What Justifications Have Been Given for the Use of torture?

The prohibition against torture expresses one of the democratic West’s most powerful taboos which has been successfully made illegal by international law.

Article 3, common to the four Geneva Conventions establishes fundamental rules from which no derogation is permitted. It requires humane treatment for all persons in enemy hands, without any adverse distinction. It specifically prohibits murder, mutilation, torture, cruel, humiliating and degrading treatment, the taking of hostages and unfair trial.

In 1984 an international human rights treaty: The Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment aimed to prevent torture and other acts of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment around the world. However, torture remains a practice among many nations even today. Perhaps what is most puzzling is the use of torture by the United States a nation that prides itself of liberal democratic values. 

So the question arises: why do these nations such as the United States a nation that prides itself of democratic values, still use torture today? What Justifications have been given for the use of torture?

Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay

In March 2003 during the war in Iraq the United States Army and the Central Intelligence Agency committed a series of human rights violations against detainees in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. The abuses came to light with reports published by Amnesty International and the Associated Press in late 2003. These violations included physical and sexual abuse, torture, rape, sodomy, and murder.

Detainees held in the United States' Guantanamo Bay detention camps in Cuba have initiated hunger strikes at Guantánamo Bay, and camp medical authorities have initiated force-feeding programs.

One detainee recalled, "Being strapped to a chair and having a tube forcibly inserted through one's nostrils and into one's stomach is dishonorable and degrading," according to the motion for a preliminary injunction. "It falls within the ambit of torture."

President Bush and his colleagues have often stated that the United States does not condone torture. Soon after the first set of suspected terrorists were sent to Guantanamo Bay in 2002 he said that America’s armed forces would treat the detainees ‘humanely’ in manner ‘consistent with the Geneva Conventions’ but ‘only’ ‘to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity’. There has been a wide use US military torture euphemisms such as, enhanced coercive interrogation technique, special methods of questioning, consistent with military necessity, all words to replace the taboo word of torture. It isn’t just the words used that have tried to excuse the practice of torture it is the practice itself that has been justified.

Ticking bomb scenario

To understand the justifications used for torture we must know the background of how it has been used by the United States during the War on Terror.

In every war, information is a weapon. Therefore in war one must extract this information and disarm the offender. Hence in the War on Terrorism where the enemy does not wear a specific uniform and hides among civilians, information is even more important.

Let us imagine a scenario: suppose you know that there is a bomb. And suppose you also know the identity of someone who knows the location of this bomb, the time of when it will explode, and who else was involved in this potential terrorist attack. If this bomb goes off it may kill hundreds maybe even thousands of innocent lives.

Given the threat that terrorist pose to innocent lives isn’t it justified for governments to do what ever they can to protect their citizens? Isn’t it better for one guilty person to be tortured than to risk the lives of hundreds or thousands? Would you allow this one man to be tortured to extract information? And potentially save innocent lives?

This scenario has come to be known as the ticking bomb scenario. This scenario is a thought experiment that has been used in the ethics debate over whether torture can ever be justified. The case of torture is based on the three fundamental value sets at stake. The safety and security of the nation’s citizens, the preservation of individual human rights and democratic openness and accountability.

One American criminal-defence lawyer Alan Dershowitz stated that the new threats do justify a limited use of non-lethal torture in extreme cases and proposes that judges be given the ability to issue ‘torture warrants’.

In a BBC survey of 27,000 people in 25 countries conducted in 2006 found that more than one out of three people considered a degree of torture acceptable if it saved lives. Opposition was highest in most European and English-speaking countries. Another poll in 2005 by the Pew Research Centre found that nearly half of all Americans thought the torture of suspected terrorists were sometimes justified.

However, life isn’t as simple as a ticking bomb scenario. Alex Bellamy argues that the ticking bomb terrorist case is based on a series of unlikely assumptions designed to prejudge the moral outcome.

Firstly we assume that the suspected terrorist does know whereabouts of the ticking bomb, and that under torture the truth will spill and therefore save innocent lives.  We are left to decide for our own how much torture would be permitted? Many critics of the ‘ticking bomb’ also claim that torture is ineffective in this scenario as people will say anything just to stop the pain. The information may not be correct and therefore lose more time for the bomb to explode (Bellamy, 2006).

Bellamy argues for the prohibition of torture and claims that one; torture does not always work as the torturers often claim. Second, torture violates jus in bello principle of non combatant immunity. And third, claiming a moral right to torture prisoners to extract information creates a precedent for others nations to use (Bellamy, 2006).

So in conclusion we can see that this issue of torture is not very clear. If we were to take the question and answer it in words only it would be simple. Is torture ever justified? Under international law it is an absolute no. Article 2 in the Convention against Torture states:

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.

However, to a great number of people and to many nations across the world and in the case of the War on Terrorism, the answer to the ticking bomb scenario is a yes, it is indeed justified under the framework of the ticking bomb scenario.

Written by: Kevin Huh

References:

Bellamy, Alex J. 'No Pain, No Gain? Torture And Ethics In The War On Terror'. International Affairs 82, no. 1 (2006): 121-148. 

International Committee of the Red Cross. 'The Geneva Conventions of 1949 and Their Additional Protocols', 2010. https://www.icrc.org/eng/war-and-law/treaties-customary-law/geneva-conventions/overview-geneva-conventions.htm.

BBC NEWS. 'One-Third Support 'Some Torture'', 2006. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6063386.stm#table.

RT News. 'Gitmo Detainees Ask US Court To End Force Feeding', 2013. http://rt.com/news/gitmo-strike-court-petition-507/.

Sontag, Susan. 'Regarding The Torture Of Others'. New York Times, 2004. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/23/magazine/regarding-the-torture-of-others.html.

Sussman, David. 'What's wrong with torture?.' Philosophy & Public Affairs 33, no. 1 (2005): 1-33.

The Economist. 'Fight Terrorism: Is Torture Ever Justified?', 2003. http://www.economist.com/node/1524784.

The Economist. 'Is Torture Ever Justified?', 2007. http://www.economist.com/node/9832909.

United Nations. 'Convention Against Torture And Other Cruel, Inhuman Or Degrading Treatment Or Punishment', 1984. http://legal.un.org/avl/ha/catcidtp/catcidtp.html.