Rights at risk: why the right not to be tortured is important to you

Abstract

Torture has been practiced for millennia, albeit the means, rationales, and objectives have changed. (For an extended discussion of torture's past, see Hajjar, 2009.) Starting in the 12th century, the rediscovery of Roman law in western Europe revived torture as an aspect of criminal legal processes, both ecclesiastical and secular. According to Edward Peters (1996, p. 41), “the inquisitorial procedure displaced the older accusatorial procedure. Instead of the confirmed and verified freeman's oath, confession was elevated to the top of the hierarchy of proofs…[T]he place of confession in legal procedure…explains the reappearance of torture in medieval and early modern law.”

Citation

Hajjar, L. (2009), "Rights at risk: why the right not to be tortured is important to you", Sarat, A. (Ed.) Special Issue Revisiting Rights (Studies in Law, Politics, and Society, Vol. 48), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 93-120. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1059-4337(2009)0000048007