Torture and International Law

I did some reading about the UN Convention Against Torture tonight, and learned some interesting things. There are 146 signatories to the Convention, which was adopted in 1984. The United States was not just a signatory, but was a major force in shaping and promoting the convention.

When President Reagan sent the the convention to the senate for approval, he sent a letter with it. An excerpt:

The United States participated actively and effectively in the negotiation of the Convention . It marks a significant step in the development during this century of international measures against torture and other inhuman treatment or punishment. Ratification of the Convention by the United States will clearly express United States opposition to torture, an abhorrent practice unfortunately still prevalent in the world today.

The core provisions of the Convention establish a regime for international cooperation in the criminal prosecution of torturers relying on so-called “universal jurisdiction.” Each State Party is required either to prosecute torturers who are found in its territory or to extradite them to other countries for prosecution.

Our moral leadership on issues like this is one of America’s best legacies of the 20th century.

Anyway, the second paragraph quoted above is important: Article 5 of the convention states (in a complicated way) that signatories are bound not only to prosecute offenders within their jurisdiction, but establishes a universal jurisdiction. This means that states are compelled to investigate and prosecute torture occurring in other states if that torture would otherwise go uninvestigated.

In other words, when the former chief judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces says that “we tortured”, inaction isn’t really an option. If we don’t handle this, there’s a very real chance that other countries would be legally compelled to. We need to do better than this. The world is much worse off without our moral leadership.

Also, before I forget, the Convention states that:

“No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political in stability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.”

Slate had a good article about the international legal implications of torture here.

And, no, I’m not a lawyer… four years of Model UN is about the only qualification I have in this area