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Torture

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


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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Doctors of patients who have not been born in the United States and who attend urban general medical clinics frequently are unaware that their patients are survivors of torture, and primary care physicians can be the locus of intervention in the care of torture survivors.
Abstract: v Objectives To measure the frequency of people reporting torture among patients in a medical outpatient clinic and to determine primary care physicians' awareness of their patients' exposure to torture. v Design Cross-sectional survey followed by selected in-depth interviews of participants report- ing a history of torture. Medical record review and interview of torture survivors' primary care physicians. v Setting The internal medicine clinic of a large, urban medical center. v Participants A convenience sample of 121 adult patients who were not born in the United States and who were attending the adult ambulatory care clinic. v Interventions All participants were interviewed using the Detection of Torture Survivors Survey, a validated instrument that asks about exposure to torture according to the World Medical Association definition of torture. Participants who reported a history of torture were interviewed in depth to confirm that they had been tortured. We reviewed the medical records of participants who reported a history of torture and interviewed their primary care physicians. v Main outcome measures Self-reported history of torture. The awareness of primary care physicians of this history. v Results Eight of 121 participants (6.6% (95% confi- dence interval: 3.1%-13.1%)) reported a history of torture. None of the survivors of torture had been identified as such by their primary care physician. v Conclusions Physicians of patients who have not been born in the United States and who attend urban general medical clinics frequently are unaware that their patients are survivors of torture. Primary care physicians can be the locus of intervention in the care of torture survivors. The first step is for physicians to recognize the possibility of torture survivors among their patients.

81 citations

MonographDOI
01 Jan 1995
TL;DR: The law applicable to reservations in practice is discussed in this paper, where the authors propose a method to restore the ruins of the Genocide case by reserving to human rights treaties in the aftermath of the case.
Abstract: Foreword. I: Introduction. 1. Reservations to human rights treaties in the aftermath of the Genocide case. II: Theoretical Questions. 2. The law applicable to reservations. 3. Reservations to human rights treaties. III: Reservations in Practice. 4. Reservations to the Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. 5. Reservations to the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. 6. Reservations to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. 7. Reservations to the Convention against Torture. IV: Conclusions. 8. Restoring the ruins, concluding remarks. Selected bibliography.

81 citations

Book
30 Apr 2010
TL;DR: Stern as discussed by the authors provides a comprehensive account of how Chile came to terms with General Augusto Pinochet's legacy of human rights atrocities, and how transnational events and networks shaped Chile's battles over memory.
Abstract: Reckoning with Pinochet is the first comprehensive account of how Chile came to terms with General Augusto Pinochet's legacy of human rights atrocities. An icon among Latin America's "dirty war" dictators, Pinochet had ruled with extreme violence while building a loyal social base. Hero to some and criminal to others, the general cast a long shadow over Chile's future. Steve J. Stern recounts the full history of Chile's democratic reckoning, from the negotiations in 1989 to chart a post-dictatorship transition; through Pinochet's arrest in London in 1998; the thirtieth anniversary, in 2003, of the coup that overthrew President Salvador Allende; and Pinochet's death in 2006. He shows how transnational events and networks shaped Chile's battles over memory, and how the Chilean case contributed to shifts in the world culture of human rights. Stern's analysis integrates policymaking by elites, grassroots efforts by human rights victims and activists, and inside accounts of the truth commissions and courts where top-down and bottom-up initiatives met. Interpreting solemn presidential speeches, raucous street protests, interviews, journalism, humor, cinema, and other sources, he describes the slow, imperfect, but surprisingly forceful advance of efforts to revive democratic values through public memory struggles, despite the power still wielded by the military and a conservative social base including the investor class. Over time, resourceful civil-society activists and select state actors won hard-fought, if limited, gains. As a result, Chileans were able to face the unwelcome past more honestly, launch the world's first truth commission to examine torture, ensnare high-level perpetrators in the web of criminal justice, and build a public culture of human rights. Stern provides an important conceptualization of collective memory in the wake of national trauma in this magisterial work of history.

80 citations

Book
08 Oct 1998
TL;DR: In this article, the authors bring together some of the leading critics of the current project for universal human rights including Noam Chomsky and Johan Galtung, as a counterweight to triumphalist approaches on the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Abstract: This book offers a critical reappraisal of the project for universal human rights. The twentieth, thirtieth and fortieth anniversaries of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights were all marked by the publication of volumes that celebrated achievements in the field of human rights. Many of these took a self-congratulatory line that emphasized progress on the protection of human rights, ignoring the facts of torture, genocide, structural deprivation and the routine exclusion of some groups from political, economic and social participation. This book brings together some of the leading critics of the current project for universal human rights, including Noam Chomsky and Johan Galtung, as a counterweight to triumphalist approaches on the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration.

80 citations

Posted Content
TL;DR: In the Pinochet case, the former head of state of a foreign country has been held accountable for the first time before a municipal court for acts of torture committed while he was in his post.
Abstract: In the Pinochet case the former head of state of a foreign country has been held accountable for the first time before a municipal court for acts of torture allegedly committed while he was in his post. The unprecedented character of the case causes one to ask whether municipal courts may properly complement international tribunals in the enforcement of international criminal law, and, if so, to what extent a plea of immunity or non-justiciability may be available. The divide within the House of Lords on the interpretation of the scope of application of jurisdictional immunities to foreign heads of state as regards crimes of international law hardly hides a more profound conflict based on the different perception of what values and interests should be accorded priority in contemporary international law. This article argues that neither jurisdictional immunities nor act of state and other doctrines of judicial self-restraint are consistent with the notion of crimes of international law and that the quest for normative coherence should induce a reappraisal of the relationship between human rights and the law of jurisdictional immunities.

80 citations


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Performance
Metrics
No. of papers in the topic in previous years
YearPapers
2023270
2022619
2021167
2020243
2019263
2018328