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Elisabeth Jones
Professor Barker
POLS 2010
Research Project on Torture
11/9/15
The Use of Torture and International Law
Impunity continues to be the principal cause of the perpetuation and encouragement of human
rights violations and, in particular, torture."- UN Special Rapporteur for the Commission on
Human Rights, Sir Nigel Rodley
Much can be said about the topic of torture and international law. It is not a new topic for
public discussion or foreign policy, yet in recent years it has come to be an issue in the forefront
of national and international concern. Torture is described as the infliction of severe physical or
psychological pain upon an individual to extract information or a confession, or elicit
extrajudicial punishment. When applied indiscriminately, torture is used as a tool
of repression and deterrence against dissent and community empowerment. Human rights and
the violations thereof are directly linked to the use of torture by domestic and foreign powers
alike despite international laws, treaties, and conventions surrounding the use of such drastic
measures. In fact, most countries have signed and agreed to the terms of the United Nations
Convention against Torture which aims to prevent torture and other acts of cruel, inhuman, or
degrading treatment or punishment around the world. The Convention also requires states to
take effective measures to prevent torture in any territory under their jurisdiction, and forbids
states to transport people to any country where there is reason to believe they will be tortured.
As it is from the realist perspective of international relations, there is very little enforcement of
such an international agreement of those nations who choose to disregard such conventions and
choose to use torture. It is often left to societies to denounce such uses of state sponsored torture
in order for any real change to be made possible. The external pressure created by the societies
placed upon their governments or foreign nations accused of torture, cause governments to
become reactionary in the name of justice by changing policy, practice, and law or to become
defensive, leading such nations to deny or justify their use of torture.
State actors often try to justify their use of torture and are seldom punished for their
actions. Because of the lack of enforcement of such UN conventions against torture, the use of
such drastic dehumanization techniques are systemic world- wide as reported by Amnesty

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International. They report that from 1997 to 2000, there have been more than 150 countries
accused of human rights violations related specifically to torture. Within this long list of
violators, Cuba, China, North Korea, Eretria, and Egypt may not be surprising given their lack of
human rights laws within the countries themselves. However, more astonishing would be those
countries like the United Kingdom, Germany, and the United States as these countries claim to
be progressive and declarative on the matters of protecting and preserving human rights. Even
though many states subscribe to the use of torture for control of their own citizens or for the use
of information gathering, none of these countries like to admit their use of torture. These nations
choose to circumvent their international legal and humanitarian duties by use of secret police,
use of jurisdictional argument, justification of need to know policies and creation of secretive
political atmospheres, creating plausible deniability, justifications of torture being the best
option for a means to an end, and/or the use of torture by proxy. Through the process of denial,
justifications, and avoidance of prosecution, nations that engage in the use of torture most often
do not face any consequences of their actions.
Most recently, after the terrorist attacks of September 11th on the World Trade Centers in
New York City in 2001 and the subsequent War on Terror, numerous cases of human rights
violations and the use of torture by the United States government have come forward. During
this time of the G.W. Bush administration the U.S. was in a state of shock and awe from the
terrorist attacks which spurred wide spread determination to capture, detain, and prosecute those
accused of terrorism. Driven by emotion, policies were set and some previous polices were
ignored in order to use all methods available for gathering intelligence and to act upon such
information. In so doing, government agents from the CIA, DIA, and US Military forces are
accused of using torture tactics for information extracting procedures of assets. Referred to as
enhanced interrogation methods as a euphemism for torture, such drastic measures included
water-boarding, electric shock, and subjection to extreme temperatures. Other techniques of
torture included sleep, food, and medical depravation, confinement to small dark spaces for
extended amounts of time, and made to be naked and verbally and sexually humiliated in front of
others. Abuse of the captured detainees took place at several locations worldwide, including
black sites, covert CIA locations, and military installations like Bagram, Guantanamo, Bay, and
Abu Ghraib.
The definition of torture and the use of enhanced interrogations became debatable by
US officials and the international community in the mid 2000s. The US argued and justified
their use of rough handling techniques by stating their usefulness for intelligence gathering and
information extraction. However, the debate was not centered on the usefulness of such
techniques, it was aimed at reviewing any violation of U.S. anti-torture statutes or international
laws such as the UN Convention Against Torture. The United Nations special rapporteur on
torture, Juan Mendez stated that waterboarding is torture "immoral and illegal," and in 2008,
fifty-six House Democrats asked for an independent investigation. Since 2009, U.S. President
Obama and the past Attorney General Eric Holder have both repudiated the use of torture and
condemned the use of such tactics. However, they declined to prosecute any government officials
accused of such human rights violations. In July 2014, the European Court of Human
Rights formally ruled that "enhanced interrogation" is torture, and ordered Poland to pay
restitution to men tortured at a CIA black site there. In December 2014, the U.S. Senate made
public around 10% of a report about the CIA's use of torture during the George W. Bush
Presidency, known as Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture.

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Annotated Bibliography
Stein, Jeff. "When Torture Backfires: What the Vietcong Learned and the CIA
Didnt." Newsweek 15 Dec. 2014. Web. 12 Oct. 2015. ( http://www.newsweek.com/ciatorture-report-vietcong-vietnam-war-292041)
This article compares the "enhanced interrogation techniques" of the US CIA to the PPS of
Vietnam. The insight here can be gained from the comparison post torture of the "effectiveness"
or lack thereof, in deploying such harsh methods of intelligence gathering.
Luban, David. Torture, Power, and Law. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2014. Print.
This book "analyzes the trade-offs between security and human rights, as well as the connection
between torture, humiliation, and human dignity, the fallacy of using ticking bomb scenarios in
debates about torture, and the ethics of government lawyers. The book develops an illuminating
and novel conception of torture as the use of pain and suffering to communicate absolute
dominance over the victim. Factually stimulating and legally informed, this volume provides the
clearest analysis to date of the torture debate. It brings the story up to date by discussing the
Obama administration's failure to hold torturers accountable."- Google Books, 10/10/15. I choose
to use this as one of my main academic resources on the subject matter to guide my research
because of the comprehensive review of law and the subject matter.
"A/RES/39/46. Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading
Treatment or Punishment." UN News Center. UN, n.d. Web. 12 Oct. 2015.
This information is pertinent to my research because it gives the outline for the UN resolution
against torture and a pulse of how the world viewed torture for intelligence gathering
purposes. This will be supplementary to my other resources.

HARLOW, BILL. "Is Torture Effective for Gathering Intelligence? Part 2." Personal
interview. 10 Dec. 2014.
This interview on the PBS Newshour is given by the esteemed host and reporter Gwen Ifill with
the guest Bill Harlow who is ex-CIA. This interview gives insight into the US intelligence
community and what they have learned in recent years about the effectiveness of torture and
intelligence gathering.

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Forcese, Craig. "Spies Without Borders: International Law and Intelligence
Collection." 15 June 2011. Web. 12 Oct. 2015. <http://jnslp.com/wpcontent/uploads/2011/06/05_Forceses.pdf>.
Great resources for definitions of torture in the eyes of international law. Other resources cited in
this web text and may be used for reference in a later draft.
NOTE: I also used the following websites as reference:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_interrogation_techniques
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_of_torture_since_1948
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Convention_against_Torture