Essay Outline The Nature Of Torture

a) Outline the nature of the violation
Torture is a serious human rights violation and is strictly prohibited by international law however it still does continue in majority of the countries around the world. Torture is an act of deliberately inflicting severe pain on someone without any legal causes. Torture is not only physical pain but also includes the act of causing mental pain as well such as threats to family or loved ones. Torture has been used as a punishment to intimidate or control a person. The term torture includes a variety of methods such as severe beatings, electric shock, sexual abuse and rape, hard labour, near suffocation etc. Torture is considered a violation of human rights under Article 5 of the UN UDHR which states ‘No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment’.

A location in which torture occurs is Guantanamo Bay detention camp (GTMO) in Cuba. GTMO is a detainment and detention
This means that no authority is legally above the state. The states are not obliged to agree to the international law and apply it within their state because of state sovereignty. This may be a reason in which why torture still exists in the world today as it has not been entirely abolished because some states have not agreed to apply the international laws dealing with torture within their state e.g. UNCAT where some states have both signed and ratified the convention, states have signed but not ratified and other states which have not signed nor ratified the covenant such as Papua New Guinea, Angola, Zimbabwe and Iran where torture is known to still occur today. As long as state sovereignty applies the nation state cannot have any external interference and therefore cannot be influenced as to whether the nation state should apply the international law into their state or not. This limits international law from becoming affective into the nation