Full Description
How big a problem is torture? Are the right things being done to prevent it? Why does the UN appear at times to be so impotent in the face of it?
In this vitally important work, Malcolm D. Evans tells the story of torture prevention under international law, setting out what is really happening around the world. Challenging assumptions about torture's root causes, he calls for what is needed to enable us to bring about change.
The author draws on over ten years' experience as Chair of the UN Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture to give a frank account of the remarkable capacities of this system, what it has achieved in practice, or not been able to achieve - and most importantly, why.
Contents
Part 1: The Solution
1. What Is Torture?
2. Why Prevention?
3. Establishing the Optional Protocol to the United Nations Convention against Torture
4. What the Optional Protocol to the United Nations Convention against Torture Requires
5. The Visiting Mandate of the UN Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture
6. The UN Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture and National Preventive Mechanisms
Part 2: The Problem
7. Visits: An Insider's Story
8. Accepting the Unacceptable
9. Excusing the Inexcusable
10. Prescribing the Inappropriate
11. Working with Fictions
12. Thinking Positively about Prevention
