Shortly before the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence declassified the torture report, the UN Committee Against Torture released their own report condemning the US for failure to comply with the international Convention Against Torture treaty. Following the December 9, 2014 release of the Senate torture report, the UN Special Rapporteur on counter terrorism and human rights called for the prosecution of the US government officials who authorized alleged torture, noting that prosecution is likley required for compliance with the UN Convention Against Torture and the UN Convention on Enforced Disappearences.

Most international media reacted unfavorably to the US release of the report. Using a combination of photos, report excerpts and editorial opinions, newspapers in Austria, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, Egypt, France, Germany, Iran, Poland, Spain, Mexico and the UK condemned the US. However, media in countries such as Costa Rica, Honduras, Israel, Japan, Russia and nearly all Middle Eastern nations, either chose not to comment or run only short descriptions of the report.

China’s state-run Xinhua News Agency lambasted the US, not only for the report and actions of torture, but also for the recent spate of police brutality headlines and failures by grand juries to indict police officers. Other Chinese editorials suggested that the US concentrate on its own human rights violations, rather than comment on alleged violations in other countries, including China.

Official state comments on the report and subsequent US actions were mixed. Polish officials admitted that their country hosted a detention facility used as a torture site between 2002 and 2003. Former Poland President Aleksander Kwasniewski and former Poland Prime Minister Leszek Miller denied that they knew the US was carrying out acts of torture at the site, and expressed concern that the release of this report would undermine confidence in the US as an ally with Poland following Russia’s recent acts of aggression toward Ukraine.

Other European responses to the report were more restrained. German Chancellor Angela Merkel released a statement stressing the necessity of upholding legal and democratic values, while Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier used his official Twitter feed to state that the report showed “clear violations of democratic values.” UK Prime Minister David Cameron stated that many post-9/11 actions, including torture, were “wrong.”

In Canada’s House of Commons, New Democrat MP Peter Julian called for his government to rescind several police and security directives that allow for the forcible extraction of information. Canada Prime Minister Stephen Harper refused to acknowledge the demand, stating that the US torture report had nothing to do with Canada.

Countries closely involved with the US war on terror reacted more strongly. Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei used Twitter to condemn the US, including its actions of international torture as well as police brutality and lack of prison reform. Nazeeh Alemad, a legal advisor to Yemen’s ruling party, told the New York Times that allegations of US torture had long been accepted as fact. Mohamed ElBaradei, an Egyptian politician and Nobel Peace Prize winner, also used Twitter to call the report a “blow” to US values. Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry called for transparency and requested the US to provide assurances that torture will never happen again.