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Black sites, ‘extraordinary renditions’ and the legitimacy of the torture taboo

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Abstract

The revelations the Bush administration employed torture in ‘black sites’ and outsourced torture through the ‘extraordinary rendition’ programme demonstrated how the torture prohibition, or torture taboo, failed to constrain the United States (US) and other complicit states from engaging in torture in the fight against terrorism. Yet despite this violation of the taboo, this article makes the paradoxical argument that studying the taboo’s violation shows the strength of the norm’s legitimacy, not its weakness. The humanitarian pressures from the torture taboo continued to operate on the US even while the norm was being violated, shaping US identity, interests and actions during the ‘war on terror’.

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Notes

  1. The British Security and Intelligence Committee (2007, p. 6) report into extraordinary renditions defined the practice as ‘[t]he extra-judicial transfer of persons from one jurisdiction or State to another, for the purposes of detention and interrogation outside the normal legal system, where there is a real risk of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment (CIDT)’.

  2. Also known as a peremptory international norm it is defined as ‘a norm accepted and recognized by the international community of States as a whole as a norm from which no derogation is permitted and which can be modified only by a subsequent norm of general international law having the same character’ (Vienna Convention of the Law of Treaties, 1969, Art. 53).

  3. The Open Society (2013) lists 54 countries involved in the rendition network. These are: ‘Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Djibouti, Egypt, Ethiopia, Finland, Gambia, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Iceland, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Libya, Lithuania, Macedonia, Malawi, Malaysia, Mauritania, Morocco, Pakistan, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Syria, Thailand, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, Uzbekistan, Yemen and Zimbabwe’.

  4. Attention grasp is where the interrogator grabs a detainee by the collar with both hands and pulls the detainee towards the interrogator. Walling is when a ‘false’ wall is constructed and the detainee is pushed against it. The impact of the detainee hitting the false wall makes a loud noise, which is supposed to ‘shock’ the detainee (CIA Inspector General, 2004, Appendix C, 2). For a full description of all 10 interrogation techniques, see CIA Inspector General (2004, Appendix C).

  5. The CIA subjected detainees to techniques in repetition, which it was not authorised to do, and subjected detainees to techniques not authorised by the Department of Justice. These included: threatening detainees with power drills and handguns (see CIA Inspector General, 2004, pp. 41–42), rectal feeding, ice baths, and threatening to harm a detainee’s family (Senate Report, 2014, pp. 5–6, 16).

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Barnes, J. Black sites, ‘extraordinary renditions’ and the legitimacy of the torture taboo. Int Polit 53, 198–219 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1057/ip.2015.46

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