Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment

Declaration

By: United Nations

Date: December 10, 1984

Source: United Nations General Assembly. "Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment" General Assembly Resolution 39/46. December 10, 1984.

About the Author: The phrase "United Nations" was used during World War II (1939–1945) to describe the dozens of nations allied together to fight Germany and Japan, most notably including China, France, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States of America. These allies decided to develop a new organization to facilitate international cooperation and help prevent future wars. It would replace the League of Nations, which had failed to prevent World War II. They called it the United Nations (UN). The UN Charter was ratified on October 24, 1945. In the years since the UN has served as a forum for international negotiation and cooperation on many issues, including international security, human rights, trade and economics, and the environment.

INTRODUCTION

The United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment is a treaty that had been signed and ratified, as of April 2006, by 141 member nations, signed but not ratified by another ten, and unsigned by forty-one.

The convention was adopted by the UN General Assembly (the voting body consisting of all UN member states' representatives) on December 10, 1984, and entered into force on June 26, 1987. The first UN instrument to ban torture, adopted in 1948, was the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, which stated that "[n]o one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment." However, the word "torture" was not defined. The UN's 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights repeated the 1948 language and added that "no one shall be subjected without his free consent to medical or scientific experimentation" but still did not define the word "torture."

Not until the UN's 1975 Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Being Subjected to Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which resembles the convention in many of its provisions, was "torture" defined. This definition was adopted as Part I, Article 1 of the Convention against Torture, with the addition of language specifying that for the purposes of the convention—that is, to be considered a state crime, as opposed to a crime against humanity (a broader category)—torture must be inflicted by a government official. Further, the convention added language specifying that pain "inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions" is not torture. For example, the suffering of an enemy soldier shot in combat is not considered torture. The convention requires every signatory nation to ban and actively prevent torture and to not send any prisoner to a country "where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture." It also forbids the invocation of "exceptional circumstances" such as national emergencies to justify torture.

In the words of a UN fact sheet, "the United Nations did not merely put in writing in a series of articles a body of principles and pious hopes, the implementation and observance of which would not be guaranteed by anything or anyone." To encourage compliance, Article 17 of the convention established the UN Committee against Torture.

Committee members—ten experts in human rights who are citizens of nations signatory to the convention ("State Parties")—are elected every four years by a secret vote of all State Parties. The committee, which began to function on January 1, 1988, meets twice a year but can convene special sessions. It submits an annual report to all State Parties and the General Assembly. Each State Party is supposed to submit a report once every four years, starting within one year after signing the convention, describing actions taken to fulfill its obligations. Complaints by individuals or states can be filed formally with the committee, and the committee can institute investigations of its own accord.

PRIMARY SOURCE

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SIGNIFICANCE

Most countries are signatories of the Convention against Torture. Although many countries still practice torture, it has become, for the most part, politically unacceptable to openly defend the practice of torture. This is a historic novelty; torture was not always considered abhorrent. On the contrary, it has been openly and officially practiced by most states throughout history. Torture has been employed to enforce conformity to religious orthodoxies, for ritual purposes, and to punish various crimes. However, following the European Enlightenment in the 1700s, torture has gradually come to be seen as unacceptable by the majority of the world's population. In some democratic states, including the United States, public debate over the permissibility of torture under special circumstances—the usual hypothetical scenario being prevention of a massive terrorist attack—revived during the early 2000s.

Whether the Convention against Torture and the Committee Against Torture have been effective in decreasing the amount of torture practiced in the world is difficult to know. The Committee has no direct enforcement powers, but by making credible, independent information about torture practices widely available and by publicly calling on states to change their practices, the Committee may be able reinforce political processes that can cause some states to reduce or eliminate torture.

Scores of countries have been criticized for torture by the Committee Against Torture, but criticism of the United States by the Committee has received special attention because of the U.S.'s uniquely prominent role in international affairs. In 2005, the United States admitted in its second periodic report to the Committee (the first had been delivered in 1999, almost five years overdue) that prisoners had been tortured at U.S. military facilities in Guantanamo (Cuba), Afghanistan, and Iraq. It denied, however, that any of the torture had been officially permitted. In April 2006, the Committee demanded more information on the treatment of prisoners in these facilities and in alleged secret detention facilities worldwide run by the United States. The United States was due to send a delegation of officials to argue its case before the Committee in May 2006. The Committee also criticized U.S. practices of jailing juveniles with adults and allowing some states to put prisoners in chain gangs. Envoys from the International Committee of the Red Cross had already concluded in 2004 that officially permitted interrogation techniques at Guantanamo were "tantamount to torture," as had a delegation from the UN Commission on Human Rights in February 2006. The United States maintains that its policies are in agreement with all treaty obligations and domestic laws.

FURTHER RESOURCES

Books

Karen, Greenberg J., ed. The Torture Debate in America. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Periodicals

Farley, Maggie. "Report: U.S. Is Abusing Captives." The Los Angeles Times. February 13, 2006.

Web sites

Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, United Nations. "Fact Sheet No.17, The Committee against Torture." 〈http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu6/2/fs17.htm〉 (accessed April 20, 2006).

Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, United Nations. "Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment." 1984. 〈http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/h_cat39.htm〉 (accessed April 20, 2006).

Reuters. "UN Torture Panel Presses US on Detainees." April 18, 2006. 〈http://go.reuters.com/〉 (accessed April 20, 2006).