legislation establishing the Office of the Public Defender for the holder of that post to broaden his annual reports to Parliament to include the state of civil liberties and human rights generally. It is an area that can be covered, too, by the Political Ombudsman if he chooses a wider interpretation of his role and the law under which he operates.

But perhaps Parliament should make the requirement explicit.