Torture

For other uses, see Torture (disambiguation).

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A man being tortured by American soldiers in Iraq.

Torture, according to international law, is "any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions." In addition to state-sponsored torture, individuals or groups may inflict torture on others for similar reasons; however, the motive for torture can also be for the sadistic gratification of the torturer, as was the case in the Moors Murders.

Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of effecting political re-education. In the 21st century, torture is widely considered to be a violation of human rights, and discouraged by article 5 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In times of war signatories of the Third Geneva Convention and Fourth Geneva Convention agree not to torture protected persons (POWs and enemy civilians) in armed conflicts.

International legal prohibitions on torture derive from a philosophical consensus that torture and ill-treatment are repugnant, abhorrent, and immoral. A further moral definition of torture proposes that the act of torture consists in the disproportionate infliction of pain. These international conventions and philosophical propositions not withstanding, organizations such as Amnesty International that monitor abuses of human rights report a widespread use of torture condoned by states in many regions of the world.

History

A variety of torture instruments including, at right, the Iron Maiden of Nuremberg.

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Catholic clerics presiding over the torture of a man suspected to be a heretic before his subsequent execution during the Spanish Inquisition. Circa 1700 AD. According to Herrera Puga the authorities:
"...placed no limits on the means; in this way they used the rack, the lash, fire, etc. In some cases...they applied padlocked irons to the flesh which even led to the amputation of a hand..."

Torture is the English cognate of the Latin word tortura for *torqu-tura, originally meaning an "act of twisting" akin to tort and torque. The Romans used torture only for interrogation before judgment; officials did not regard crucifixion as torture, as they only authorized it after issuing a death sentence. In the Roman Republic, a slave's testimony was admissible only if it had been extracted by torture, on the assumption that slaves could not be trusted to reveal the truth voluntarily. Over time the conceptual definition of torture has been expanded and remains a major question for ethics, philosophy, and law, but clearly includes the practices of many subsequent cultures.

In much of Europe, medieval and early modern courts freely inflicted torture, depending on the accused's crime and the social status of the suspect. Torture was deemed a legitimate means for justice to extract confessions or to obtain the names of accomplices or other information about the crime. Often, defendants sentenced to death would be tortured prior to execution, so as to have a last chance to disclose the names of their accomplices. Torture in the Medieval Inquisition began in 1252, although a papal bull in 1816 forbade its use in Catholic countries.

In the Middle Ages especially and up into the 18th century, torture was deemed a legitimate way to obtain testimonies and confessions from suspects for use in judicial inquiries and trials. While, in some instances, the secular courts treated suspects more ferociously than the religious courts, Will and Ariel Durant argued in The Age of Faith that many of the most vicious procedures were inflicted, not upon stubborn prisoners by governments, but upon pious heretics by even more pious friars. For example, the Dominicans gained a reputation as some of the most fearsomely innovative torturers in medieval Spain. Many of the victims of the Spanish Inquisition did not know (and were not informed) that, had they just confessed as required, they might have faced penalties no more severe than mild penance; confiscation of property; and even, perhaps, a few strokes of the whip. They thus ended up exposing themselves to torture. Many conceivably clung to "the principle of the thing", however noble (or foolhardy) that torture victims may face.

One of the most common forms of medieval inquisition torture was strappado. Torturers bound the accused's hands behind the back with a rope, then the torturer suspended the accused by hauling up the hands, painfully dislocating the shoulder joints. The torturer could add weight to the legs, dislocating their joints as well. The prisoner and weights could be hauled up and suddenly dropped. This refined torture (with dropping added) was called squassation. Other torture methods could include the rack (stretching the victim’s joints to breaking point), the thumbscrew, the boot (some versions of which crushed the calf, ankle, and heel between vertically positioned boards, while others tortured the instep and toes between horizontally oriented plates), water (massive quantities of water forcibly ingested—or even mixed with urine, pepper, feces, etc., for additional persuasiveness), and red-hot pincers (typically applied to fingers, toes, ears, noses, and nipples, although one tubular version [the "crocodile shears"] was specially devised for application to the penis in cases of regicide), although church policy sometimes forbade bodily mutilation. If the torturer needed stronger methods, or if a death sentence was issued, the person was sent over to the secular authorities, who had no restrictions.

Torturous interrogations were generally conducted in secret, inside underground dungeons. By contrast, torturous executions were typically public, and woodcuts of English prisoners being hanged, drawn, and quartered show large crowds of spectators, as do paintings of Spanish auto-da-fé executions, in which heretics were burned at the stake.

In 1613 Anton Praetorius described the situation of the prisoners in the dungeons in his book Gründlicher Bericht über Zauberei und Zauberer (Thorough Report about Sorcery and Sorcerers). He was one of the first to protest against all means of torture.

In ancient and medieval torture, there was little inhibition on inflicting bodily damage. People generally assumed that no innocent person would be accused, so anybody who appeared in the torture chamber was ultimately destined for execution, typically of a gruesome nature. Any minor mutilations due to rack or thumbscrew would not be noticed after a person had been burned at the stake. Besides, the torturer operated under the full authority of the church, the state, or both.

Medical torture

Main article: Medical torture

At times, medicine and medical practitioners have been drawn into the ranks of torturers, either to judge what victims can endure, to apply treatments which will enhance torture, or as torturers in their own right. An infamous example of the latter is Dr. Josef Mengele, known by inmates of Auschwitz as the "Angel of Death". Also in World War II, another doctor, by the name of Shiro Ishii, committed medical murder on a vastly larger scale than Dr. Mengele in his bio-weapons factory and laboratory, Unit 731.

Torture in recent times

Main article: Uses of torture in recent times

Modern sensibilities have been shaped by a profound reaction to the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the Axis Powers in the Second World War, which have led to a sweeping international rejection of most if not all aspects of the practice. Even so, many countries find it expedient from time to time to use torturous techniques; at the same time few wish to be described as doing so, either to their own citizens or international bodies. A variety of devices bridge this gap, including state denial, "secret police", "need to know", denial that given treatments are torturous in nature, appeal to various laws (national or international), use of jurisdictional argument, claim of "overriding need", and so on. Many states throughout history, and many states today, view torture as a tool (unofficially and when expedient and desired). As a result, and despite worldwide condemnation and the existence of treaty provisions that forbid it, torture still occurs in two thirds of the world's nations.

The United states has used torture to gain information that would "save lives"

Torture remains a frequent method of repression in totalitarian regimes, terrorist organizations, and organized crime. In authoritarian regimes, torture extracts confessions from political dissenters, so that they admit to espionage or conspiracy, probably manipulated by some foreign country. Most notably, such a dynamic of forced confessions marked the justice system of the Soviet Union during the reign of Stalin (thoroughly described in Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago).

Secrecy

While in some cultures torture has been openly acknowledged in public in order to instill fear and obedience, the climate of the late twentieth century has encouraged torturers to act covertly. Most modern torturers, even when states sanction their interrogation methods, often work outside the law. For this reason, some torturers tend to prefer methods that, while unpleasant, leave victims alive and unmarked. A victim with no visible damage may lack credibility when telling tales of torture, whereas a person missing fingernails or eyes can easily prove claims of torture. Mental torture, however can leave scars just as deep and long-lasting as physical torture. Professional torturers in some countries have used techniques such as electrical shock, asphyxiation, heat, cold, noise, and sleep deprivation which leave little evidence, although in other contexts torture frequently results in horrific mutilation or death. However the most common and prevalent form of torture worldwide in both developed and under-developed countries is beating.

Legal alternatives

A recent approach to interrogations has been to use techniques such as waterboarding, sexual humiliation and sexual abuse, and dogs to intimidate or pressure prisoners in a manner held to be legal under national or international law. Electric shock techniques such as the use of stun belts and tasers have been considered appropriate provided that they are used to "control" prisoners or suspects, even non-violent ones, rather than to extract information. This has been used on several prisoners in the courtroom itself, while conducting their own defense. Though arguably legal, these techniques have been widely criticized as torture.

Further information: [[:Military Commissions Act, Alberto Gonzales, and Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse.]]

Torture by proxy

In 2003, Britain's Ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, made accusations that information was being extracted under extreme torture from dissidents in that country, and that the information was subsequently being used by Western, democratic countries which officially disapproved of torture.

The accusations did not lead to any investigation by his employer, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and he resigned after disciplinary action was taken against him in 2004. No misconduct by him was proven. The National Audit Office is investigating the Foreign and Commonwealth Office because of accusations of victimisation, bullying, and intimidating its own staff.

Murray later stated that he felt that he had unwittingly stumbled upon what others called "torture by proxy" and with the euphemism of "extraordinary rendition". He thought that Western countries moved people to regimes and nations knowing that torturers would extract and disclose information. Murray alleged that this practice circumvented and violated international treaties against torture. If it was true that a country participated in torture by proxy and it had signed the UN Convention Against Torture then that country would be in specific breach of Article 3 of that convention.

Torture methods and devices

A rack in the Tower of London

See also: List of torture methods and devices‎

Physical torture methods have been used from time immemorial and can range from a beating with nothing more than fist and boot, through to the use of sophisticated custom designed devices such as the rack.

Psychological torture, uses psychological means to inflict torment and is less well known because its effects are often invisible to others. It uses non-physical methods to induce suffering in the subject's mental, emotional, and psychological states (e.g. akathisia). Since there is no international political consensus on what constitutes psychological torture, it is often overlooked, denied, and referred to in different names.

Medical torture uses psychotropic and/or other chemicals to induce pain or suffering and cause compliance with the torturer's goals. May include the forced ingestion or injection of psychotropic drugs such as neuroleptic antipsychotics to produce the agonizing condition called akathisia, (eg., phenothiazines (such as perphenazine and chlorpromazine), thioxanthenes (such as flupenthixol and zuclopenthixol) and butyrophenones (such as haloperidol (Haldol)), newer atypical antipsychotics, dimenhydrinate, R015-4513), or being forced to ingest (or be injected with) chemicals or other products (such as broken glass, heated water, or soaps) that cause pain and internal damage. Irritating chemicals or products may be inserted into the rectum or vagina, or applied on the external genitalia.

Sexually abusive torture uses rape and other forms of sexual abuse for interrogative or punitive purposes.

The contrast shown between Guy Fawkes's signatures: the one above (a faint, shaky 'Guido') was done immediately after torture; the one below eight days later.

Effects of torture

Organizations like the Medical Foundation for Care of Victims of Torture try to help survivors of torture obtain medical treatment and to gain forensic medical evidence to obtain political asylum in a safe country and/or to prosecute the perpetrators.

Torture is often difficult to prove, particularly when some time has passed between the event and a medical examination. Many torturers around the world use methods designed to have a maximum psychological impact while leaving only minimal physical traces. Medical and Human Rights Organizations worldwide have collaborated to produce the Istanbul Protocol, a document designed to outline common torture methods, consequences of torture, and medico-legal examination techniques. Typically deaths due to torture are shown in an autopsy as being due to "natural causes" like heart attack, inflammation, or embolism due to extreme stress.

For survivors, torture often leads to lasting mental and physical health problems.

Physical problems can be wide-ranging, e.g. sexually transmitted diseases, musculo-skeletal problems, brain injury, post-traumatic epilepsy and dementia or chronic pain syndromes.

Mental health problems are equally wide-ranging; common are post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and anxiety disorder. Psychic deadness, erasure of intersubjectivity, refusal of meaning-making, perversion of agency, and an inability to bear desire constitute the core features of the post-traumatic psychic landscape of torture.

The most terrible, intractable, legacy of torture is the killing of desire - that is , of curiosity, of the impulse for connection and meaning-making, of the capacity for mutuality, of the tolerance for ambiguity and ambivalence. For these patients, to know another mind is unbearable. To connect with another is irrelevant. They are entrapped in what was born(e) during their trauma, as they perpetuate the erasure of meaning, re-enact the dynamics of annihilation through sadomasochistic, narcissistic, paranoid, or self-deadening modes of relating, and mobilize their agency toward warding off mutuality, goodness, hope and connection. In brief, they live to prove death. And it is this perversion of agency and desire that constitutes the deepest post-traumatic injury, and the most invisible and pernicious of human-rights violations.

On August 19, 2007, the American Psychological Association (APA) voted to bar participation, to intervene to stop, and to report involvement in a wide variety of interrogation techniques as torture, including "using mock executions, simulated drowning, sexual and religious humiliation, stress positions or sleep deprivation", as well as "the exploitation of prisoners' phobias, the use of mind-altering drugs, hooding, forced nakedness, the use of dogs to frighten detainees, exposing prisoners to extreme heat and cold, physical assault and threatening the use of such techniques against a prisoner or a prisoner's family."

However, the APA rejected a stronger resolution that sought to prohibit “all psychologist involvement, either direct or indirect, in any interrogations at U.S. detention centers for foreign detainees or citizens detained outside normal legal channels.” That resolution would have placed the APA alongside the American Medical Association and the American Psychiatric Association in limiting professional involvement in such settings to direct patient care. The APA echoed the Bush administration by condemning isolation, sleep deprivation, and sensory deprivation or over-stimulation only when they are likely to cause lasting harm.

Treatment of torture-related medical problems might require a wide range of expertise and often specialized experience. Common treatments are psychotropic medication, e.g. SSRI antidepressants, counseling, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, family systems therapy and physiotherapy.

See Psychology of torture for psychological impact, and aftermath, of torture.

Methods of execution and capital punishment

Any method of execution which involves, or has the potential to involve, a great deal of pain or mutilation is considered to be torture and unacceptable to many who support capital punishment. Some of these, if halted soon enough, may not have fatal effects.

Torture was often used as an aspect of execution with the aim of making the victim suffer mentally and physically before death and when publicized may also be intended as a deterrent. Such forms of execution include crucifixion and being hanged, drawn and quartered.

Torture murder

Main article: Torture murder

Torture murder is a term given to the commission of torture by an individual or small group, as part of a sadistic or murderous agenda. Such murderers are often serial killers, who kill their victims by slowly torturing them to death over a prolonged period of time, and is usually preceded by a kidnapping where the killer will take the victim hostage, and transport him/her to a secluded or isolated location. Criminal gangs or rebel factions performing executions by methods such as the Columbian necktie or "necklacing" with burning tires may view themselves as a de facto government acting in a role of law enforcement.

Laws against torture

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The Palais de Chaillot at the Trocadéro, where the United Nations met to adopt the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948

On December 10, 1948 the United Nations General Assembly adopted, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Article 5 states, "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."

Since that time a number of international treaties have been adopted to prevent the use of torture. Two of these are the United Nations Convention Against Torture and the Geneva Conventions.

United Nations Convention Against Torture

The United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (UNCAT) came into force in June 1987. The most relevant articles are Articles 1, 2, 3, and the first paragraph of Article 16.

Article 1

1. Any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.

2. This article is without prejudice to any international instrument or national legislation which does or may contain provisions of wider application.

Article 2

1. Each State Party shall take effective legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent acts of torture in any territory under its jurisdiction.
2. No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.

3. An order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification of torture.

Article 3

1. No State Party shall expel, return ("refouler") or extradite a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture.

2. For the purpose of determining whether there are such grounds, the competent authorities shall take into account all relevant considerations including, where applicable, the existence in the State concerned of a consistent pattern of gross, flagrant or mass violations of human rights.

Article 16
1. Each State Party shall undertake to prevent in any territory under its jurisdiction other acts of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment which do not amount to torture as defined in article I, when such acts are committed by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. In particular, the obligations contained in articles 10, 11, 12 and 13 shall apply with the substitution for references to torture of references to other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

Note several points:

• Section 1: Torture is "severe pain or suffering". The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) influences discussions on this area of international law. See the section Other conventions for more details on the ECHR ruling.
• Section 2: There are "no exceptional circumstances whatsoever" where a state can use torture and not break its treaty obligations". The applicable sanction is publicity that nonconforming signatories have broken their treaty obligations.
• Section 16: Obliges signatories to prevent "acts of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment", in "any territory under its jurisdiction".

About half of the world's countries have acceded to the UN Convention against Torture.

Optional Protocol to the UN Convention Against Torture

The Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture (OPCAT) entered into force on 22 June 2006 as an important addition to the UNCAT. As stated in Article 1, the purpose of the protocol is to "establish a system of regular visits undertaken by independent international and national bodies to places where people are deprived of their liberty, in order to prevent torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment." Each state ratifying the OPCAT, according to Article 17, is responsible for creating or maintaining at least one independent national preventive mechanism for torture prevention at the domestic level.

Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court

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The ICC's interim premises in The Hague

The Rome Statute establishing the International Criminal Court, limits jurisdiction of the Court to "the most serious crimes of concern to the international community as a whole", which includes torture, in Article 7, "Crimes against humanity", and Article 8, "War Crimes". The Statute describes torture as "the intentional infliction of severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, upon a person in the custody or under the control of the accused; except that torture shall not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to, lawful sanctions" (Article 7.e). The ICC began operation on July 1, 2002, and does not apply to offenses which occurred before that date. Cases also may not be brought to the ICC unless national criminal justice institutions of those states party to the Rome Statute are unwilling or unable to act.

Geneva Conventions

The four Geneva Conventions provide protection for people who fall into enemy hands. It divides people into two explicit groups: combatants and non-combatants.

The third (GCIII) and fourth (GCIV) Geneva Conventions are the two most relevant for the treatment of the victims of conflicts. Both treaties state in Article 3, in similar wording, that in a non-international armed conflict, "Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms... shall in all circumstances be treated humanely." The treaty also states that there must not be any "violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture" or "outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment".

GCIV covers most civilians in an international armed conflict, and says they are usually "Protected Persons" (see exemptions section immediately after this for those who are not). Under Article 32, protected persons have the right to protection from "murder, torture, corporal punishments, mutilation and medical or scientific experiments...but also to any other measures of brutality whether applied by non-combatant or military agents".

GCIII covers the treatment of prisoners of war (POWs) in an international armed conflict. In particular, Article 17 says that "No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever. Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted or exposed to unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind." POW status under GCIII has far fewer exemptions than "Protected Person" status under GCIV. Captured enemy combatants in an international armed conflict automatically have the protection of GCIII and are POWs under GCIII unless they are determined by a competent tribunal to not be a POW (GCIII Article 5).

Geneva Convention IV exemptions

GCIV provides an important exemption:

Where in the territory of a Party to the conflict, the latter is satisfied that an individual protected person is definitely suspected of or engaged in activities hostile to the security of the State, such individual person shall not be entitled to claim such rights and privileges under the present Convention [ie GCIV] as would ... be prejudicial to the security of such State ... In each case, such persons shall nevertheless be treated with humanity (GCIV Article 5)

Also nationals of a State which is not bound by the Convention are not protected by it, and nationals of a neutral State in the territory of a combatant State, and nationals of a co-belligerent State, cannot claim the protection of GCIV if their home state has normal diplomatic representation in the State that holds them (Article 4), as their diplomatic representatives can take steps to protect them. Since nearly every state has diplomatic recognition of every other state, most citizens of neutral countries in a war zone are not able to claim any protection from GCIV.

Unlawful combatants have fewer protections under GCIII. If there is a question of whether a person is an unlawful combatant, he (or she) must be treated as a POW "until their status has been determined by a competent tribunal" (GCIII Article 5). If the tribunal decides that he is an unlawful combatant, he is not considered a protected person under GCIII. However, if he is a protected person under GCIV he still has some protection under GCIV, and must be "treated with humanity and, in case of trial, shall not be deprived of the rights of fair and regular trial prescribed by the present Convention" (GCIV Article 5).

Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions

There are two additional protocols to the Geneva Convention: Protocol I (1977), relating to the protection of victims of international armed conflicts and Protocol II (1977), relating to the protection of victims of non-international armed conflicts. These clarify and extend the definitions in some areas, but to date many countries, including the United States, have either not signed them or have not ratified them.

Protocol I does not mention torture but it does affect the treatment of POWs and Protected Persons. In Article 5, the protocol explicitly involves "the appointment of Protecting Powers and of their substitute" to monitor that the Parties to the conflict are enforcing the Conventions. The protocol also broadens the definition of a lawful combatant in occupied territory to include those who carry arms openly but are not wearing uniforms, so that they are now lawful combatants and protected by the Geneva Conventions. It also defines who is a mercenary, and implicitly an unlawful combatant, and not protected by the same conventions.

Protocol II "develops and supplements Article 3 [relating to the protection of victims of non-international armed conflicts] common to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 without modifying its existing conditions of application" (Article 1). Any person who does not take part in or ceased to take part in hostilities is entitled to humane treatment. Among the acts prohibited against these persons are, "Violence to the life, health and physical or mental well-being of persons, in particular murder as well as cruel treatment such as torture, mutilation or any form of corporal punishment" (Article 4.a), "Outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment, rape, enforced prostitution and any form of indecent assault" (Article 4.e), and "Threats to commit any of the foregoing acts" (Article 4.h). There are clauses in other articles which implore humane treatment of enemy personnel in an internal conflict, which have a bearing on the use of torture, but there are no other clauses which explicitly mention torture.

Other conventions

In accordance with the non-binding UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (1955), "corporal punishment, punishment by placing in a dark cell, and all cruel, inhuman or degrading punishments shall be completely prohibited as punishments for disciplinary offences." The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, (16 December 1966), explicitly prohibits torture and "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment" by signatories.

European agreements

In 1950 during the Cold War, the participating member states of the Council of Europe signed the European Convention on Human Rights. The treaty was based on the UDHR. It included the provision for a court to interpret the treaty, and Article 3 "Prohibition of torture" stated, "No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."

In 1978 the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the five techniques of "sensory deprivation" were not torture as laid out in Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, but were "inhuman or degrading treatment" (see Accusations of use of torture by United Kingdom for details). This case occurred nine years before the United Nations Convention Against Torture came into force and had an influence on thinking about what constitutes torture ever since.

On 26 November 1987 the member states of the Council of Europe, meeting at Strasbourg, adopted the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (ECPT). Two additional Protocols amended the Convention, which entered into force on 1 March 2002. The Convention set up the Committee for the Prevention of Torture to oversee compliance with its provisions.

Inter-American Convention

The Inter-American Convention to Prevent and Punish Torture, currently ratified by 17 nations of the Americas and in force since 28 February 1987, defines torture more expansively than the United Nations Convention Against Torture. "For the purposes of this Convention, torture shall be understood to be any act intentionally performed whereby physical or mental pain or suffering is inflicted on a person for purposes of criminal investigation, as a means of intimidation, as personal punishment, as a preventive measure, as a penalty, or for any other purpose. Torture shall also be understood to be the use of methods upon a person intended to obliterate the personality of the victim or to diminish his physical or mental capacities, even if they do not cause physical pain or mental anguish.

The concept of torture shall not include physical or mental pain or suffering that is inherent in or solely the consequence of lawful measures, provided that they do not include the performance of the acts or use of the methods referred to in this article."

Supervision of anti-torture treaties

The Istanbul Protocol, an official UN document, is the first set of international guidelines for documentation of torture and its consequences. It became a United Nations official document in 1999.

Under the provisions of OPCAT that entered into force on 22 June 2006 independent international and national bodies will regularly visit places where people are deprived of their liberty, in order to prevent torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Each state that ratified the OPCAT, according to Article 17, is responsible for creating or maintaining at least one independent national preventative mechanism for torture prevention at the domestic level.

The European Committee for the Prevention of Torture, citing Article 1 of the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture, stipulates, "visits, [countries to] examine the treatment of persons deprived of their liberty with a view to strengthening, if necessary, the protection of such persons from torture and from inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment".

In times of armed conflict between a signatory of the Geneva conventions and another party, delegates of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) monitor the compliance of signatories to the Geneva Conventions, which includes monitoring the use of torture. Human rights organizations, such as Amnesty International, the World Organization Against Torture, and Association for the Prevention of Torture work actively to stop the use of torture throughout the world and publish reports on any activities they consider to be torture.

Municipal law

States that ratified the United Nations Convention Against Torture have a treaty obligation to include the provisions into municipal law. The laws of many states therefore formally prohibit torture. However, such de jure legal provisions are by no means a proof that, de facto, the signatory country does not use torture.

To prevent torture, many legal systems have a right against self-incrimination or explicitly prohibit undue force when dealing with suspects.

England abolished torture in about 1640 (except peine forte et dure which England only abolished in 1772), in Scotland in 1708, in Prussia in 1740, in Denmark around 1770, in Russia in 1801.

The French 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, of constitutional value, prohibits submitting suspects to any hardship not necessary to secure his or her person. Statute law explicitly makes torture a crime. In addition, statute law prohibits the police or justice from interrogating suspects under oath.

The United States includes this protection in the fifth amendment to its federal constitution, which in turn serves as the basis of the Miranda warning, which law enforcement officers issue to individuals upon their arrest. Additionally, the US Constitution's eighth amendment forbids the use of "cruel and unusual punishments", which is widely interpreted as a prohibition of the use of torture. Finally, 18 U.S.C. § 2340 et seq. define and forbid torture outside the United States.

Ethical arguments regarding torture

Main article: Ethical arguments regarding torture

The use of torture has been criticized not only on humanitarian and moral grounds, but on the grounds that evidence extracted by torture can be unreliable and that the use of torture corrupts institutions which tolerate it. Organizations like Amnesty International argue that the universal legal prohibition is based on a universal philosophical consensus that torture and ill-treatment are repugnant, abhorrent, and immoral. But since shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks there has been a debate in the United States on whether torture is justified in some circumstances. Some people, such as Alan M. Dershowitz and Mirko Bagaric, have argued that the need for information outweighs the moral and ethical arguments against torture. However, this argument is refuted by experience in Iraq where interrogators saw an increase of 50 percent more high-value intelligence after coercive practices were banned. Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, the American commander in charge of detentions and interrogations, stated "a rapport-based interrogation that recognizes respect and dignity, and having very well-trained interrogators, is the basis by which you develop intelligence rapidly and increase the validity of that intelligence." Others point out that despite administration claims that water boarding has "disrupted a number of attacks, maybe dozens of attacks", no one has come up with a single documented example of lives saved thanks to torture.

The ticking time bomb scenario, a thought experiment, asks what to do to a captured terrorist who has placed a nuclear time bomb in a populated area. If the terrorist is tortured, he may explain how to defuse the bomb. The scenario asks if it is ethical to torture the terrorist.

A 2006 BBC poll gauged support for each of the following positions:

• Terrorists pose such an extreme threat that governments should now be allowed to use some degree of torture if it may gain information that saves innocent lives.
• Clear rules against torture should be maintained because any use of torture is immoral and will weaken international human rights.

An average of 59% of people worldwide rejected torture. However there was a clear divide between those countries with strong rejection of torture (such as Italy, where only 14% supported torture) and nations where rejection was less strong (including Israel, with 43% support).

Within nations there is a clear divide between the positions of members of different ethnic groups, religions, and political affiliations. In one 2006 survey by the Scripps Center at Ohio University, 66% of Americans who identified themselves as strongly Republican supported torture against 24% of those who identified themselves as strongly Democratic. In a 2005 survey only 26% of Catholics would be against torture in all circumstances compared to 41% of secularists.

A CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll "found that sizable majorities of Americans disagree with tactics ranging from leaving prisoners naked and chained in uncomfortable positions for hours, to trying to make a prisoner think he was being drowned" it did not find that torture was universally disagreed with.

These figures are muddied by different attitudes as to what constitutes torture, as revealed in an ABC News/Washington Post poll, where more that half of the Americans polled thought that techniques such as sleep deprivation were not torture.

Incrimination of innocent people

One well documented effect of torture is that with rare exceptions people will say or do anything to escape the situation, including untrue "confessions" and implication of others without genuine knowledge, who may well then be tortured in turn. That information may have been extracted from the Birmingham Six through the use of police beatings was counterproductive because it made the convictions unsound as the confessions were worthless. There are rare exceptions, such as Admiral James Stockdale, Medal of Honor recipient, who refused to provide information under torture.

Rejection of torture

A famous example in which the use of torture was rejected was cited by the Argentine National Commission of the Disappearance of Persons in whose report, General Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa was reputed to have said in connection with the investigation of the disappearance of Aldo Moro, "Italy can survive the loss of Aldo Moro. It would not survive the introduction of torture."

Motivation for torture

It was long thought that "good" people would not torture and only "bad" ones would, under normal circumstances. Research over the past 50 years suggests a disquieting alternative view, that under the right circumstances and with the appropriate encouragement and setting, most people can be encouraged to actively torture others. Stages of torture mentality include:

• Reluctant or peripheral participation
• Official encouragement: As the Stanford prison experiment and Milgram experiment show, many people will follow the direction of an authority figure (such as a superior officer) in an official setting (especially if presented as mandatory), even if they have personal uncertainty. The main motivations for this appear to be fear of loss of status or respect, and the desire to be seen as a "good citizen" or "good subordinate".
• Peer encouragement: to accept torture as necessary, acceptable or deserved, or to comply from a wish to not reject peer group beliefs. This may potentially lead to torture gangs roaming the streets seeking dominant torture status.
• Dehumanization: seeing victims as objects of curiosity and experimentation, where pain becomes just another test to see how it affects the victim.
• Disinhibition: socio-cultural and situational pressures may cause torturers to undergo a lessening of moral inhibitions and as a result act in ways not normally countenanced by law, custom and conscience.
• Organizationally, like many other procedures, once torture becomes established as part of internally acceptable norms under certain circumstances, its use often becomes institutionalized and self-perpetuating over time, as what was once used exceptionally for perceived necessity finds more reasons claimed to justify wider use.

Other meanings of the word

Especially in countries where citizens can expect to be spared routine exposure to real torture, the word "torture" is used loosely (and to some people, inappropriately) for ordinary, even accidental discomforts. For example, "I was stuck in a traffic jam for three hours today, it was torture!"

Rather paradoxically the term is also commonly used in BDSM, where similar methods to inflict pain and/or humiliation are used, though generally in mitigated form, as games, i.e. for the inverse purpose of giving the 'players' sexual and/or fetish pleasure from inflicting and/or enduring the 'torturous' discipline. This is even true for techniques such as genitorture, which can only be used in a virtual parody since the real thing implies unacceptable medical risks.

See also

• Suffering

Methodology and physiology

• Interrogation
• Physical abuse
• Psychology of torture

Organizations

• World Organisation Against Torture
• Physicians for Human Rights
• Doctors of the World
• Medical Foundation for Care of Victims of Torture

Reports for and against torture

• Country Reports on Human Rights Practices
• United Nations Convention Against Torture
• McCain Detainee Amendment
• U.S. Army and CIA interrogation manuals Declassified US military manuals which advocated torture.

History

• Extraordinary rendition
• Spanish Inquisition
• Nazi human experimentation
• Unit 731

Other

• Command responsibility
• Scarry Elaine author of The Body in Pain
• Enhanced interrogation techniques
• Category:Torture
• Category:Corporal punishments

Further reading

• Alleg, Henri, The Question, Braziller, 1958.
• Crelinsten, Robert D. and Schmid, Alex. P. The Politics of Pain: Torturers and their Masters, Westview, 1995.
• Dayan, Colin, The Story of Cruel and Unusual, The MIT Press, 2007.
• Foucault, Michel, Discipline and Punish, trans. A. Sheridan. Vintage, 1977.
• Greenberg, Karen J. The Torture Debate in America, Cambridge University Press, 2005.
• Levinson, Sanford, ed. Torture: A Collection, Oxford University Press, 2006.
• Mannix, Daniel P. The History of Torture, Sutton Publishing, 2003.
• McCoy, Alfred (2006). A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, from the Cold War to the War on Terror. Metropolitan Books. pp. 21 sqq. ISBN 0-8050-8041-4. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
• Miles, Steven H., Oath Betrayed: Military Medicine And the War on Terror, Random House (June 27, 2006), hardcover, 224 pages, ISBN 1-4000-6578-X
• Millet, Kate, The Politics of Cruelty: An Essay on the Literature of Political Imprisonment, W.W. Norton, 1994.
• Peters, Edward, Torture, Basil Blackwell, 1985.
• Sampson, William, Confessions of an Innocent Man: Torture and Survival in a Saudi Prison, McClelland and Stewart Ltd (2005), hardcover, 419 pages, ISBN 0-7710-7903-6
• Scarry, Elaine "The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World", Oxford University Press (1987)
• Stover, Eric, and Nightingale, Elena, The Breaking of Bodies and Minds: Torture, Psychiatric Abuse, and the Health Professions, W. H. Freeman, 1985.

Definitions and current methods

• Torture, 7 February, 2006 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Stanford University)
• The Dark Art of Interrogation Mark Bowden article in The Atlantic that covers modern methods of torture.

Museums

• Torture Museum European Instruments of Torture from the Middle Ages
• Medieval Torture Museum in San Gimignano, Italy