NationStates Jolt Archive

The Proposal:
BELIEVING that torture is never appropriate in civlized society,

BELIEVING FURTHER that the torture creates more problems in general than it solves in particular,

NOTING that the acceptance or use of torture in any nation legitimizes the use of torture by other nations,

AND DEFINING torture as the deliberate application of physical or psychological duress above and beyond that created by their incarceration, for the purpose of obtaining information,

Hereby proposes this International Convention on Torture:

1. That torture be ruled to be against international law;

2. That evidence obtained, or suspected of having been obtained, under conditions of torture or extended duress, be considered null and void in any court of law, without prejudice to the case at hand;

3. That a UN member found to be practising torture be ejeceted from the UN until such time as they can demonstrate their having ceased all activities that constitute torture.

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The Problems or How I learned to stop worrying, and love poorly worded proposals

1. Now its illegal to jail'em.
"DEFINING torture as... beyond that created by their incarceration"
"That evidence obtained... under... torture or extended duress..."

See... the problem here is you define torture, then you say things that aren't torture can be used to throw out evidence. Wanna bet that incarceration leads to extended duress? Smooth.

2. ALL evidence can be *suspected*
"That evidence obtained, or suspected of having been obtained"

::ahem:: "Your honor I suspect that that evidence was obtained through torture!"
"Case dismissed!"

3. Futility:
It's so difficult for nations which prohibit torture to just outsource it after all....

UN Nation: "Hey I got these guys here who've been givin' me trouble, they won't talk."

non-UN Nation: "Want me to *take care of it* for you?"

UN Nation: "If you mean torture?! No! *of course not*"

non-UN Nation: "No, no one uses torture, especially not us tiny non-UN Nations. We just have a comparative advantage over your nation in our ability to persuade peole to divulge valuable information."

UN Nation: "That sounds suspicious... should I investigate further?"

non-UN Nation: "Ask me no more questions and I'll tell you no more lies."
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This being the case, I support it whole heartedly. Go get'em [paper]Tigers!

Morgan, Emperor of Morgain (who actually does oppose torture, but thought he'd point out that this proposal has holes big enough to drive Mack Trucks through)

btt

This issue has already been dealt with in the Bill of Rights Resolution.

Namely.....

The Universal Bill of Rights
A resolution to improve worldwide human and civil rights.


Category: Human Rights Strength: Strong Proposed by: Free Porcupines
Description: Recalling the many egregious infringements of human rights, Recognizing the need to protect basic human rights, Deploring any acts by government at the sake of human rights, Determined to put an end to the violation of human rights, The United Nations shall endorse what will be called the Universal Bill of Rights, the articles of which are as follows:

Article 5 -- All human beings must not be subjected to torture or to cruel or inhuman treatment or punishment.
Article 6 -- No human beings will be subjected to arrest or exile without an explicit list of their offenses.
Article 7 -- Any arrested person must be assumed innocent until proven guilty.
Article 8 -- A human beings family members cannot be held accountable for the crimes of their relative.
Article 9 -- Any persons who violate any of these articles shall be held accountable by the law.

Implemented: Fri Aug 8 2003

In what way does this new proposal differ from what has already been implemented? :?:

it makes the people who voted for it feel good?

Zoltansk - I agree with you on this one.

Apologies for the late arrival, all.

There's some creative editing in your posts here, Morgain. Do you object if I put your criticisms against the actual text?



DEFINING torture as the deliberate application of physical or psychological duress above and beyond that created by their incarceration, for the purpose of obtaining information

See... the problem here is you define torture, then you say things that aren't torture can be used to throw out evidence. Wanna bet that incarceration leads to extended duress? Smooth.


The language of the proposal is very specific in excluding the inherent rigors of incarceration. Nor does it say anything about something other than torture being used to throw out evidence. I considered that the introduction a definition of what we consider to be torture - while necessarily broad - is required, to prevent nations defining cattle prods as rational discourse. An element of "the reasonable mind" maxim is involed here; a reasonable mind can determine the difference between torture, and mere poor standards of care for penitentiary inmates.



That evidence obtained, or suspected of having been obtained, under conditions of torture or extended duress, be considered null and void in any court of law, without prejudice to the case at hand;

::ahem:: "Your honor I suspect that that evidence was obtained through torture!"
"Case dismissed!"

Those magical words "without prejudice to the case at hand" precludes a scenario when a case is dismissed by the court simply because evidence gathered from interviews with detainees is suspected of being tainted. This deals with the latter comment. The former, however, is a good point - and one where I would again refer m'learned friend to the "reasonable mind" maxim. It does place a great deal of responsibility upon the judge to dermine what is reasonable and what is not, as far as police interview techniques are concerned. However, this is the United Nations - and my view is that the role of the United Nations is not to spell out in intimate detail how nations should conduct their business, but rather to establish general guiding principles which can be implemented by individual nations in ways that are both sympathetic to local concerns, but in keeping with the general consensus of UN members.

From, the Office of the Praetor,
The Confederacy of the Missouri

Zoltansk-
That's a fair point, although I don't agree that the language of the proposed Convention in any way conflicts with the established Bill of Rights. Rather, I think it compliments and extends that legislation.

but my prisoners prefer the toture to incarceration
Prisoners: *nods head slowy*
:roll:

We thought we had already supported this, but perhaps that was a similar thread.

We support this. It is reasonable, a minimal intrusion, and no civilized nation should object.

Nothing wrong with a bit of torture as long as it is only used as a last resort in the case of serious crime or national security.

Anyway who comes up with these long boring resolutions- they seriously need to get out

The Convention is written in less than 150 words. To my knowledge, it's one of the shortest resolutions of its scope ever written.

Collaboration - you posted in my thread advertising the Convention; we thank you for your support, and agree with your comments in this thread. :)

double-post...sorry

I'm against all but 1 use of torture, the use to devulge information when nation security is at risk. No law canbe important then the nation because no law can survive without the nation.



If you state this in your bill, it will deffer enough for the bill of rights so it will be able to pass, and it will also get myy vote.

If we can let non-member nations torture our prisoners for us and we can watch, then I will support it.