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Human Rights Law

Georgetown University Law Center

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Interrogation

Publication Year

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Law

Personality Disruption As Mental Torture: The Cia, Interrogational Abuse, And The U.S. Torture Act, David Luban, Katherine S. Newell Dec 2019

Personality Disruption As Mental Torture: The Cia, Interrogational Abuse, And The U.S. Torture Act, David Luban, Katherine S. Newell

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This Article is a contribution to the torture debate. It argues that the abusive interrogation tactics used by the United States in what was then called the “global war on terrorism” are, unequivocally, torture under U.S. law. To some readers, this might sound like déjà vu all over again. Hasn’t this issue been picked over for nearly fifteen years? It has, but we think the legal analysis we offer has been mostly overlooked. We argue that the basic character of the CIA’s interrogation of so-called “high-value detainees” has been misunderstood: both lawyers and commentators have placed far too much emphasis …


Human Dignity, Humiliation, And Torture, David Luban Jan 2009

Human Dignity, Humiliation, And Torture, David Luban

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Modern human rights instruments ground human rights in the concept of human dignity, without providing an underlying theory of human dignity. This paper examines the central importance of human dignity, understood as not humiliating people, in traditional Jewish ethics. It employs this conception of human dignity to examine and criticize U.S. use of humiliation tactics and torture in the interrogation of terrorism suspects.