Torture

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

Between Vengeance and Forgiveness: South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission

Abstract: Citizens of South Africa are confronting a painful past through the new nation's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, or TRC, which thus far has heard thousands of reports (many televised) about murders, torture, and other human rights abuses that took place during the apartheid era. South Africa's TRC is grounded in a constitutional commitment to the African concept of “ubuntu,” or humaneness. Amnesty is available on a conditional basis to alleged perpetrators. The author assesses the potential restorative power of truth-telling; the significance of sympathetic witnesses; and the tasks of both perpetrators and bystanders in the TRC process. Aspirations for justice are considered along with restoring dignity to victims, offering a basis for individual healing, and promoting reconciliation of a divided society.

The Applicability of Human Rights Conventions to Israel and to the Occupied Territories

Abstract: The recent ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child by the Israeli Government is part of a welcome effort to ratify multilateral conventions dealing with human rights, some of which Israel had signed long ago. In addition to this Convention, the Israeli Government ratified, during the summer of 1991, the 1966 Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the 1966 Covenant on Economic and Social Rights, the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, and the 1984 Convention Against Torture. On the occasion of the ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, this article discusses the legal implications of the ratification of human rights conventions to the Israeli legal system and to the legal systems in the occupied territories.

Arresting Impunity: The Case for Universal Jurisdiction in Bringing War Criminals to Accountability

Abstract: The war criminal sickens the conscience of civilized society.' War crimes are repulsive, heinous acts. War carried out under the most civilized laws of armed conflict is horrible, but its horrors are greatly exacerbated by those brutal acts of plunder, torture, rape, and murder that humanitarian laws of war forbid. Such vile acts affect not only those against whom they are perpetrated; they appall and offend all of humanity. Since war criminals often operate with the knowledge and assistance of local political and legal authorities, domestic law does little to deter these actors. Prevention and punishment of war crimes thus become legal concerns and moral obligations, not just for those governments in whose territory crimes occurred, but for all states. Indeed, the effective prosecution and punishment of war criminals remain essential to the prevention of such crimes, the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms, and the promotion of international peace and security.2 The horrors perpetrated in the former Yugoslavia during 1991-94 furnish a tragic case in point. This civil war left 250,000 persons dead, 2 million displaced, and an entire population scarred for life. But the most grotesque and enduring features of the Bosnian tragedy are the thousands of egregious acts perpetrated as war crimes by all sides against one another, but mainly by

Advocacy Organizations and Collective Action

Abstract: Aseem Prakash & Mary Kay Gugerty, eds. Advocacy Organizations and Collective Action Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011Reviewed by Howard A. DoughtyThere has never been a shortage of people who think badly of idealists, understood as people who believe that members of our species should and could behave better than we do, and who are prepared to take steps to encourage the improvement of others. Such sceptics have a great deal of evidence in support of their opinions. In just the last century, we have dropped nuclear bombs on cities of negligible military importance, greatly "improved" biological and chemical warfare, constructed ballistic missiles and airplanes which don't even require pilots in order to rain down destruction and death upon civilians below. We have invented "enhanced interrogation techniques" as a euphemism for torture. In parts of the world slavery is no stain on our historical past, but a living reality today. Meanwhile, the most powerful country on Earth cannot seem to curtail gang warfare on its streets and family violence in its homes. The "war on drugs" is being lost on all fronts, and innumerable Mexicans are paying the price. On every continent racism and misogyny are only two of the ideological pretexts for brutal behaviour. Religion, recently thought to be succumbing to secularism and science, has returned as a major excuse for hatred among and within different systems of theistic belief and ritual worship. We have experimented widely with genocide. We have, in short, a fairly poor track record when it comes to living in obedience to the "Golden Rule."What's more, people dedicated to ambitious political movements intended to remove inequity, injustice and tyranny in the name of what we call "humane" attitudes and actions have frequently failed in their quest, often with disastrous results. It is my opinion that Karl Marx is no more culpable for the Moscow "show trials," the Chinese "cultural revolution" and Pol Pot's massacres in Cambodia than Jesus Christ is to blame for the Spanish Inquisition, the Salem witch-burnings and imperialist slaughters conducted in the name of Christianity around the world. Nonetheless, no one can deny that people who claimed to be acting in support of Marx's goal of a free and egalitarian "communist" society were guilty of as many and probably more acts of torture and death than any other group of supposed humanists and idealists. Even (or especially) good intentions can lead to worldly hells.Accordingly, many social theorists who have long doubted the claims of those who, by evolution or revolution, would set citizens free from dictatorial regimes, promote economic and social equity, loosen constraints in matters of education or sexual repression, and emancipate subjects from the authority of the state, the church or the private corporation are seeking a method to explain human actions in a more "rational" manner.Now, many social scientists are embracing a model of behavioral analysis that purports to show that even the kindest and gentlest among us are governed by selfish impulses and that organized groups of idealists in major advocacy groups on behalf of the victims of war, poverty, prejudice and plain bad luck are no more praiseworthy than unscrupulous sales representatives and drug dealers-in fact, to them concepts of good and evil have no place in the discussion.Such sceptics are not (always) been (entirely) misanthropes. They do not necessarily enjoy pricking the balloons of quixotic enthusiasts for social change. Very few of them actually relish cruelty and suffering. In fact, most of them share the belief that people should be kinder and gentler than they are. Instead of thinking that we behave badly because our natural goodness is corrupted by social constraints and perverted by fixable social arrangements, the sceptics realistically acknowledge that we have the capacity and even the propensity to behave horribly, and sometimes to repeat horrid behaviour with gusto (it's called "revenge"). …