Torture, Justification, and Human Rights: Toward an Absolute Proscription

• Published in: Human rights quarterly Vol. 29; no. 2; pp. 346 - 367
• Main Author: Twiss, Sumner B.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Baltimore The Johns Hopkins University Press 01.05.2007; Johns Hopkins University Press
• Subjects: Agreements; Conferences; Consequentialism; Ethical intuitionism; Ethics; Human nature; Human Rights; Humans; Intelligence gathering; International community; International human rights; International Law; International society; Intuition; Location; Moral judgment; Morality; Natural Law; Nongovernmental organizations; Philosophy of law; Political morality; Political philosophy; Religious equality; Space; Terrorism; Torture
• ISSN: 0275-0392; 1085-794X; 1085-794X
• DOI: 10.1353/hrq.2007.0025

This article critically examines and develops an important approach in the international human rights community to the moral justification of an absolute proscription of torture, or, alternatively put, to the cogency of a non-derogative right not to be tortured. This approach involves elements of moral intuitionism, a minimal natural law position, and consequentialist arguments that ought--taken together or independently--to be convincing to all people of good will, regardless of their cultural location. The essay deploys sources from international human rights, comparative and philosophical ethics, and empirical and NGO studies about the intrinsic nature and pervasive deleterious effects of torture practices.