Can a Violation of Article 5 Ever Be Justified?

Article 5 states that “no one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or
degrading treatment or punishment.” It seems incredibly straightforward on the surface-
torturing someone violates their fundamental human rights. Yet why are instances of it
scattered across contemporary history? What exactly entails torture and degrading
treatment, and is there a line that can be crossed?

Around 166 countries around the world have ratified the 1984 UN Convention against
Torture, yet many have yet to criminalise torture as a specific offense. The lines start to
blur for many once the torturing of terrorists comes into the picture. A common form of
justification is the ticking-bomb scenario- can torture be condoned if used to extract
information from a known terrorist to prevent a catastrophic attack? For example, after
9/11, the CIA was allowed to carry out ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ (EITs), and it
set up secret detention centers called ‘black sites’ with the participation of at least 54
governments- the most famous of which is Guantanamo Bay. In 1956, the French
counterinsurgency operation in Algiers that openly allowed torture was a stark success
and acts as a model for clandestine operations like the War on Terror. Simply put, in the
name of the greater good, a violation of human rights might be necessary.

That statement, putting aside ethical concerns for the moment, assumes that the methods
of torture used in obtaining intelligence are efficient or reliable. Torture has proven to be
an ineffective method of gathering intelligence because it elicits untrustworthy
information, generates time-consuming false leads, and causes cognitive impairments that
hinder collection even when sources are willing to cooperate. This is why under
international law, confessions given under torture do not amount to substantive evidence.
To torture someone is to ensure immense physical and mental suffering and the
infringement of the victim’s autonomy.

This gives rise to another potential violation of the freedom from torture- capital
punishment. To be made aware of one’s death, knowing that one doesn’t have the
freedom to prevent it, is a form of psychological torture, jurists have argued. Capital
punishment should arguably be classified as a form of torture, not separate from it.
Death-row inmates spend years, sometimes decades in prison enduring continuous threats
of death until they undergo execution or exoneration, threats that under differing
contexts, say extracting information, would already be prohibited under domestic and
international law. Ignoring the obvious, that capital punishment is in itself a form of
immense degradation, even the act of sentencing someone to death can be brutalizing and
cruel enough to constitute psychological torture.

In conclusion, as torture cannot be justified either through an ethical or a pragmatic point

of view, to allow its existence undermines both the use of more reliable interrogation
techniques and is detrimental to the public perception of intelligence, hampering
progress, The lines are more blurred when it comes to capital punishment, in many cases,
it can be argued that to take another’s life with malicious intent is to forego the right to
your own. Yet, this raises the question of what society’s priority should be - individual
autonomy, or poetic justice.

-Srishti Jain