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"Transnational Torture by Jinee Lokaneeta reviewed with Prachi Patankar" on the blog Kafila. Evidence of torture at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and harsh interrogation techniques at Guantánamo Bay beg the question: has the “war on terror” forced liberal democracies to rethink their policies and laws against torture? Transnational Torture focuses on the legal and political discourses on torture in India and the United States—two common-law based constitutional democracies—to theorize the relationship between law, violence, and state power in liberal democracies. Analyzing about one hundred landmark Supreme Court cases on torture in India and the United States, memos and popular imagery of torture, Jinee Lokaneeta compellingly demonstrates that even before recent debates on the use of torture in the war on terror, the laws of interrogation were much more ambivalent about the infliction of excess pain and suffering than most political and legal theorists have acknowledged. Rather than viewing the recent policies on interrogation as anomalous or exceptional, Lokaneeta effectively argues that efforts to accommodate excess violence—a constantly negotiated process—are long standing features of routine interrogations in both the United States and India, concluding that the infliction of excess violence is more central to democratic governance than is acknowledged in western jurisprudence.
U.S. use of torture and inhumane and degrading treatment in interrogating prisoners in the war on terror is well established. Linked to earlier harsh practices by the intelligence establishment, the U.S. established a torture culture in response to the "war on terrorism." So-called "harsh" or "alternative" interrogation techniques came to be accepted practices in the treatment of detainees. We have come to understand that, despite denials, this means using torture as an interrogation technique. Furthermore, revelations that the National Security Council, sitting in formal session, and with the specific approval by President Bush, micromanaged the interrogation of "high value" detainees, provides legal and political cover such that domestic and international prosecution will be difficult, if not impossible. Moreover, passage of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (MCA) retroactively excused certain potential breaches of the Geneva Conventions and provided some, but not absolute, insulation from prosecution by domestic courts. These specific interrogation techniques were vetted, case-by-case, in minute detail, by the nation's highest lawyers, and approved at the very top. Regardless of any potential gaps left by the MCA, domestic courts will not likely find that following such orders were "manifestly unlawful" as the law has developed since Nuremberg. Other nations will likely find it politically inexpedient to prosecute either high-level U.S. officials or low-level governmental employees. Thus, the U.S. may succeed in an end-run around any exercise of universal jurisdiction by any of the world's courts. However, this has not been without cost, and international pressures are combining to bring these practices to a halt. Finally, The United States knowingly and intentionally rendered people, some of whom were innocent of any connection to terrorism, to torture. Others simply disappeared. While the United States steadfastly denies that it rendered people to torture, evidence continues to accumulate that it indeed did so. These renditions have caused multiple legal, political and international problems for the United States. Although the Obama administration maintains the right to continue with extraordinary renditions, these international and domestic pressures make continuance of the Bush program unlikely.
"Published with the support of Austrian Science Fund (FWF): PUB 644-G."
Experts in the intelligence community say that torture is ineffective. Yet much of the public appears unconvinced: surveys show that nearly half of Americans think that torture can be acceptable for counterterrorism purposes. Why do people persist in supporting torture—and can they be persuaded to change their minds? In Tortured Logic, Erin M. Kearns and Joseph K. Young draw upon a novel series of group experiments to understand how and why the average citizen might come to support the use of torture techniques. They find evidence that when torture is depicted as effective in the media, people are more likely to approve of it. Their analysis weighs variables such as the ethnicity of the interrogator and the suspect; the salience of one’s own mortality; and framing by experts. Kearns and Young also examine who changes their opinions about torture and how, demonstrating that only some individuals have fixed views while others have more malleable beliefs. They argue that efforts to reduce support for torture should focus on convincing those with fluid views that torture is ineffective. The book features interviews with experienced interrogators and professionals working in the field to contextualize its findings. Bringing empirical rigor to a fraught topic, Tortured Logic has important implications for understanding public perceptions of counterterrorism strategy.
In the past three decades, international and regional human rights bodies have developed an ever-lengthening list of measures that states are required to adopt in order to prevent torture. But do any of these mechanisms actually work? This study is the first systematic analysis of the effectiveness of torture prevention. Primary research was conducted in 16 countries, looking at their experience of torture and prevention mechanisms over a 30-year period. Data was analysed using a combination of quantitative and qualitative techniques. Prevention measures do work, although some are much more effective than others. Most important of all are the safeguards that should be applied in the first hours and days after a person is taken into custody. Notification of family and access to an independent lawyer and doctor have a significant impact in reducing torture. The investigation and prosecution of torturers and the creation of independent monitoring bodies are also important in reducing torture. An important caveat to the conclusion that prevention works is that is actual practice in police stations and detention centres that matters - not treaties ratified or laws on the statute book.
The article presents a survey of the international legal issues raised by the use of evidence obtained by torture, which concern not only the procedural right to a fair trial, but also play a part in protection from the abhorrence of torture itself. In this discussion, the author passes comment on the recent English decisions in the case of A and Others. The question of the admissibility of such evidence is broken down into several different cases. All those cases come within the exclusionary rule of Article 15 of the UN Convention against Torture. The article further argues that the inadmissibility is also comprehensive under the right to a fair trial, having regard to the right against self-incrimination and to the unreliability of statements obtained by torture. It is also argued that this exclusionary rule is part of customary international law and that the very concept of jus cogens obliges all states to distance themselves from any violation of its substantive content and to therefore refuse to accept any evidence obtained by torture. The article therefore exposes the exclusionary rule as coextensive with the prohibition of torture and as a function of this prohibition.
This book explains the correct logical approach to analysis of forensic scientific evidence. The focus is on general methods of analysis applicable to all forms of evidence. It starts by explaining the general principles and then applies them to issues in DNA and other important forms of scientific evidence as examples. Like the first edition, the book analyses real legal cases and judgments rather than hypothetical examples and shows how the problems perceived in those cases would have been solved by a correct logical approach. The book is written to be understood both by forensic scientists preparing their evidence and by lawyers and judges who have to deal with it. The analysis is tied back both to basic scientific principles and to the principles of the law of evidence. This book will also be essential reading for law students taking evidence or forensic science papers and science students studying the application of their scientific specialisation to forensic questions.
This Research Handbook is of great importance in an era where torture, whilst universally condemned, remains endemic. It explores the nature of the international prohibition of torture and the various means and mechanisms which have been put in place by the international community in an attempt to make that prohibition a reality.