Torture

About: Torture is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 8173 publications have been published within this topic receiving 109895 citations.

Education after Abu Ghraib : Revisiting Adorno's politics of education

Abstract: Drawing upon Theodor Adorno's famous essay, ‘Education After Auschwitz, ‘this article examines the question of how education should be engaged in light of the abuse and torture by American soldiers and personnel that took place at Abu Ghraib prison. The essay attempts to understand not only how the photographs of abuse and torture signalled a particular form of public pedagogy, but also how pedagogy itself becomes central to understanding the changing political, ideological, and economic conditions that made the abuse and torture at Abu Ghraib possible and what the latter implies for how we understand both cultural politics and the growing authoritarian nature of American society.

The Dirty War Index: A Public Health and Human Rights Tool for Examining and Monitoring Armed Conflict Outcomes

Abstract: Documentation, analysis, and prevention of the harmful effects of armed conflict on populations are established public health priorities [1–5] Although public health research on war is increasingly framed in human rights terms [6–13], general public health methods are typically applied without direct links to laws of war Laws of war are international humanitarian laws and customary standards regarding the treatment of civilians and combatants, mainly described in the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols I and II regarding international and civil conflicts [14] With notable exceptions [11,15–17], absolute numbers are usually reported (eg, number of persons killed), without systematic description of the proportional effects of armed conflict, thereby limiting the utility of findings and scope of interpretation In this paper, we introduce the “Dirty War Index” (DWI): a data-driven public health tool based on laws of war that systematically identifies rates of particularly undesirable or prohibited, ie, “dirty,” war outcomes inflicted on populations during armed conflict (eg, civilian death, child injury, or torture) DWIs are explicitly linked to international humanitarian law to make public health outcomes directly relevant to prevention, monitoring, and humanitarian intervention for the moderation of war's effects After choosing the particular outcome to be measured, a DWI is calculated as: Summary Points War, a major public health problem, is a situation where the interests of public health, human rights, and humanitarian law intersect The DWI is a data-driven public health tool that identifies rates of particularly undesirable or prohibited, ie, “dirty,” outcomes inflicted on populations during war (eg, civilian death, child injury, or torture) A DWI is calculated as: (Number of “dirty,” ie, undesirable or prohibited cases/Total number of cases) × 100 DWIs are designed for direct, easy translation of war's public health outcomes into the human rights, policy, and interdisciplinary work needed to address war's practice DWIs support monitoring, deterrence, and humanitarian intervention by explicit links to international humanitarian laws and by exposing rates of unacceptable combat outcomes (DWI values) from different weapons or combatant groups For example: In Table 1, we measure the DWI ratio of “Number of civilians killed/Total number of civilians and opponent combatants killed” using a casualty dataset for Colombia's civil conflict [18] Table 2 links this DWI to relevant laws of war DWI values of 99 for illegal paramilitaries, 46 for guerrillas, and 45 for government forces show that paramilitaries are “dirtiest” in terms of proportion of civilians constituting their victims of unopposed attacks (chi-square = 5,010, degree of freedom [df] = 2, p < 0001) 99% of paramilitary victims were civilians and only 1% were military opponents This finding, combined with the paramilitaries' methods (execution by close-range gunfire in massacres), suggests intentional targeting of civilians that requires recognition in Colombia's paramilitary demobilization, disarmament, and reintegration process [19] Table 1 Dirty War Index for Attacks by Actors in the Colombian Civil Conflict, 1988–2005: Civilian Versus Opponent Combatant Mortality Table 2 DWIs Suggested for Measuring Rates of Undesirable or Prohibited Outcomes from Aggression in Armed Conflict As ratios, DWIs complement absolute numbers and lend themselves to comparisons over time, between wars, between weapons, and between warring combatant groups to identify better versus worse performers Noncombatant wounded-to-killed ratios can provide evidence of war crimes [16] Proportional “atrocity statistics” [20] from a Darfur survey substantiated US Secretary of State Colin Powell's declaration of genocide and the referral of Darfur's situation to the International Criminal Court [20,21] By facilitating clear, systematic comparisons, DWIs can help analyze and expose how combatants engage in war and affect populations, thereby increasing the accountability of military and political leaders This paper describes the theoretical basis and practical applications of the DWI, with brief examples from armed conflicts More detailed DWI analyses of specific conflicts are planned for future papers

Sexual violence against women and girls in war and its aftermath: realities responses and required resources. A briefing paper.

Abstract: The growing body of data from the wars of the last decade is finally bringing to light one of historys great silences: the sexual violation and torture of civilian women and girls during periods of armed conflict Until recently the evidence -- along with the issue --had been generally ignored by historians politicians and the world at large yet it is hardly new dating back to Ancient Greek Roman and Hebrew wars What is especially disturbing however about the statistics from the past ten years is how rife the phenomenon appears to have become It might be argued that the current data simply reflect greater international attention to the issue -- provoked in part by the media coverage of the sexual atrocities committed during the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda and even more importantly by the decades of intensive awareness-raising by womens activists around the world -- rather than a significant rise in absolute numbers of victims A more likely explanation however is that the nature of warfare is changing in ways that increasingly endanger women and girls (excerpt)

Disability equality, reasonable accommodation and the avoidance of ill-treatment in places of detention: the role of supranational monitoring and inspection bodies

Abstract: This article focuses on the way in which disabled people who are deprived of their liberty are treated in places of detention. It argues that human rights law demands that disabled people should not be discriminated against while in detention and that the non-discrimination obligation includes a reasonable accommodation obligation. The nature of this obligation is explained, together with the heightened profile given to it in the context of places of detention by Article 14 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. A number of cases decided by supranational bodies are used to demonstrate how failures to provide reasonable accommodations to disabled detainees may result in inhuman or degrading treatment, as well as in discrimination. The extent to which principles of disability equality and reasonable accommodation are incorporated into the guidance issued by three supranational systems for monitoring places of detention is also examined. It is suggested that, in all thre...