The Prohibition Of Torture On The Background Of Anti-terrorism

The prohibition of torture and other cruel,inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment as a national obligation is always a central issue of international organizations and academic circles.Since the exposure of prisoners being abused in Guantanamo in 2004,the prohibition has raised the academic community's discussions.In this paper,we firstly analyze the prohibition items in the international treaties of anti torture and find out that the treaties do not specify three key issues: the specific criteria for abstract definition of torture,the obligation of torture prohibition is whether non-derogable or not and whether there are some exceptions on the background of anti-terrorism.For the first issue,legal concepts have the basic characteristic of being abstract.Considering the different situations of various contracting parties,it is not good enough to be realized for the United Nations' drafting and adopting specific criteria.Distilling some uniform restrictions from the treaties is acceptable.Then in accordance with the US government's reports and Supreme Court's decisions,we will figure out that the judicial authorities have different attitudes from the administrative authorities towards detainees in Guantanamo prison and the former prefer prohibition to be non-derogable.At last,the US government uses the social background of anti-terrorism in its own defense and claims that appropriate restrictions of detainees meet the requirements of anti-terrorism.This paper considers that US' violation of torture prohibition acts against the requirements of the United Nations to respect and protect human rights in the fight against terrorism,which cannot justify its legitimacy because of anti-terrorism.