Suchergebnisse

"This book examines the historical genealogy of the torture taboo. The dissonance between the absolute prohibition against torture and its widespread violation raises important questions about the torture taboo in world politics. Does the torture taboo matter? Or are political realists correct in arguing that power politics rules? [The author] argues that despite the torture taboo's violation, it still matters, and paradoxically, its strength can be seen by studying its violation. States hide, deny, re-define and outsource their torture, as well as torture without leaving marks to avoid being stigmatised as a norm violating state. Tracing a genealogy of the torture taboo from the eighteenth to the twenty-first century Barnes shows how the taboo has developed over time, and how violations have played an important role in that development. Through six historical and contemporary case studies, it is argued that the taboo's humanitarian pressures do not cease when states violate the norm, but continue to shape actors in unexpected ways."--

Abstract
Since Australia re-established offshore processing on Manus Island and Nauru in 2012, there have been ongoing reports that asylum seekers and refugees are being subjected to torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (CIDT). People in detention have endured indefinite detention, inadequate provision of health care, and sexual, physical, and mental harm as the government attempts to 'stop the boats' and prevent deaths at sea. How can Australia continue to violate the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, while at the same time, promote its offshore detention policies worldwide? This article explores how Australia has engaged in moral disengagement from the pain and suffering of people in detention. Examining self-deception strategies such as denial of torture, denial of responsibility, and denial of wrongdoing, it shows not only how Australia privileged migration deterrence goals over human rights considerations, but utilized legal and humanitarian arguments to evade accountability and deny the existence of, and responsibility and wrongdoing for, torture and CIDT. This article explores the under-examined issue of moral disengagement to show how it is exacerbating the vulnerability of asylum seekers and refugees to torture and CIDT along their migration journeys.

Boat pushbacks and pullbacks by Italy and the European Union (EU) have returned migrants and refugees to Libya where they have been subjected to brutal human rights violations, such as torture and ill-treatment. This article argues that these pushbacks and pullbacks not only undermine key human rights principles, but they are also an act of cruelty. As Italy and the EU have used the law to evade their international human rights and refugee obligations, the law has had distributive effects that have shaped migration pathways and exacerbated the vulnerability of migrants and refugees to torture. Not only have legal manoeuvres stripped migrants and refugees of their rights, enabling Italy and the EU to return people to inhumane detention centres in Libya, but they have also had the sinister side effect of excluding migrants and refugees from moral concern. As Italy and the EU have sought to evade legal responsibility, it has created indifference to the suffering of people on the move in Libya. This article sheds important light on the factors that lead to the torture of migrants and refugees on their migration journeys and offers new insights into the relationship between cruelty, migration policies, and indifference to human suffering.

Boat pushbacks and pullbacks by Italy and the European Union (EU) have returned migrants and refugees to Libya where they have been subjected to brutal human rights violations, such as torture and ill-treatment. This article argues that these pushbacks and pullbacks not only undermine key human rights principles, but they are also an act of cruelty. As Italy and the EU have used the law to evade their international human rights and refugee obligations, the law has had distributive effects that have shaped migration pathways and exacerbated the vulnerability of migrants and refugees to torture. Not only have legal manoeuvres stripped migrants and refugees of their rights, enabling Italy and the EU to return people to inhumane detention centres in Libya, but they have also had the sinister side effect of excluding migrants and refugees from moral concern. As Italy and the EU have sought to evade legal responsibility, it has created indifference to the suffering of people on the move in Libya. This article sheds important light on the factors that lead to the torture of migrants and refugees on their migration journeys and offers new insights into the relationship between cruelty, migration policies, and indifference to human suffering.

The use of torture by the Bush administration has raised important questions regarding the strength of the torture taboo. Did US torture signal a regress of the torture prohibition? This article examines the attempts by the United States to re-define torture to better reflect its interests. However, rather than seeing this as a case of norm regression, I show how the United States failed in its revisionist attempts to legitimise its interpretation of torture in international society. The torture taboo remained resilient to US challenges, demonstrating not only the difficulty of norm revisionism but also the robustness of the torture taboo.

The escalation of the violent conflict in Sri Lanka since 2006 has put the spotlight on the role torture played as a military strategy against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Despite Sri Lanka being a State Party to major United Nations treaties on human rights, the Sri Lankan government secretly used torture to gain confessions, intelligence and to punish the LTTE. Torture techniques were brutal, including burnings with soldering irons, beatings and electric shocks. How was this use of torture possible? Using a discursive practices approach, I examine how a 'reality' was constructed that placed the LTTE outside moral boundaries and made the use of torture possible.

In the backdrop of a protracted global "war on terror" campaign, there has been a significant increase in the frequency and scope of informal intelligence‐sharing agreements by democratic states with non‐traditional partner regimes known to routinely employ torture. It will be argued that an international "norm vacuum" currently exists surrounding policies and practices in efforts to uphold the torture prohibition in these types of contemporary security relationships. This article will focus on the 2015 Australia‐Iran intelligence relationship as an illustrative case‐study to identify the problems, opportunities and risks related to such sharing arrangements and agreements. It will be argued that, at present, Australia appears indifferent to the risk of being passively complicit in torture. However, in applying an analytical framework of norm entrepreneurship, this article examines the role that countries like Australia could play in crafting normative standards and supporting appropriate behaviour about how global intelligence co‐operation should be considered through reinforcing accountability standards and the torture prohibition world‐wide.

In the backdrop of a protracted global "war on terror" campaign, there has been a significant increase in the frequency and scope of informal intelligence‐sharing agreements by democratic states with non‐traditional partner regimes known to routinely employ torture. It will be argued that an international "norm vacuum" currently exists surrounding policies and practices in efforts to uphold the torture prohibition in these types of contemporary security relationships. This article will focus on the 2015 Australia‐Iran intelligence relationship as an illustrative case‐study to identify the problems, opportunities and risks related to such sharing arrangements and agreements. It will be argued that, at present, Australia appears indifferent to the risk of being passively complicit in torture. However, in applying an analytical framework of norm entrepreneurship, this article examines the role that countries like Australia could play in crafting normative standards and supporting appropriate behaviour about how global intelligence co‐operation should be considered through reinforcing accountability standards and the torture prohibition world‐wide.