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The Transformation of the Prohibition of Torture in International Law

The Transformation of the Prohibition of Torture in International Law

Author: Lutz Oette
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780198885627
Published In: June 2024
Format: Hardback
Jurisdiction: U.K. ? Disclaimer:
Countri(es) stated herein are used as reference only

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Description
Contents

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The prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman, degrading treatment or punishment has a special status. It is the foremost international human rights norm protecting persons from attacks on their dignity and integrity. Consequently, it has been at the forefront of a series of developments in international human rights law and international law more broadly. Having withstood sustained challenges to its absolute nature in the 'war on terror', it has broadened its scope of application, becoming more sophisticated and complex in the process. The prohibition of torture increasingly interacts with other fields of human rights law, such as non-discrimination law, international criminal law, international humanitarian law, and international migration law.

The Transformation of the Prohibition of Torture in International Law analyses the nature and significance of this transformation and looks into the scope of the prohibition's further evolution. Empirical scholarship, innovative human rights body practice, and challenges from activists, particularly from the Global South, have focused on the relational nature of torture and other ill-treatment, its embeddedness in wider structures of power, and the role of international law in legitimizing-if not facilitating-widespread suffering, from mass incarceration to poverty and climate change. This analysis reveals an inherent tension in the prohibition between a conventional, narrow focus on direct State violence and a wide lens encompassing myriad forms of suffering. To retain its validity and effectiveness in the twenty-first century, argues Lutz Oette, the prohibition on torture must navigate this tension and successfully address and transform abusive power asymmetries.

Introduction

1:Contestation: Challenges to the absolute prohibition of torture

2:Conceptualization: Understanding torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment

3:Diversity: Discriminatory torture and other ill-treatment

4:Contextualization: Towards effective prevention of and justice for torture

5:Complexity: The prohibition in international criminal law, international humanitarian law, and international migration law

6:Expansion: Widespread and systemic suffering and the future of the prohibition

Conclusion