This is an excerpt from Critical Terrorism Studies: A Dictionary by Lee Jarvis and Alice Martini. Available in all good book stores, and via free download from E-International Relations.

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The UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment defines torture as ‘any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person’ for reasons such as obtaining information, intimidation, or punishment by a figure with official capacity of some sort. Torture became very prominent in the war on terror following revelations that the United States and its allies were exacting suffering on prisoners suspected of terrorism in sites around the world. Torture is prohibited under various international treaties, and widely condemned as a violation of human rights.

Given its prohibition, an obvious question to ask is: why do states and their employees continue to torture prisoners? Ruth Blakeley (2007b) identifies three different ways this question is answered. First, some states may use torture in order to increase their security from the threat posed by terrorists and others. Important information about planned attacks, for instance, might be extracted through force. Second, some states may use torture to create fear in the public or to deter or punish opponents in order to shore up their own political stability. Third, states might also use torture under certain, restrictive, circumstances in order to demonstrate the legitimacy of the state and the illegitimacy of its enemies. That is, acting in certain ways that seem to create the right to torture only in very exceptional circumstances makes it appear as though proper procedures, safeguards, and limits are in place to prevent it being used illegitimately.

As many scholars including Blakeley (2007b) have shown, there are major problems with arguments like these. In the first instance, torture is a notoriously ineffective tool for achieving anything of value to the torturer. Prisoners who are subject to violence are likely to speak or act however they believe will end their suffering or pain, irrespective of the truth. Intelligence agencies themselves are ambiguous on its utility, as indeed are the historical examples that get cited by those who would defend its use (Bellamy 2006: 138–139). Second, torture is also morally repugnant to the extent that a rejection of torture is as close to a universal ethical principle as we have in the world today. Torture represents a violation of human rights and undermines principles of non-combatant immunity by causing psychological and bodily harm to captured persons. Torture can also do psychological harm to those who conduct it – who may themselves be acting out of fear of others – including through the trauma that inflicting violence on others can cause.

Beyond normative work on torture’s ethics and effectiveness, critical research has also explored some of the ways in which torture is normalised through popular culture and beyond (e.g. Brereton and Culloty 2012). Other work........

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