As we will see in more details in the following sections, these paradigms are pervasive in the way torture is justified by democratic states, yet they are inherently flawed.
Even though consequentialism is more restraining than realism, both grant legitimacy to torture. However, there is no way to measure when the use of torture, rather than other techniques, will work on the best interest of the state.
The third approach is Deontologism, which affirms that there are actions that are wrong in themselves, notwithstanding their consequences. The main imperatives are that one must act in such a way that the principle of the action could become a universal law; and that one must treat other rational actors as having value as ends in themselves, rather than means to an end.
However, one could argue that the whole of intelligence activity would not be permissible under the deontologist framework, as the practice requires secrecy and a certain level of deception that could not become universalised. The fourth and more recent approach is that of Just Intelligence, coined by Michael Quinlan, which mixes the 3 concepts mentioned above with the concept of Just War. It affirms that in intelligence, as in war, breaches of conventional ethics can be practised, but not everything will be ethically permissible.
Torture is not only prohibited based on moral and legal grounds but also because it is not an effective interrogation technique. Al-Libi, however, recounts that the torture inflicted on him by the Egyptian intelligence service was the reason why he made up such a story.
Even when the source is willing to collaborate, torture makes it more difficult [27] because stressors employed during it, such as sleep deprivation, suffocation and chronic strain, for example, affect memory, cognition and capacity to recall information.
Torture also increases the likelihood of the subject incorporating information contained in the leading questions, [28] thus providing unintentional false leads. Taking those points into consideration, studies indicate that coercive interrogations tend to elicit unreliable intelligence more than they do a useful one. Torture also has corrosive effects on organisations, as the leadership focus on results will allow space for increasing brutality and circumvention of checks and balances.
Finally, torture hinders intelligence activity in the longer term. It breaks social networks, [33] which makes non-coercive intelligence collection harder, diverts effort from potentially more reliable methods of interrogation [34] such as rapport-building and information gathering interviews, [35] and hampers efforts to build diplomatic, political and military alliances.
Even with plenty of evidence on the inefficacy of torture and its pervasive negative effects, many democratic governments have tried to legitimise and control the practice. France then responded with a counterinsurgency operation that was the first in any modern democratic state to allow torture explicitly. This unquestionable success has been historically tied to the supposedly superior intelligence gathered through torture and is used by apologists as the staple case of why the practice works.
However, accounts from the French torturers themselves describe that the technique not only de-professionalised soldiers and fragmented French military institutions but also produced intelligence that was inferior to those obtained through other practices.
The main findings were that the use of EITs was not an effective means of acquiring intelligence, as multiple detainees fabricated information or refused to cooperate. Due to its lack of efficiency, the whole program rested on inaccurate claims made by the CIA on its effectiveness.
It was also uncovered that the torture applied was far more brutal and the conditions of confinement far harsher than what had been portrayed to the government, and that techniques that were not authorised had been applied to a greater extent of detainees than officially reported.
It was also pointed out that the Central Agency had been actively dodging oversight by democratic institutions such as the Congress and the White House. Both cases highlighted above prove through empiric experience that allowing torture, even under the guise of exceptionalism and governmental control, is not effective.
As the French and US cases show, once institutionalised, the use of torture will grow, institutions will erode, and the negative outcomes will far exceed the benefits reaped from intelligence that is nevertheless unreliable. As seen above, the realist and consequentialist ethical views on torture, which legitimise the practice, allow states to implement torture programmes. Furthermore, allowing torture even under extreme circumstances sets a dangerous precedent, as those who are willing to broaden the application of the technique will exploit any legal permission to do so, [52] as was shown by the French and US cases.
Additionally, torture is an inefficient way to gather intelligence, as it elicits unreliable information, generates time-consuming false leads, and produces cognitive effects that impair collection even when the sources are willing to collaborate. The technique also has a corrosive impact on organisations, increasing brutality and resistance to democratic oversight.
Finally, torture is detrimental to intelligence per se, as it breaks social networks, undermines non-coercive collection, diverts effort from more reliable methods of interrogation, taints the public perception of intelligence and hampers efforts to build alliances.
They positively framed the moral rationale as to why participants should provide details about what had happened, so that yielding information became a moral win though a financial loss.
This was repeated throughout the mock interrogation and again immediately before any request for information. The approach is not a quick fix — this type of interrogation takes time and perseverance and relies on mutual understanding of expectations and viewpoints.
It requires interrogators to be smart and adaptive, rather than threatening, aggressive and violent. The challenge now in developing non-coercive methods is to sell the idea to professionals. Torture, be it physical or psychological, may yield confessions, but they are usually unreliable. Ethical intelligence, on the other hand, may lead to more reliable results, but it requires interrogators to work cooperatively with a detainee.
A caveat of course is that our technique has only been tested in rather benign circumstances — and it is hard to know whether it would be as effective when dealing with radicalised people.
But, ultimately, innocent people end up being tortured all the time, and it is not hard to see why it is prohibited. Portsmouth Climate Festival — Portsmouth, Portsmouth. Edition: Available editions United Kingdom.
Become an author Sign up as a reader Sign in. Coral Dando , University of Westminster. Alarmingly, in the past, some States have resorted to using psychologists to design brutal interrogation methods such as waterboarding, forcing detainees into small containers, forcing them to hold painful positions for hours or slamming them into flexible walls. Furthermore, conditions for detainees are often so squalid and inadequate that they may amount to torture or other forms of ill-treatment under the terms of the Convention against Torture.
This is true even in numerous developed countries. To take just one example, I recently reviewed an allegation that a pre-trial detainee in one of the richest countries in the world had died after prison guards cut off his water supply for seven days, to punish him for a violent outburst — leading to his death from dehydration. These abuses should matter, very deeply, to every member of the community. Not only do they violate the rights of the individuals concerned, they also corrode what should be the protective and principled function of every police force.
Officials required to enforce the law should not undermine the rule of law. If police break the law in pursuit of law enforcement, the message is one of capricious and abusive power. The institution which should protect the people becomes unmoored from principle; unresponsive to the law, it is a loose cannon.
This destruction of public trust is profoundly damaging.
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