This year's Nobel Prize winner Shirin Ebadi targeting the United States, on Wednesday said that the September 11 attacks had served to justify violating international law and human rights.

The Iranian human rights lawyer, in a speech prepared for delivery at the official prize award ceremony in Oslo, did not mention the United States by name but was clearly referring to Washington and its allies.

"In the past two years, some states have violated the universal principles and laws of human rights by using the events of September 11 and the war on international terrorism as a pretext," Ebadi said.

"The concerns of human rights advocates increase when they observe that international human rights laws are breached not only by their recognized opponents (...), but that these principles are also violated in Western democracies," she said.

In her acceptance speech, the Nobel laureate, 56, also commented on prisoners detained at a US base in Guantanamo, saying they were "without the benefit of the rights stipulated under the international Geneva conventions, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the (United Nations) International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights." Chosen for her democracy-building efforts and her work to improve human rights and women's rights in Iran, one of three countries in what the United States considers the "axis of evil", Ebadi also pointed to selective application of United Nations decisions.

"Why is it that some decisions and resolutions of the UN Security Council are binding, while some other resolutions of the council have no binding force?" she asked, pointing to the different treatment of Israel and Iraq.

"Why is it that in the past 35 years, dozens of UN resolutions concerning the occupation of the Palestinian territories by the state of Israel have not been implemented properly," she continues.

"Yet, in the past 12 years, the state and people of Iraq (...) were subjected to attack, military assault, economic sanctions, and, ultimately, military occupation?" Ebadi will receive the prize from chairman of the Nobel Committee Ole Mjoes at a formal ceremony on Wednesday at 1:30 pm (12:30 GMT) in Oslo's City Hall, and is set to give her speech at 1:35 pm.

King Harald V of Norway, who is usually present at the ceremony, sent his excuses this time, as he is recovering from surgery he underwent for bladder cancer on Monday.

The prize consists of a diploma, a gold medal, and a check for 10 million Swedish kronor (about 1.4 million dollars, 1.1 million euros) - Sapa-AFP