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Removals To Somalia In Light Of The Convention Against Torture: Recent Evidence From Somali Bantu Deportees, Daniel J. Van Lehman, Estelle M. Mckee
Removals To Somalia In Light Of The Convention Against Torture: Recent Evidence From Somali Bantu Deportees, Daniel J. Van Lehman, Estelle M. Mckee
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
This paper presents the results of a survey of Somali Bantu deported from the United States from 2016 to 2018, to determine whether they were subjected to torture upon arrival in Somalia. Of the 20 deportees interviewed, 55 percent suffered torture at least once, with the highest percentage—66.7 percent—experienced by individuals deported in 2018. The abuse, which included kidnapping, stabbings, and beatings with truncheons and whips, meets the definition of torture under Article 3 of the Convention Against Torture. Individuals were intentionally subjected to severe pain and suffering for an unlawful purpose: ransom. Further, most of the abuse was inflicted …
The Torture Lawyers, Jens David Ohlin
The Torture Lawyers, Jens David Ohlin
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
One of the longest shadows cast by the Bush Administration’s War on Terror involves the fate of the torture lawyers who authored or signed memoranda regarding torture or enhanced interrogation techniques against detainees. Should they face professional sanction or even prosecution for their involvement? The following Article suggests that their fate implicates some of the deepest questions of criminal law theory and that resolution of the debate requires a fundamental reorientation of the most important areas of justifications and excuses. First, the debate about torture has been overly focused on justifications for torture. This can be explained in part by …
The Bounds Of Necessity, Jens David Ohlin
The Bounds Of Necessity, Jens David Ohlin
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
The current controversy surrounding the legality of torture can only be understood through an analysis of the distinction between justified necessity and excused necessity. Although there may be strong prudential reasons for international criminal courts to declare torture unlawful under any circumstance, this would not necessarily prevent a court from recognizing that an excuse may apply. However, the hallmark of the necessity excuse should not be understood, as it is in German law, as an exception that only applies when a defendant breaks the law to save someone close to him. Rather, the basic principle of the excuse ought to …
Torture As A Problem In Ordinary Legal Interpretation, Alan Hyde
Torture As A Problem In Ordinary Legal Interpretation, Alan Hyde
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
American legal discourse on torture takes for granted some, usually all, of the following propositions, that make discussion of torture more difficult than it should be. Torture is assumed to present unusually difficult problems of definition, full of vague concepts, fine lines, gray areas, murky moral dilemmas, "dirty hands." This vagueness is thought to be even more of a problem for the attendant concept of "cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment." The legal sources of either prohibition are assumed to be dubious under American law. Prohibiting torture is, perhaps for these reasons, thought to require moral justification not necessarily required of …