The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights calls it the “International Day in Support of Victims of Torture”, and she issued a statement saying that “The prohibition of torture is one of the most absolute to be found anywhere in international law. Article 2 of the Convention against Torture is unequivocal: ‘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’. And no one is let off the hook – neither the actual torturers themselves, nor the policy-makers and public officials who define the policy or give the orders”.
The UN High Commissioner, Navi Pillay, noted that 146 countries (three-quarters of the world’s states) have ratified the International Convention Against Torture [CAT] , adopted 25 years ago, but she pointed out that many of those states party to the Convention “continue to practice torture, some of them on a daily basis. Other, which do not practice it themselves, enable it to happen by sending people at risk back to states where they know torture is carried out”.
She noted — as previous UN High Commissioners for Human Rights have also done — that the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Towers and the Pentagon have “had a devastating impact on the fight to eliminate torture”.
Pillay said that “The Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib prisons, in particular, became high-profile symbols of this regression, and new [sic] terms such as ‘water-boarding’ and ‘rendition’ entered the public discourse” …
Unfortunately, even if the terms might be new, the practices are not.
Anyway, Pillay — as a high UN official who has to behave diplomatically — added that “Leadership is required to end this grotesque practice. In January, I welcomed the fact that Barak Obama’s very first actions as the new President of the United States included decisions to close Guantanamo and ban methods of interrogation, such as water-boarding, which amount to torture or otherwise contravene international law … But there is still much to do before the Guantanamo chapter is truly brought to a close. Its remaining inmates must either be tried before a court of law – like any other suspected criminal – or set free. Those who risk torture or other ill-treatment in their country of origin must be given a new home, where they can start to build a new life, in the United States or elsewhere. I welcome the fact that in recent weeks a number of countries have agreed to take in a few people in this position, and urge others to follow suit, including first and foremost the United States itself. There should be no half-measures, or new creative ways to treat people as criminals when they have not been found guilty of any crime. Guantanamo showed that torture and unlawful forms of detention can all too easily creep back in to practice during times of stress, and there is still a long way to go before the moral high ground lost since 9/11 can be fully reclaimed. As CAT [the Convention Against Torture] makes clear, people who order or inflict torture cannot be exonerated, and the roles of certain lawyers, as well as doctors who have attended torture sessions, should also be scrutinized”.
They should be more than scrutinized.
The Convention Against Torture was adopted unanimously by the General Assembly in 1984, and entered into force on 26 June 1987. As a UN press release noted, “States parties to the Convention are required to outlaw torture and are explicitly prohibited from using ‘higher orders’ or ‘exceptional circumstances’ as excuses for acts of torture. The Convention introduced two significant new elements to the United Nations fight against torture: first, it specifies that alleged torturers may be tried in any State party or they may be extradited to face trial in the State party where their crimes were committed; secondly, under article 20, it provides for investigation of reliable reports of torture, including visits to the State party concerned, with its agreement, if the Committee receives reliable information, which appears to contain well-founded indications, that torture is being systematically practiced in the territory of a State party”.
In her statement marking this International Day, Pillay added that “What happened in Guantanamo, while reprehensible, nevertheless pales in comparison to the scale and nature of the torture taking place in prisons, police stations and other government premises in countries all around the world. These are some of the darkest corners of our planet. Victims include not just suspected terrorists and political activists, but also minor criminals and even street-children. There are thousands of such places, and tens of thousands of victims, about whose atrocious suffering we hear next to nothing … Torture is a barbaric act. I believe that no state whose regime conducts or condones torture can consider itself civilized”.
The UN High Commission called on “leaders across the world to send a clear and unequivocal message that torture will no longer be tolerated, and that those who practice it are themselves committing a very serious crime … [W]e should all make a much stronger effort to root out these nefarious practices and the public officials who contravene the terms of this most fundamental of human rights treaties.”