The Absolute Prohibition of Torture and Necessary and Appropriate Sanctions

Abstract

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.

Keywords: complicity, Convention Against Torture, crime against humanity, cruel, degrading, disappearance, Geneva Conventions, human rights, humanitarian law, impunity, inhumane, interrogation, law of war, nonimmunity, prosecute or extradite, rule of law, secret detention, torture, war crime, waterboarding