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Full-Text Articles in Military, War, and Peace
Toward A Science Of Torture?, Maxwell Gregg Bloche
Toward A Science Of Torture?, Maxwell Gregg Bloche
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
Does torture “work?” Proponents, including President Trump and the architects of CIA “Enhanced Interrogation” say it does, by breaking terrorists' resistance to revealing information that saves lives. Torture's foes typically dismiss this claim as false to the point of fraud--fortuitous coincidence with torture's unlawfulness. Neither view, I argue herein, rests firmly on evidence. Rival anecdotes, not data, have, so far, driven this debate. And a scientific answer is beyond our reach, since: (1) rigorous comparison between interrogation methods that do and don't involve torture isn't possible, and (2) studies of this sort would be transparently unethical. This hasn't stopped the …
Losing The Forest For The Trees: Syria, Law, And The Pragmatics Of Conflict Recognition, Laurie R. Blank, Geoffrey S. Corn
Losing The Forest For The Trees: Syria, Law, And The Pragmatics Of Conflict Recognition, Laurie R. Blank, Geoffrey S. Corn
Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law
The situation in Syria has the potential to become a pivotal moment in the development of the law of armed conflict (LOAC). The ongoing brutality serves as a reminder of the importance of extending international humanitarian regulation into the realm of non-international armed hostilities; however, the very chaos those hostilities produce reveals critical fault lines in the current approach to determining the existence of an armed conflict. The international community's year-long reluctance to characterize the situation in Syria as an armed conflict highlights a clear disparity between the object and purpose of the LOAC and the increasingly formalistic interpretation of …