Jeremy Waldron Torture

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The article, “Torture and Positive Law: Jurisprudence for the White House” by Jeremy Waldron, argues that the absolute prohibition on torture should be enforced. Waldron starts off by discussing a situation that occurred under American control in a prison in Iraq. In this prison, abusive acts such as sexual humiliation and physical beatings were conducted by the American prison officials. One aspect of this event that is disturbing to Waldron is that this torture did not occur because of a few inadequately trained reservists, but because military police at the prison said that these occurrences were “favorable conditions” for the examination of captives. Waldron does not believe that torture should be used to punish prisoners or to get information out of them. Waldron is confident in the fact that if a nation has rules against torture, they should be absolute. He also points out that even if a certain act is not written down and termed as “illegal”, it does not mean that is acceptable to engage in. There should not be ways to get around the rules and there should not be conditions in which torture is acceptable. One example in history where rules were bent in a given situation involved members of Al…show more content…
Whether the torturous act is a small one such as the deprival of sleep, or a more severe one such as suffocation or physical beatings, there is nothing moral or humane about it. In order for our world to be a civil one, torturous acts must be banned. I also believe that one of the most important features to the foundation of a nation is the agreement upon a set list of rules and regulations. If rules are not abided by, chaos will occur. This set of rules should be abided by no matter what the situation is. If leniency is allowed by the government because of a specific reason, people will just keep finding excuses as to why the rules can be bent. This will then lead to depletion in structure of the

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