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Torture Laid Bare: Global English and Human Rights

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Minimal English for a Global World

Abstract

The prohibition against torture is a well settled, absolute right in international law and human rights. As such, it presents an ideal case to understand what is at stake in human rights generally. The chapter considers the definitions of ‘torture’ contained in the UN Convention Against Torture and the Rome Statute, and then attempts to distill their essence into clear explanatory texts in Minimal English. This offers a way of thinking about the being at the heart of human rights: the human person.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In contrast, there was a deal of discussion in the drafting of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Klayman 1978: 461 ff).

  2. 2.

    Rodley argues that there are three pillars that define torture though he draws on the UN Declaration against Torture, the first definition available. The three pillars are: ‘relative intensity of pain or suffering inflicted: it must not only be severe, it must also be an aggravated form of already prohibited (albeit undefined) cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment’; ‘the purposive element: obtaining information, confession, etc.’; and ‘the status of the perpetrator: a public official must inflict or instigate the infliction of pain or suffering’ (2002: 468).

  3. 3.

    All these were part of a response to Israel’s 1997 country report.

  4. 4.

    Rodley notes that what is excluded are ‘private acts for purely personal ends’ (2002: 493).

  5. 5.

    They argue that torture is a specific intent crime, requiring intention to perform the treatment for a specific purpose (2012: 805). This intent, however, can be inferred (2012: 802; see also Harper 2009: 899).

  6. 6.

    Out of a total of 890.

  7. 7.

    ‘There must be reasonable evidence of negligence. But, where the thing is shown to be under the management of the defendant, or his servants, and the accident is such as, in the ordinary course of things, does not happen if those who have the management use proper care, it affords reasonable evidence, in the absence of explanation by the defendant, that the accident arose from want of care’ per Erle CJ, Scott v London and St Katherine Docks Co (1865) 3 H & C 596 at 600.

  8. 8.

    ‘For my part, I think that there is a test that may be at least as useful as such generalities. If I may quote from an essay which I wrote some years ago, I then said: “Prima facie that which in any contract is left to be implied and need not be expressed is something so obvious that it goes without saying; so that, if, while the parties were making their bargain, an officious bystander were to suggest some express provision for it in their agreement, they would testily suppress him with a common ‘Oh, of course!’”

    At least it is true, I think, that, if a term were never implied by a judge unless it could pass that test, he could not be held to be wrong’ per MacKinnon LJ Southern Foundries (1926) Ltd v Shirlaw [1939] 2 KB 206 at 227.

  9. 9.

    If there is any reluctance on behalf of the judiciary to rely on presumptions, argue Franck and Prows, it is because of their shared ‘culture of deference to sovereignty and a reluctance to make any more law than absolutely necessary’ (2005: 243). Somehow intervening in this cultural homogeneity is, they suggest, the challenge.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Roehampton, London, UK

    Annabelle Mooney

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  1. Annabelle Mooney
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  1. School of Humanities, Languages and Social Science, Griffith University, Brisbane, QLD, Australia

    Cliff Goddard

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Mooney, A. (2018). Torture Laid Bare: Global English and Human Rights. In: Goddard, C. (eds) Minimal English for a Global World. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62512-6_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62512-6_7

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