Pros And Cons Of Being Against The Use Of Torture

This paper supports the stance of being against the use of torture and this essay will discuss the problems – moral and legal – of states, particularly the United States of America’s use of torture on detainees. It will make reference to international laws and conventions, the war on terrorism, the concept of torture and the various methods used on detainees and the theories we can apply to this situation including the use of the “ticking time bomb theory” (Dershowitz, 2002: 140). It will also make reference to both the arguments against and in support of the use of torture with the use of the following scholars; Danner, Ramsay, Bellamy, Dershowitz, Dunne and Welch. International laws, are the “rules and principles governing the relations

It has often been unlawfully and immorally been used on detainees by the USA in prisons such as Abu Ghraib in Iraq, Guantanamo Bay and in various “black sites” – unknown locations outside of the USA where detainees ‘disappear’ and are taken to be tortured (Danner, 2007) – across the world, whereby the USA government can dodge the legal restrictions on torture in the USA and instead use it in countries where torture is legal. Torture has been used by the USA to not only acquire information, but as a political weapon to spread and ensure their hegemony in the world, particularly in the Middle East where the presence of their military intelligence is still very present. They also use torture against transnational organisations and political movements that challenge USA supremacy and ideologies, such as al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. Reported torture methods include: continuous solitary confinement, incommunicado detention, suffocation by water, sadistic practices (as seen in photographs from Abu Ghraib), sleep and food deprivation, psychological torture, sensory deprivation (blindfolds, exposure to extreme light or

Dershowitz advocates for the use of torture in certain situations, with the help of a “torture warrant” (2002: 141). He argues that the warrant would only be issued in extreme and time-sensitive cases whereby the legal route has been already been exhausted and proved futile. It creates a chain of responsibility between the interrogator and government officials who issue the warrant, and he believes it creates accountability. Scholars, are in agreement that the complete unbanning of torture would be detrimental to modern society and lead to a greater risk of inability to control it – but they do justify the use of it in exceptional cases. Several scholars have critiqued this idea with the following arguments; because it has no degree to the extent of the torture, also the prevention of one case of attempted terrorism, does not rule out several future attempts, Dershowitz also does not mention the accepted torture methods nor consider the varying types of torture that can be exerted and the standards to which everyone interrogator must adhere to. Torture also can cause tensions between states internationally, if a state is found to be torturing people from another state it can cause distrust and animosity between the two states – and what stops the