The Human Right of No Torture

Adam Webb

Dr. O’Dell

Genocide and Human Rights

5 December 2018

There are many human rights that have been recognized by the United Nations as a

international human rights. But one of the most prevalent and important human rights in my
perspective is the one concerning to the prevention of the use of torture. This right was created

throughout history during times of wars and peace by committees and documents. This right

was created to protect people who were captured from being harmed in the point of retrieving

information or achieving some goal. The human right for the prevention of torture was created

and recognized by many nations to protect many people cruel and unusual harm for others

benefit.

Torture was a skill created with the intent of gathering information or completing some

goal from from a target or a group of targets. This human right began to be created right after

World War 2 in response to the horrible things that happened during that time period(Source

12). Many people were treated inhumanely due to some powerful leaders in Germany had a

very cruel goal of mass genocide. Large specific groups of people were gathered in secured

encampments so they could be controlled and monitored. These people were treated horribly

just because they believed in something different or were born into a specific family. The events

that occured in the Holocaust got the ball rolling for this very important human right and its

standing in modern day. The next major step in this humans right creation is the creation of the

United Nations by the United Nations Charter in 1945(Source 12). The United Nations was

created in the purpose of protecting people across the world from being treated inhumanely in a

variety of different ways. The United Nations worked internationally but have the most

jurisdiction in states in that joined the UN. Conventions, treaties and other like formatted

documents are processed through the United Nations and then can be ratified by different

states when they choose to accept it. Once they accept it, that state takes on the responsibility

to uphold the documents in their home nations to the best of their abilities. If they do not uphold

their agreement, then they have to answer to the UN and its respective insight committees. The

United Nations then created a list of rights that they considered to be the basic human rights

that every person deserves to have no matter who they are or where they live. The list was
ratified on December 12, 1948 under the name of the “Universal Declaration of Human

Rights”(Sources 5 and 12).

Included in this list along with many other human rights is one of the most important

ones in my perspective, the right of the prevention of torture. There are conventions and treaties

based on this human right including the “Convention Against Torture.” In 1972, the “Campaign

Against Torture” was started by Amnesty to try to get the United Nation to stop the use of torture

everywhere(Source 3). From the work of Amnesty and the campaign against torture, the

Swedish president began the work on a treaty that would become international law. This treaty

is known as the “Convention Against Torture” and was turned into the United Nations for

negotiation and contemplation until 1987 when it was put into force(Sources 3 and 7).

This convention breaks down how the United Nations defines torture and the powers

that it gives the UN and its committees. The convention defines torture as “any act by which

severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for

such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing

him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or

intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any

kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or

acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity”(Source 7). This

means that if any person causes mental or physical pain in the goal of gaining information or

completing a goal is in violation of this convention. The convention also states that each state is

responsible for monitoring and enforcing this convention in their respective territories. This

document was a very important step in the protection of this right and people all around the

world no matter who they are. The topic of torture has been included in many other international

treaties, but the “Convention Against Torture” is one of the first ones that focus on torture alone.

The convention also explains how states should operate in the punishment of people who break

it or commit any form of torture in Article 4. In Article 11 of the convention, it states that “Each
State Party shall keep under systematic review interrogation rules, instructions, methods and

practices as well as arrangements for the custody and treatment of persons subjected to any

form of arrest, detention or imprisonment in any territory under its jurisdiction, with a view to

preventing any cases of torture”(Source 7). This means that each nation that ratifies and

accepts the convention has to lay out the limitations of what their government’s law enforcers

powers and abilities in terms of interrogation and gathering information. They are allowed to ask

questions to people but not able to cause pain in the pursuit of that information.

Another important point about this document is that it fills some of the gaps that other

treaties and conventions do not fulfill that the United Nations feel need to be covered either in a

stronger way or in any way(Source 13). Those conventions all are very similar in the purpose of

protecting people but apply to different situations and problems. For example, the Geneva

Convention was designed to protect people in times of hostilities. The people who are being

protected are people who are captured or wounded in some way during those times and are

being protected from being mistreated by their enemies. This convention only protects people

during times of war while the Convention Against Torture protects people at all times whether it

be in times of hostility or peace. The Convention Against Torture just covers holes and gaps in

the other conventions to protect people no matter who they are or where they are from.

Even though the states are responsible for managing their in house issues involving

human rights issues, the United Nations do have their own oversight committees to make sure

that there are no humanitarian issues occuring. The UN has a special committee just for the

human right for the prevention of torture that oversees all nations that ratified the United Nations

conventions and declarations involving torture and some of the nations that did not do this. The

name of this committee is the Committee Against Torture and they are responsible for

protecting people from this inhumane treatment. This committee is a group of ten experts who

uphold the Convention Against Torture by addressing concerns and complaints dealing with

situations involving torture(Source 2). They monitor the situations in each state in respect to the
convention and then address if they are going to have act in the state in response to any issues

occuring there. One way they monitor what is going on in each state are the reports that each

state is responsible to send to the committee describing the current situation in the state. The

committee then makes recommendations to the states on how to correct the situations and then

if needed, act themselves to try to correct the issues(Source 2 and 10).

The Committee Against Torture also has a complaint system set up so that any person

or group of people can make a complaint to the committee concerning an issue that they

witnessed or were a victim of themselves. There a multiple different ways to make a complaint

in the situation of human rights. Also, each human right has there own system and committee

that they make reports to. As I stated in the above paragraphs, the complaints involving torture

are reported to the Committee Against Torture(Source 2). Another way that the committee deals

with situations is with a subcommittee. This subcommittee is called the Subcommittee on

Prevention of Torture and is responsible for visiting states and access claims that were made to

the Committee Against Torture or CAT(Source 2). After they visit the reported state and access

the claim made, they then report back to the CAT, the Human RIghts Committee and the United

Nations itself. After the report is made by a member of the Subcommittee on Prevention of

Torture to the higher up committees, the reports are analyzed and then acted upon if necessary.

The members of the subcommittee are responsible to make reports to the United Nations on the

actions of the CAT and the nations and their actions involving the prohibition of the use of

torture.

Just like the convention against torture, the jurisdiction of the Committee Against Torture

overlap with other committees. Some of the committees oversee general groups of human

rights which sometimes include torture(Source 14). But still this committee is still very important

due to the fact that just like the convention, this committee just focuses on torture and fills some

of the gaps that others do not.

 This committee has complete authority to work in any state that ratified the treaty and

most that did not. They try to protect the human right of no torture for everyone no matter what

country they are from, what they believe, or anything else(Source 4 pg 29-31). Just as Donnelly

explains in the book “Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice”, everyone across the

world has this right and many more which can not be taken away and the Universal Declaration

of Human Rights is a very important step in this goal. This also means that the members of all of

the committees that I listed in the paragraphs above have jurisdiction all across the world to

protect people from being tortured in times of peace and in times of hostility. With this

jurisdiction, they have the power to bring people who do not follow this human right to

international court.

People who commit acts of inhumane and cruel acts that deprive people of their human

rights can be brought up on charges in an international court of law. These cases could be

similar as the trials after the Holocaust were German high officials were prosecuted for their

inhumane acts against a large amount of people. The charges do not have to as large of scale

as the Holocaust but the crimes are just as terrible. But to be brought up on charges in

international law, the people who are being charged need to be found guilty by the

representatives from the Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture. The state should then charge

the accused with a punishment that is fit for the crime that they committed. After they are

charged by the state, they can also be brought up on international charges by the United

Nations and its committees. One example of this was brought up in a New York Times news

article from December of 2014 about some prisoners(Source 6). There some captured prisoners

that were being tortured, but it was not by causing them physical pain. They were not allowed to

enjoy their rights to freedom of speech with a hunger strike. They just like others wanted to

make a point but, they were forced to stop their stand. Even though they were in prison, they

still have certain rights that should be guaranteed to them and they were not. The people who
are committing these crimes should be prosecuted due to the fact that these people are

depriving these prisoners of some of their basic human rights.

Another example I found was in a NBC news article involving the United States and the

United Nations(Source 9). This article talks about how representatives of the United States

government were being questioned by the United Nations in Geneva about an incident of “police

brutality” and also again about the mistreatment of prisoners in Gitmo. On the part of the

questioning involving the police officers, the committee questioning the United States officials

were concerned about the use of excessive force(Source 9). They found multiple reports of

police officers using excessive force when detaining people and also of profiling certain groups

of people based on ethnicity and beliefs. The United States claimed that they were doing their

best to stop acts like this. They also claimed that they were not able to do this due to 9/11 and

the atrocities that occured. The United Nations representative did not really care what they said

really because they believed it to be empty words. The UN representative would not believe

them unless they saw actual change. From this article you can see that the United Nations

takes any claim very seriously now matter how big or small the claim is. In this case the United

States got the equivalent of a slap on the wrist and told to not to do it again. By that I mean that

the UN told the United States to change their way or there would be consequences.

Both of these news articles show that the United Nations and their representatives take

every claim very seriously. People should not be treated inhumanely under any circumstances

no matter who they are. As shown in the Human Rights Reader, if you try to control people’s

human rights, it will not work out well due to the fact that people will fight back for their

right(Source 8). But not only that, if you abuse people’s rights like torture them, then they will

also revolt in revenge. The fact that if you try to control people’s rights, you are committing a

different type of torture which is not right. The people described in the Human Rights Reader

learned the hard way the torture is not the way to get information due to the fact that it is not

right and also it leads to worse things happening.

 There was another case against the British government and the use of multiple

techniques that when used together can be considered torture. The British government on one

hand owned up to these issues and brought them to the United Nations. But the international

court that were investigating the claims thought differently(Source 1 and 11). They did not

believe that these techniques were considered torture but they found other issues with it. The

court found that it was a problem under the circumstances that it was degrading and

mistreatment of people in inhumane ways. The international court decided this due to the fact

that what the British government was doing was not severe enough to be considered torture but

enough to be considered of ill treatment of the victims. The international court worked in multiple

steps to evaluate the claims and decide what to with the claims after they were evaluated. The

first stage involves the court evaluating whether or not that accused actually breaking the

convention. If they did, then the international court decides how to address the situation and the

state in question as well. After they make that decision, the committee then declares the

sentence for the accused and then makes sure that the sentencing is completed(Source 11).

The human right of torture was created and defined by the United Nations to protect

people from being harmed in the pursuit of information or a specific goal. The UN finds this

human right very important and ratified the Convention Against Torture to try to protect this

human right. The committee created by this document and the United Nations investigates

every claim very thoroughly to try to make sure that no person is being deprived of this human

right. The committee and the convention protect many people from being mistreated in so many

inhumane and cruel ways. In my perspective, the human right for the prevention of the use of

torture is one of the most important human rights due to the fact that it protects people from

being harmed for the completion of some goal. I believe that the international community should

keep doing what they are doing to protect this right for people everywhere. I really can not think

of anything that the international community could do any better to protect his right due to the

fact that the Committee Against Torture investigate any claim very thoroughly to make sure that
the accused is guilty or not. They then act on these claims if necessary if the claims break the

convention in any way. Overall, the international committee in my perspective can not do

anything better than what they are doing now.

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