ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the prohibition against torture and various efforts in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries to carve out exceptions, including America's post-9/11 development into a torturing regime. In the twentieth century, torture garnered universal prohibition and criminalization through developments in international law. A legal challenge was mounted against Britain’s “techniques" in the interrogation of suspected Irish Republican Army members on the grounds that they violate the European Convention on Human Rights. The chapter provides some discussion about the efforts to expose and prevent torture, including roles played by some military lawyers and others working to close the gap between "we don't torture" rhetoric and the reality of interrogation and detention practices. Along with habeas corpus and the separation of powers, the ban on extra-legal cruel treatment served as a foundation of the modern rule of law, because it was understood as essential to curbing tyranny and enabling conditions of human dignity, and due process to thrive.
