I reiterate:
Then we can do away with the Geneva Convention??
Domestic Legislation
Torture is prohibited under 18 U.S.C. § 2340. The definition of torture used is as follows:
1. "torture" means an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control;
2. "severe mental pain or suffering" means the prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from - (A) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering; (B) the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality; (C) the threat of imminent death; or (D) the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the administration or application of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or personality;
In 2004 the Immigration and Nationality Act was amended to make aliens who, whilst abroad, have committed torture, extra-judicial killings, or particularly severe violations of religious freedom, inadmissible to the United States, and therefore deportable.[1]
[edit] Prohibition under International Law
Torture in all forms is banned by the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which the United States participated in drafting. The United States is a party to the following conventions (international treaties) which prohibit torture: the American Convention on Human Rights (signed 1977) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (signed 1977; ratified 1992). It has neither signed nor ratified the Inter-American Convention to Prevent and Punish Torture.[2]
[edit] UN Convention Against Torture
Main article: UN Convention Against Torture
The United States is a party to the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which originated in the United Nations General Assembly on December 10, 1984, and signed by the President Ronald Reagan on April 18, 1988. Ratification by the Senate took place on October 27, 1990. The Senate put forward a number of reservations including:
* Restricting the definition of "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment" to the cruel, unusual and inhumane treatment or punishment prohibited by the Fifth, Eighth, and/or Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution
* Restricting acts of torture to the following list: "(1) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering; (2) the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality; (3) the threat of imminent death; or (4) the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the administration or application of mind altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or personality."[3]
International law defines torture during an armed conflict as a war crime. It also mandates that any person involved in ordering, allowing and even insuffuciently preventing and prosecuting war crimes is criminally liable under the command responsibility doctrine.
Military field manuals
Main article: U.S. Army Field Manuals
In late 2006, the military issued updated field manuals on intelligence collection (FM 2-22.3. Human Intelligence Collector Operations, September 2006) and counterinsurgency (FM 3-24. Counterinsurgency, December 2006). Both manuals reiterated that "no person in the custody or under the control of DOD, regardless of nationality or physical location, shall be subject to torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, in accordance with and as defined in US law."[10] Specific techniques described as prohibited in the intelligence collection manual include:
* Forcing the detainee to be naked, perform sexual acts, or pose in a sexual manner.
* Placing hoods or sacks over the head of a detainee; using duct tape over the eyes.
* Applying beatings, electric shock, burns, or other forms of physical pain.
* Waterboarding
* Using military working dogs.
* Inducing hypothermia or heat injury.
* Conducting mock executions.
* Depriving the detainee of necessary food, water, or medical care.[11]
For your information
