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Obscured By 'Willful Blindness': States' Preventive Obligations And The Meaning Of Acquiescence Under The Convention Against Torture, Jon Bauer

Faculty Articles and Papers

As U.S. asylum law becomes more restrictive, relief under the U.N. Convention Against Torture (CAT) has become the last hope for safety for many asylum seekers. But for those who face torture at the hands of non-State actors, CAT relief has proven extraordinarily hard to win. The CAT’s torture definition encompasses privately-inflicted harm only when it occurs with the consent or acquiescence of a public official. Agency decisions initially took this to mean that officials must willfully accept or tacitly approve the private party’s actions. Courts have rejected that approach as overly restrictive. But what they have adopted in its …