The Absolute Prohibition of Torture and Necessary and Appropriate Sanctions

Jordan Paust of the University of Houston Law Center has uploaded a new version of his article on liabilty for torture.  The paper addresses cases and other material confirming that waterboarding and related inducement of drowning or suffocation, use of dogs to terrorize, death threats, and the cold cell and related inducement of hypothermia are "torture" as well as types of criminal liability that can pertain for certain former government officials.  Here's the description of his paper on SSRN:

This draft article addresses the absolute and peremptory prohibition of torture and other forms of ill-treatment under treaty-based and customary international law; crimes of torture and duties of states to either initiate prosecution or extradite all persons of any status who are reasonably accused; four general types of criminal responsibility; the right to fair compensation; the definition of torture and related criteria; types of unlawful tactics and serial criminality authorized and abetted by President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and others in the Administration; the need for new U.S. legislation and presidential withdrawal of void putative treaty reservations; and the unavoidable constitutionally-based duty of President Obama to recapture the rule of law and to end seven years of impunity by either initiating prosecution of or extraditing all persons who are reasonably accused of such international criminal activity.

Click here for the link to SSRN, from which you can download the most recent version of the article.

(mew)