Torture

Legal Barriers to Torture

Among Western nations, legal barriers to torture became universal between 1750 and 1820, partly as a result of the Enlightenment and partly in recognition that torture was not an effective method of obtaining confessions or information, since the victim would say anything to make the torture stop. The Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits “cruel and unusual punishment,” thereby outlawing torture.

International efforts to end torture by legislation resulted in a number of conventions. Article 1 of the UN Convention Against Torture defines torture as “any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person… when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official.” The European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment also prohibit torture. The Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War also specifically prohibits torture and mistreatment of prisoners. This is but the latest in a series of Geneva Conventions beginning in 1864, all of which prohibited torture. Article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the United Nations states, “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”

Despite this apparent universality of legal bars to torture, resistance to its abandonment was remarkably stubborn, and local police routinely brutalized prisoners to elicit confessions well into the 20th century. Many nations still allow their police to beat and torture prisoners, especially throughout Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

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