ABSTRACT
This chapter singles out degrading treatment as a form of harm and gives an overview of the Court's case-law starting points that underpin the interpretation of degradation. This involves showing that degrading treatment is conceived by the Court as a form of harm that can stand alone and setting out the degradation benchmarks. The benchmarks are the Court's guide to the interpretation of degrading treatment. The central argument of this chapter is that, to understand the interpretive parameters of the right not to be subjected to degrading treatment, the right must be recognised as conveying a distinctive kind of harm and, at the same time, must be interpreted as an integral part of Article 3. In the Court's assessment of whether alleged harm falls within the scope of the degradation benchmarks it takes into account all the circumstances of the case before it.
